Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Page 2

[ryandl15]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 9:46am

I really do hope this musical makes a transfer to Broadway. I think it would be a very fun show to go and see!

[Kad]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 9:47am

Out of curiosity, what's the run time?

[ryandl15]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 9:47am

Also, Tag, thanks for posting the song titles!

[Jonwo]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 9:48am

I'd imagine WB will start looking to transfer Charlie by late 2014/early 2015, Theatre wise, it'll be likely be a theatre like The Palace, Broadway, St James or perhaps the Foxwoods.

[dreaming]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 10:06am

Jonwo-Someone said above they wanted it for next season (by spring 2014).

I'd guess the Palace or Broadway-however, the Rodgers could be available, and that location is very good too.

King Kong will get the Foxwoods (or whatever it will be called by the new investors) after Spiderman closes. (Besides, that theater is a BARN.)

I still wonder whether they think having both Dahl shows at the same time might pose an issue. (I suspect they'll see how it plays out in London. The shows appeal to a very similar audience I'd imagine and I'm not sure they both could do well-particularly in NYC where Disney shows are still running-and Aladdin is coming, too.)

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 10:23am

I've not heard a single note of the new score, so I am in no way prejudging, especially since I adore the composers. But it deeply saddens me we won't get to hear "I Want It Now," "I've Got a Golden Ticket," "Candy Man," and the famous Oompa Loompa songs (they can toss "Cheer Up, Charlie" a song that always bores me to tears). I understand they are creating a new thing of their very own, not entirely based on the film, but I adore those songs. That all being said, I am VERY excited to hear this new score based on the song titles alone!

Also, I don't recall the Dahl camp "hating" the film version. He himself wrote the screenplay. I only seem to remember him HATING the final "He got everything he ever wanted" line. I'm not doubting whoever said this, but I've read a lot of books on the man and don't recall the hatred.

[Jonwo]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 10:23am

The Rodgers would be far too small. The show is playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane which is a huge theatre, It would go to one of the bigger theatres.

Aladdin opening next Spring would be Charlie's biggest competition but I think next Spring is unlikely anyway, if Douglas Hodge is doing a year in the West End then that would rule out a Spring opening. I think 2015 is a more realistic date for a Broadway transfer.

Dahl was very vocal about changes to The Witches as well especially the ending. I dread to think what he would have thought about Matilda or Fantastic Mr Fox which I both like, Updated On: 5/23/13 at 10:23 AM

[finebydesign]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 10:28am

Yay! Strike that! Reverse it! I just love how Shaiman/Wittman pull out lines for songs. I can hear it already.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 10:57am

Dahl did in fact dislike Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. He worked on the screenplay, but much of it was rewritten by David Seltzer. His negative opinion of the film is the reason Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator wasn't produced.
"While that may have irritated the author, the film's deviations from the original Chocolate Factory plot infuriated him."

[jaqs]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 11:20am

It ran about 2hrs 40mins last night including interval.
There were no stops which was amazing for first preview given the number of big set changes.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 11:54am

Does the musical follow the unfortunately prolonged ending of the Burton film, or is it closer to the novel, or to the original film?

Feel free to PM me about this if you don't want to post spoilers.

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 12:23pm

I remember getting insanely infuriated at Burton doing all of these interviews trashing everything. He may not like the original, that's fine, but MANY love it. I did an interview (in Entertainment Weekly, I think) where he went on and on about how the original changed parts of the book and added bits. I'm willing to accept this as a valid thought, especially if you love the source material. However, when I saw his AWFUL version, he too, changed and added things from the book. He added a backstory to Wonka and added his own epilogue ending. How is that ANY different, Mr Burton?

Sorry, I still hold onto anger from this and his cuts to the Sweeney score (even if Sondheim himself ok'ed them)!

[Patty3]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 12:45pm

I am looking to buy tickets for an August London trip. Can anyone recommend best location for seats. Stalls? Royal Circle. How would the front of the Stalls be? is the stage high? I read the seat recommendations on Theater Monkey but I wanted to get someone's opinion who has seen this show already. Thanks!

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 12:49pm

I think the 1971 film is far better than the Burton version. And both are equally unfaithful, but in entirely different ways. The satire of the first film is what I will always treasure, and best of luck to anybody trying to outdo Gene Wilder. He is iconic in that role and in that film.

