Posted: 5/23/17 at 3:01am
I’m starting a series of posts about the tracking of disastrous musicals as seen from the contemporary perspectives on this board. Just thought it would be fun for us all to laugh at terribleness of these shows’ development progress as sort of a latter day Not Since Carrie situation. First up, First Wives Club.
For those who don’t know the film, The First Wives Club is a movie from 1996 starring Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton. It’s about a trio of divorced women who decide to get revenge on their ex-husbands financially, but end up not going through with it, instead pushing their new men to create a center for abused women. It’s not a particularly memorable movie, the kind of thing you half watch while your sick in bed, but it has the notable distinction of three A-list stars in it, as well as some of the worst cinematography of any movie ever made (not to mention a terrible wig for Bette Middler). The three attractive lead roles as well as the fundamental blandness of the movie make it ripe for musical adaptation, which favors turning toothless films like Kinky Boots or Newsies into even more toothless musicals.
The idea for a musical of the film first came from BWW user FOAnatic, who in March of 2005 said that “There is so much there to work with. You've got three strong female leads, three supporting male characters and a VERY funny book to work with. That movie keeps me in stitches every time I watch it and there are so many moments when I am just waiting for them to break into a musical number. In fact, the end of the movie when they sing "You Don't Own Me" would prove to be a spectacular finale to a Broadway musical.” The reception to this idea was very positive, with many people saying that it would be a choice piece for some great ladies of the stage to tackle. Marc Shaiman himself responded with a “hmmm”, implying that he might have considered the material ripe for adaptation.
Flash forward three months and in June of 2005, Playbill posted an article saying that a musical based on The First Wives Club would head to Broadway with music by Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Hollan, who pop songwriters without a Broadway show to their name. Always a good idea, right? Well, the reception was once again positive, though slightly less so due to the announced songwriting team. At the time, such names as Marin Mazzie, Victoria Clarke, Joanna Gleason, Bernadette Peters, Rachel York, Karen Ziemba, and Mary Testa were all named in dream casting the show. The rumors continued to spin, with this site itself publishing an article suggesting Megan Mullally, Stockard Channing, Bernadette Peters, and Queen Latifah. Casting rumors continued until the end of 2006. May of 2007 saw another resurgence in press for the show, with Francesca Zambello assigned to direct and Rupert Holmes given the role of writing the book. The show was rumored in May of 2008 by BWW user somethingwicked to have an out-of-town tryout in the fall of 2008 in San Francisco, but keep in mind that 3 years had quietly slipped by since this was supposed to happen originally. Until, of course, the San Francisco season was announced and First Wives was not on the docket.
Finally, in September of 2008, the show was announced to premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre in the Summer of 2009. With a recent track record of shows transferring to Broadway from that company (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Catered Affair, etc.), it seemed obvious that the show was headed for the great white way. Francesca Zambello was still on board to direct, despite her only Broadway credit being the notorious disaster of a Little Mermaid musical. Carolee Carmello was originally going to take on the role of Annie, at least that’s what the press release said, along with Ana Gasteyer and Adriane Lennox. Until, of course, Carmello was replaced by a certain Karen Ziemba, who is of course famous for stealing Eartha Kitt’s Tony Award for being in that dance thing called Contact. Also replaced was Ana Gasteyer, with Barbara Walsh the replacement. But wait! Lenox ended up being replaced as well (supposedly due to “health concerns" by Sheryl Lee Ralph. With an entirely new set of women, the show seemed set to limp into its premiere at the Old Globe, wounded, but not dead.
But underneath all this, there was a constant rumble of dread. This show, which had once been so hotly anticipated, set to star every Broadway dive from Patti to La Bette herself, now was stuck on a beach in California with a cast that seemed to be playing musical chairs with how much swapping they were doing, directed by a women firmly considered to be a hack, written by a man whose previous writing credits included the extremely similar The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Curtains, but whose claim to fame was having written and performed the Piña Colada song (if you like Piña Coladas….). Not to mention the composers, three unknown Motown songwriters who hadn’t had any hits in several decades. Was this show headed for disaster? Only those who saw it could ever tell us for sure.
The first BWW user to see the show was Wildcard, who thought that it was “bland”, claiming that the talented cast was wasted on such weak and flimsy material. The consensus from everyone was that it was a totally lifeless, toothless, charmless musical with a talented cast and terrible music. User noahrp3 comments on a specific and rather outré moment in the show, specifically “the number with the 3 husbands in the second act with one in leather, one almost naked making his pecs dance, and the other looking like an idiot in pajamas...I wish I had a video of it...it was unreal”. Then came an infamous video clip showing a part of the show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCs5nPUZnY4), which really has to be seen to be believed. The choreography is a mess, the staging is as unfocused as they come, the music is terrible, everyone is off key, and most of the cast looks catatonic, as though they just took an overdose of Ambien and are waiting for the sweat release of death to make the godawful music just stop. From that moment on, the show went from bad to legendary, and there was no turning back. The opening of the show was picketed by those who had not been paid by the producers of the show, though those who want to preserve the integrity of the American musical might have joined in…
Then came a review of the show by BWW user ABB2357 in which he called it “the most dismal, atrocious piece of theatre I've seen in 20 years+ of theatergoing. I've seen Broadway shows, tours, regional theatre, high school and college productions, you name it. This dog takes the cake”. Compared to this the producers were lucky that most of the professional reviews considered it harmless but forgettable. Though the production extended and a new and improved video reel was shot, the show was DOA and all plans to move the show to New York seemed dropped. The show became a bit of an in-joke on the boards for a few years, including sarcastic mentions in best musical of the 21st century threads and Pulitzer predictions and the unbelievably beautiful remembrance thread for the show (https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1034487#41747090), which also included news that, 6 years after it was an embarrassment for everyone, the show was…coming back!?
Yup, the show that everyone hoped to forget was returning in full force, this time premiering at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre, directed by Simon Phillips, an Australian director who helmed Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. Linda Bloodworth-Thompson was brought on to write the book, she of Designing Women fame, which was of course almost 30 years old at the time. Since then, not too many of her shows had been successful… But hey, at least Faith Prince, Carmen Cusack, and Christine Sherrill were announced in the cast, and two of those ladies are reliably wonderful.
The Chicago production got off to a rough start, with some truly abysmal artwork, but reports were much more positive than in San Diego. Instead of steaming hot ****e, we got merely tepid gruel in a bland as hell package. There were more than a few reports that the show looked and felt like community theatre, not to mention Broadway in Chicago had an extremely difficult time selling seats (a Wikipedia revision that was clearly added to promote the show suggests that the show was a hit because they sold 29,000 tickets during the 5-week run, until you do the math and find out that that’s only about 750 seats per show, which is about 32% capacity, an abysmally low figure). The reviews were completely noncommittal, the show lost all of its money, and thus the story of First Wives Club ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Though they almost kinda sorta improved the show in the end, we still have that mind-bogglingly wonderful clip of the original San Diego run to give us a hernia from laughing so hard. And isn’t that what bad theatre’s all about?
Thanks for reading! Sorry this is so long, I just got sucked into the drama (also, I have really bad insomnia and got bored of re-watching 30 Rock for the millionth time). Hope you had fun following in the catastrophe.
Updated On: 5/23/17 at 03:01 AM
