Caroline, Or Change question

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 6:49am

I recently got the cast recording of Caroline, Or Change and have to say I'm obsessed! I relasied that Chandra Wilson of Grey's Anatomy was in the cast as Dotty and was wondering what did people think of her in the show and the show in general?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 8:16am

I don't think I've ever heard anyone here say a bad word about the show. Sadly, I missed it -- so have nothing to personally add. I, too, got the cd recently (due to all the positive talk about the show here) and think its magnificent.

If you do a search, you should find a few threads.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 9:48am

I fully intend on going through those past threads- I do believe that I saw it pre-BWW only on a fleeting recommendation from a classmate! I remember not completely comprehending it at the time, but much like Kushner's other work, each successive examination of it yields more that you realize you've missed. Seeing the show, I DO remember walking out amazed at the cast, most particularly Chandra Wilson, Tonya Pinkins and Anika Noni Rose. The naturalistic singing style for the 1st two ladies was incredibly unique, and I think underused on Broadway. I'm not sure if there's a name for it or not....

Otherwise, comparing it to 'Avenue Q,' it was joyless and abrasive and difficult to watch. But it also said an incredible amount, and the orchestrations are beautiful. But I still think it could almost be condensed to one act, even at the loss of some of the gorgeous score, because I vividly remember squirming a bit to get through that marathon 1st act.

Updated On: 8/14/11 at 09:48 AM

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:02am

I saw the third Broadway preview and it's one of those performances that I'll never forget. The material is so powerful and the performances were so on. I'm still to this day upset that Tonya Pinkins lost the Tony Award that she so richly deserved. The entire supporting cast was outstanding--Anika Noni Rose gets most of the spotlight because she won the Tony, but Veanne Cox, Chandra Wilson, David Constabile, Chuck Cooper (ALWAYS one of the best voices you'll ever hear live), Harrison Chad, and the late Larry Keith and Alice Playten were all beyond belief. I can't explain what it was like watching Pinkins perform "Lot's Wife" for the first time--it was one of those moments where an actor gets so raw on stage that you feel like you shouldn't be watching, yet you can't turn away. Rose's "I Hate the Bus" is forever imprinted in my memory--I almost feel on the verge of tears when I think about Rose's apology to Pinkins: "Mama, I'm sorry / I called you a maid." So simply, yet it totally captures that character in one line. Simply one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.

I met Chuck Cooper recently and got to tell him how affected I was by the show. We had a nice talk and he said it was one of the few times he can remember where every performer couldn't wait to hit the stage, because they knew that performing this material was a gift and they should savor every chance they get. He described it as the most positive experience he'd ever had as an actor.

I still have my old playbill and looked at it recently--I love seeing in Chandra Wilson's bio that she had just completed a pilot called "Surgeons," which we all know ended up being the megahit Grey's Anatomy.

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:08am

Quite a big favor to ask.. does anyone have the full synopsis for the musical? On wikipedia it only has the structure of some of the plot (doesn't say which song goes where etc). Can someone post the full synopsis including where each song goes where? :) Thanks

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:13am

This is the best I can find. It doesn't list the songs, but you should be able to figure it out based on the synopsis. The music on the OCR is in the same order as it was on stage.
http://www.humanracetheatre.org/caroline-low-res.pdf

[Katurian2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:14am

To add, the OBCR is amazingly complete, and there are only VERY small portions of dialogue that aren't included. I've played it for many people without any explanation and it's quite easy to understand the plot from the recording alone.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:17am

If you have the ACTUAL recording on CD, doesn't it also come with a complete libretto? This is one of the reasons I still buy hard copies of cast recordings instead of downloading.

[tazber]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:23am

The plot itself is pretty bare bones, it's not a story driven show. The richness lies in the characters; their flaws and their humanity.

Here is a summary, but the link has all the lyrics. I recommend reading the libretto to get a better sense of the show.
But I must say that it's one of those shows where the lyrics and music become inseparable in terms of impact.