I am willing to give others a chance, but Depp was a total mess as Wonka, and his tacked-on backstory was totally unnecessary and added nothing of interest to the material. Plus it was creepy, but in a dull way ... not in a fascinating way. I find the 1971 film to be creepy in a "good" way. It's not nearly as sappy to me as others have said.

Still, I look forward to a new interpretation, and as long as they capture the humor (more than anything else), I'll probably find a lot to like about it.

By the way ... 2 hrs. 40 min.?? Really? So it's Edna Ferber's "Giant" now?

[Roscoe]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:22pm

Agreed about Wonka's backstory in the Burton film, which doesn't really add anything except some precious moments of the sublime Christopher Lee, and the absurdly prolonged coda that goes on and on about how great it is to have a "family" and all that -- what were they thinking?

I still like a lot of the Burton film, though. The elegance of the production and the visuals are much to my liking, and I like the way Burton handles the Bucket family -- I've always admired that lovely little moment where Grandpa George, who's been frankly rather bitter throughout the entire opening section, gives Charlie some straight up advice about not getting to be too noble, advice which I'm afraid the movie itself doesn't take with that odiously prolonged final section that gets puke-making sentimental about "family." And I like the use of the original Dahl lyrics to the Oompa Loompa songs, especially the Veruca Salt song.

But yeah -- I can't disagree with folks who prefer the original version. I'll always treasure the little interactions between Gene Wilder and Roy Kinnear after Veruca goes down the chute. There's a universe of delight in watching them together. And Wonka's little "warning" at the end, culminating in "he lived happily ever after" is one of the few guaranteed lump-in-throat moments in movies.

Updated On: 5/23/13 at 01:22 PM

[Princeton Returns]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:40pm

Unless the stage has been altered for Charlie, the stage at Drury Lane is low, and also has the orchestra pit so there is no looking up. The front, or second row of the stalls are great seats (again as long as the stage isnt altered)

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:43pm

Yeah, but I don't recall past West End productions of Oliver or Annie being quadruple cast.

I'm late here, but like someone else said, the child labor laws in the UK are super strict. There were 3 Debbies in Billy Elliot when I saw it in the West End, and 3 Michaels and 4 Billys. I don't know how old the kids playing Charlie are, but if they had to triple cast Debbie it's not hard to imagine that they would have to do at least that with Charlie since it's a much bigger part.

[Whiteyboyuk]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:45pm

Hi, I saw the show last night with my 9year old daughter . We were so disappointed, the songs were dull and very forgettable. The audience seemed to enjoy it, if think the majority were made up of the cast family and friends. I would be shocked if it lasted more than 6months in the west end. The sets were lavish, with the giant TV with the reports of the golden ticket winners working quite well.
They tried to make a modern twist with one of the ticket winners being into video games and another singing hip hop...this didn't work. Set time of 2hrs 40mins included a 25 min interval. I wish I could find some more positive things to say but that would be difficult . This is my first post..it would be interesting to see if I'm the only one to feel the same about this long musical with dull songs.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:57pm

What was the deal with Depp's Baltimore accent as his Willy?

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 3:16pm

If I was a betting man, I would say if this does come over to New York, it would more than likely play the Broadway Theater, as the Shubert Organization have a history of bringing over British originating productions and this is the only theater of size it would go into and I see Cinderella running out of steam by late 2014/early 2015. Edit: You never know, if Rocky is a 1st round knockout, it could then go into the Winter Garden.

As for seats there are some great general seats are only £60, which is $90 which is just a little bit more than TKT's on Broadway, so for Americans would give really good value for money.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 3:30pm

Sorry to hear you didn't like it, Whiteboyuk. It will be interesting to hear if others agree with you.

As far as updating, you reminded me that there was a fairly big-scale production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory mounted in Seattle in the late '80s or early '90s. My mother saw it and described it to me. I wonder if anybody on BWW saw it.

Anyway, she said they updated "Mike Teevee" to "Mike Nintendo" and made him play video games incessantly. They also had a young black girl play Violet Beauregarde, and Mom said she was terrific. The big change for her was that instead of her gum being a "three course meal ending in blueberry pie," she chewed a piece of gum that was sort of a "Jukebox," allowing her to sing like all the pop records. This young girl imitated Aretha Franklin and several other singers, before she got to "I Found My Thrill on Blueberry Hill," and then proceeded to turn into a blueberry.