A 39-year old divorcee with four kids, Caroline Thibodeaux is a black maid living in Louisiana in 1963 and she's being confronted with change - two kinds, in particular. There's a new world on the horizon, visible in the social upheaval of the Civil Rights movement, which Caroline seems determined not to notice. But then there's a more immediate sort of change that she can't ignore: nickels and dimes and quarters, resting at the bottom of a cup. The kind of change that could help a mother give her kids a better life.
Caroline spends much of her day in a dank basement, washing, drying, and ironing clothes for the Gellman family while listening to the radio. Young Noah Gellman, who cherishes his after-school hours with the quiet and angry Caroline, is accustomed to retrieving change left in his pants pockets from the bleach cup that the maid keeps on a shelf; but Noah's chipper stepmother Rose, determined to break the forgetful boy of this habit, decrees that Caroline will henceforth be allowed to keep any money she finds. This well-meaning gesture on Rose's part ends up creating a crisis for Caroline, who doesn't want to take money from a child but covets the cash for the benefit of her children. The situation eventually leads to a falling-out between Noah and Caroline, and a larger point about the corrupting influence of money is made abundantly clear.
Caroline, or Change

[tazber]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:32am

Btw, Chandra's scene with Tonya just before Lot's Wife was a highlight in a show that is filled with highlights.

Seriously, how did Tonya not win the Tony for this? It's a towering and historic performance imho.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 10:37am

I've always wondered if it had something to do with Tonya's voice. It's certainly not an easy role to sing, and she did sound fairly vocally harried at some performances. By the time she performed at the Tonys her voice was shot. I wonder how many Tony voters caught a performance where she was giving 110% but maybe didn't *sound* particularly great.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 11:20am

I really, really, REALLY love this show. I never got to see it, and anyway I was too young to have been able to appreciate it. The CD, though, is great. Of course Lot's Wife is the best part, but my personal favorite song is Underwater. It's just so beautiful:

Underwater
It's like a song you hear
On the radio at night
Like sleeping with the light out
Like the wooden sound of your mama's sad bassoon.

Noah
Someday we'll talk again
But there's things we'll never say
That sorrow deep inside you
It's inside me too
And it never goes away.

My sorrow go
Where my heart grow calm
When you stop breathing air
You get oh so calm
No fire down there
So it's calm, calm, calm.

And there's never any money
So it's very, very calm.
But you miss
Oh, you miss
The sun
And the moon
And the wooden bassoon.

Tony Kushner I bow at your feet.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:07pm

For someone who has been seeing shows on Broadway since 1972 (since I was 7 years old) and being blessed (and fortunate) to witness countless (now legendary) original Broadway casts in (now legendary) Broadway shows... seeing CAROLINE, OR CHANGE still ranks as one of the most mind-blowing experiences I've EVER had in my entire life.

Due to its artwork, it was never a musical I can say I was aching to see. Yes, I followed all the buzz from its Off-Broadway incarnation and the whole debacle about Tonya Pinkins salary demands for the Broadway transfer and everything else that was going on with this show at the time. I didn't even have it on my list of shows to see whenever I was in the city (I'm there every other month). Also, that horrible choice of having "Lot's Wife" represent the show at the Tony Awards -- KILLED any potential ticket buyers. Who wants to see a show about a depressed black maid who wails depressing ballads for 2 hours? NOT ME!

Well, once they announced it was closing in last August 2004 I made it a point to see it just to have it on my list of flop shows I've seen. Sadly, this was the ONLY reason I saw the show.

To this day I can still recall getting goose-bumps the moment the first jungle beats started after Tonya's humming intro. I was sucked in and I remember experiencing the entire first Act with my mouth open. THIS is what musical theater is about and THIS is what makes a show become legendary that we are STILL talking about it today. The entire opera-like presentation was genius and the smorgasbord of different musical styles was pure insanity. The following morning I went straight to the (now gone) Virgin Megastore and bought the Original Broadway Cast Recording and never stopped listening to it. I can proudly say that at least 20 people rushed to see the show before it closed a few weeks later. Just from my raving alone.

As for Chandra Wilson as Dotty Moffett? She definitely made an impact in the show AND I remember many of us quoted her character Dotty quite often. Those Dotty-isms were very pop relevant at that time. Same with Anika Noni Rose. When she was cast as Lorrell in the film adaptation of DREAMGIRLS, people knew her from her Tony Award winning Emmie in CAROLINE, OR CHANGE. At least for us Broadway folk.

It was obviously apparent to the producers that the show was ill-marketed and that many people who weren't in ear-shot of the excellent buzz from audience members, were definitely turned-off by its logo artwork, etc. When the show played in Los Angeles after it closed on Broadway, the artwork was changed to a smiling Tonya. A little too late. The Los Angeles audiences would have gone in the droves they did even it they only used the title of the show and no artwork. By then, everyone knew how great the show was. Again... a little too late.

Original Broadway production's artwork:


Los Angeles production's artwork:

[jamiekennywicked]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:31pm

Why did the show close? I know it got rave reviews. Was it grosses?

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:38pm

It didn't get rave reviews. It got some raves. Brantley didn't like it, and his review was somewhat condescending. Many people believe that the show wouldn't have even moved but for Frank Rich, who wrote an op-ed about the 40th anniversary of JFK's death while the show was downtown and mentioned how much he liked it. It didn't have a lot going for it:

1. no "names" (outside of the theatre community, that is)
2. a dark plot
3. intellectual/difficult book
4. a bad Tony performance
5. very few awards to its name.

It also opened the same season as WICKED and AVENUE Q, which were both hits out of the gate. CAROLINE got lost in the shuffle.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:50pm

Why did the show close? I know it got rave reviews. Was it grosses?

99.9% of every show that closes anywhere is due to grosses. No show has EVER closed just because they received negative reviews. Theory is: if you are still filling seats, you keep the damn thing running, regardless of what the critics say. Example: SPIDER-MAN: Turn Off the Dark, WICKED, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, etc.

GREY GARDENS: The Musical. Swept the Tony Awards and received critical and audience raves. Reason for closing? Poor audience attendance = low grosses = close the show.

It still amazes me the amount of people who still think that the reason a show closes is because its a horrible show. Seriously, folks? A little common sense here?

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 12:53pm

^ But in some cases these things are copacetic. Poor/not-too-enthusiastic reviews can equal poor grosses and early closure, and conversely enthusiastic reviews can take a show like MF WITH THE HAT and raise its gross by $500K a week. Shows like WICKED and SPIDERMAN have proven themselves to be critic-proof, because the people who go see them don't care what critics have to say.

And not to nitpick, but GREY GARDENS won two acting Tonys and Costumes. Hardly a sweep.

Updated On: 8/14/11 at 12:53 PM

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:40pm

^ I agree AC. Also, when a show is already a "brand" e.g. Wicked, Spider-man, Addams Family, or has a big star (The Boy from Oz), the advance sales can carry it past bad notices for some time (Camelot). Then word-of-mouth and, to a lesser extent, the attention that awards won might bring, will either carry it further or not. But there is usually only one reason a show closes: there aren't enough people coming to see it.

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:46pm

Acting Up Stage is doing a production of Caroline early in 2012 in Toronto. For those of you who love the show, and have access to Toronto, keep an eye out. Their productions are very good.

[mallardo]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 1:54pm

Interestingly, when the show did a brief West Coast tour - just SF and LA, I think - it got across the board rave reviews. Likewise in London where it played the National Theatre and won an Olivier Award. Only in New York were the reviews even slightly negative.