Mom said the girl nearly stopped the show, and the transition was very clever.

(That was ages ago, and I totally forgot about that!)

[dave1606]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 3:51pm

I am seeing this next thursday as part of my London trip (along with Merrily, Top Hat, Curious Incident and a few more) and couldn't be more excited! I will report back after my trip!

[DeNada]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 7:21pm

Saw the show tonight.

It's good, but I think there are issues with the story that no production can ever surmount. It's not so much a book issue in terms of dialogue - the book is funny and captures the spirit of Dahl particularly in the first act - as a BOOK issue.

The cast are generally good to excellent. I would prefer a stronger singer playing Wonka purely to land the Act 1 closer, which is orchestrated for a level of pizzazz that Douglas Hodge can't provide, but his acting (and dancing!) is good and he does a good job with his other new number in Act 2 and a really lovely job of singing Pure Imagination. Kids were fine, not going to single out anyone for praise or criticism because they're kids.

Technically it's very clever - unlike the rather low-budget version of Shrek that preceded it at Drury Lane it looks like money's been spent on it, and Jon Driscoll's projection work in particular is typically outstanding. Virtually everything from the book has made its way successfully into the show so kudos to the set and lighting designers. Sound wasn't perfect, but that ties into issues with the score in general...

Although the moments everyone loves from the book are in Act 2, Act 1 is a stronger piece of theatre IMO. While there's a lot of perhaps superfluous material that has no bearing on the events of Act 2 (a pleasant song for Charlie's parents, for instance) the action is staged with greater clarity and focus. Shaiman and Whitman are able to indulge their love of pastiche here, in particular with a hilarious song for Augustus Gloop and his mother, which helps balance out the treacley material given to Charlie who is an exceptionally bland hero.

Act 2, however, has structural issues that are probably impossible to overcome. Charlie and Grandpa Joe have absolutely nothing to do except occasionally say "Is Mr Wonka mad?", and the staging progresses from scene to scene very repetitively - action in front of a cloth while they change the set, scene, Oompa Loompa song, repeat. The Oompa Loompa songs are entertainingly staged and are possibly very witty, but the ensemble lyrics were impossible to understand from where I was sat in the stalls and the applause levels seemed to suggest this wasn't a problem unique to me. I found these numbers slightly confusing as a result which made them less enjoyable.

I could go on in more detail and would be happy to do so if anyone has any particular questions, but essentially I think there are lots of individual elements I liked a lot but the show overall isn't quite there yet.

WITH THAT SAID - it's previews! I'm not the target audience of this show! I am hyper-critical about everything I see! It's still a pretty decent show!

Other things with exclamation marks!

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 7:30pm

The way I feel about the two movies is that the first one captured the spirit of Dahl's book, though it deviated a bit from the events of the book, while the Burton/Depp version was truer to the book while in script phase, but the resulting tone of the film was very removed from what Dahl wrote.

I'm not surprised that the intermission placement is where it is. I definitely always pictured it structured to end Act I with the kids arriving at/entering the factory (or even right before that) and start Act II going into the Chocolate Room, which would give a longer period for the crew to get that set on stage, as I would assume it would be the most lavish set in the show (as it should be).

I'm also not surprised about updating Mike Teavee's obsession to be with video games, rather than just television. That's just a natural extension of keeping the show set in the present, as opposed to making it a late 60s/early 70s period piece.

As for Dahl, while it was reported that he hated the Gene Wilder version, I have also heard that he stated he never saw the finished film. From what I've read it sounds like a lot of his hatred and anger was geared more towards the fact that the producers and director authorized rewrites on his script without his approval, which, as I recall, mainly amounted to the various lines from classical literature that were given to Gene Wilder, and, of course, the "he lived happily ever after" final line. And of course, if he hated Gene Wilder just saying that line as Wonka I can't imagine he would have been happy with an entire prolonged ending really driving home that very same sentiment, which is why I disagree with people who insist that Dahl would have loved the Burton version.

[Jonwo]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 7:32pm

I think Charlie unlike Matilda comes off a bit bland in comparison to the other children in the story but I think that's true for some characters like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz who is the main character but the least interesting. The book initially focuses on Charlie but then once it gets to the factory, Charlie and Grandpa Joe become sidelined. At least the 1971 film gave them something to do with the Fizzy lifting drinks.