For me the ending of the show, with Anika Noni Rose and the two kids singing a tribute to their mom -

"Larry and Emmie and Jackie and Joe
The children of Caroline Thibodeax."

- was absolutely overwhelming. The show is a masterpiece.

Updated On: 8/14/11 at 01:54 PM

[Q]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 2:08pm

There were some on the board who talked about its pretentiousness. I was not one of those people.

Here in LA, we got the original cast, but after Tonya had been able to pretty much vocally recover. The audience reaction here was beyond ecstatic - huge, cheering, screaming ovations. Huge.

It's one of the best theatrical experiences I've had.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 2:59pm

The show was terribly misunderstood and under appreciated by the NY critics. If you listen to the critics talk about it in the documentary SHOWBUSINESS: THE ROAD TO BROADWAY you can see how misguided, ignorant and silly the criticism around the show was. Of course Broadway can embrace something with Disneyfied racial politics like MEMPHIS, but the second you put something in front of them that actually confronts the audience, then the work is completely dismissed, and I think for some odd reason this probably applies to musical more than it does to plays, although there is a reason a show like Lynn Nottage's RUINED would never succeed on Broadway.
This is probably my all time favorite musical, it's not my favorite to listen to all the time because it can be such a painful experience, but it's like none other musical I've ever heard of and the things it says and the characters it shows...it's simply brilliant in every way.
The whole cast is terrific, of course Tonya Pinkins and Anika Noni Rose (could listen to "No One Waiting" and "Mr.Stopnick and Emmie" for hours on end) are fantastic, but I think Chandra Wilson and Veanne Cox were terribly underrated. Either way, glad to see other fans of the show.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 3:52pm

Well, ray, to be fair, there are two sides to the racial entertainment line. And to quote the best show of THAT season, it's a fine fine line. 'Memphis' IS Disneyfied racial politics, but 'Caroline' toes the edge of being white guilt. I'm not saying it completely crossed it. Because it didn't, largely because of the fantastic background we got on Caroline and her own contributions leading up to 'Lot's Wife' on being responsible for much of the misery in her life. But with just one or two of those moments cut, you're left with something like 'Crash,' (the film) which is just as terrible and as the Disneyfied aspect.


Again, I'll forever champion 'Caroline, or Change' as having one of my favorite scores of the decade. I unfortunately did see it later in the run when Tonya's voice was 'shot,' but I didn't think it detracted much given the character she was playing. But I am saying that it came VERY close to being 'White Guilt: The Musical.' It wasn't, not for me at least. But it could have been. Honestly, I think that of all the musicals of the past decade, 'Passing Strange,' probably dealt with the race issue best of all, and I LOVED that show.

But really, by the end of the show, I felt the character of Rose Stopnik best summed it up with, 'Jesus, lady. Smile!' I think the pinnacle moment for me of it that I still remember was Emmy confronting Granddaddy Stopnik about pacifism in the race movement. THAT was intense, gripping and brilliant. When the show hit that anger, I think it hit its stride. But when it was mopey (for large portions of the 1st act in particular), it really sunk the atmosphere.

Updated On: 8/14/11 at 03:52 PM

[AADA81]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 7:58pm

I saw the show 2 months before it closed and I also saw the final performance, and Tonya Pinkins was riveting both times. In fact, the entire cast (and especially Anika Noni Rose) was wonderful during that last performance, although you could sense the sadness even though the audience gave everyone huge applause throughout.

I love this show but I think it's more complex and intricate than many shows and, let's face it, many theater-goers aren't looking for thought-provoking pieces that require work on the part of the audience. That's not a criticism of "Caroline" (or audiences); it's just an opinion. I still think "Caroline..." is the best original score in a generation and I'd see it again in a heartbeat. Just a great, great work.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 8/14/11 at 8:11pm

I adore Caroline or Change. I saw it just before it closed and it was one of the most memorable nights I spent at the theater. I also never hesitate to mention that I saw Wicked the next day and thought that was quite good as well.