Encores’ THE LIFE - Performances & Reviews — Page 4

Would anyone like a $137 Orch Row B center ticket for Sunday night for $50?

I live in Seattle and won't be able to travel to NYC after all.

Updated On: 3/17/22 at 02:01 PM

austinyourface said: "I’m fine with Encores doing “recent” shows- hell, flops from the 90s and 00s are now 20-30 years old. Chicago was done at Encores about twenty years after it debuted."

Encores Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark WHEN?!?!?!

I guess they are not doing the summer Off Broadway Encores this year. I do not know if it has been scrapped for good.

Not scathing but quite honest. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/theater/the-life-review.html

Encores has not run out of shows to do. There are PLENTY of musicals from the 40s to 90s that could be interesting to revisit in that setting. I was always a little ticked off on the two occasions when they revived their own revivals of Fiorello and Call Me Madam, when we haven't had revivals of Darling of the Day or Golden Rainbow (to name two random and oft-cited shows).

Even when they've done slightly more well-known shows, I don't think anyone is mad as long as it's a stellar production (such as Bye Bye Birdie with the restored orchestration, or 1776, or On the Town, or Most Happy Fella).

Of course, some shows can't be done because of the estates or subject matter or various other reasons –– and some others simply aren't good and aren't worth the time and investment. If they are trying to spotlight shows that feature Black lead characters, that's a much smaller pool to pull from, and some of those shows aren't written with the sensitivity of 2022. But that's also the inherent obstacle of a company that does revivals.

The Encores! Inside the Revival section of the NYCC website contains a wealth of information about the new vision and mission.

Lear will implement a new tradition each year that will have a hidden gem show, an artist’s point of view show and a great iconic musical. This is a different approach that I will adjust to moving forward.

In case you missed it here’s Billy Porter on directing The Life.

jkcohen626 said: "Encores Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark WHEN?!?!?!"

The way I cackled...

Anyway, I agree with KJ that I don't mind repeats as I wasn't engaged with Encores for most of its existence. I don't know if they're all flops, but my personal wishlist is Skyscraper, Smile, more LaChiusa shows (but not The Wild Party), A Man of No Importance, Dessa Rose, Flora the Red Menace, Subways Are For Sleeping, The Rink, Carmelina, Onward Victoria...

I saw it this evening and definitely didn't hate it as much as a lot of other people. I had never heard a song from this show, so the new orchestrations didn't really bother me and I don't think I have a strong enough ear to hear the songs "fighting against the orchestrations" as has been claimed. I definitely rolled my eyes at all of the ultra-preachy additions. I am no fan of Trump or Reagan, but I hated that whole scene. Only good part of that scene was that a false fire alarm went off during it and Mykal and Destan handled it like champs. Got the biggest laughs of the night improving around it while they figured it out. The second amendment speech was also super weird. I agreed with the sentiments in both of these moments, but it was just too much.

Side note - Billy was sitting a few rows behind me tonight!

What is the cheapest possible ticket for this?

In Porter's defense the original book for The Life was awful. Two long acts of Queenie being abused and trusting the wrong man.

SONJA: Don't trust your boyfriend.
QUEENIE: I trust him.
(Boyfriend robs her.)
SONJA: Don't trust my pimp.
QUEENIE: I trust him.
(Pimp beats her up.)
SONJA: Don't tell my pimp's favorite hustler that you're leaving town.
QUEENIE: I already told him. We're friends.
(Hustler tells the Pimp and the Pimp beats her up.)
SONJA: I guess I have to save you and put you on a bus so this show can end. A shame I didn't get any storyline of my own.

I saw it last night- I think you make a key point, it’s not that the messages Porter has added aren’t necessary for today, it’s just not the arena to have done it. I agree, the new orchestrations have a lot of sameness to them. Ledisi was really the one redeeming quality of the night for me. The direction also seemed a little all over the place, I’m still not sure with all that scene chewing the gentleman playing Memphis wasn’t a caricature instead of being grounded in the reality that Porter so obviously was going for (he also seemed flat a good bit of the time he was singing). I liked the concept of opening act 2 as sort of a minstrel show, but it didn’t work when the scene started and the chorus was back there in masks, that seemed unnecessary- so did the chorus echoing the fight scene- we had none of this symbolism in the first act so why did we start in the second? I think the spirit of the original is entirely lost- this isn’t The Life we all knew and enjoyed, it’s an entirely different beast, which feels wrong for the Encores setting. I left wanting to know how the original ended, because that was definitely not on that stage last night. The sound was indeed awful- perhaps mostly in the orchestra- I saw strings, but I didn’t hear them, so why have them then? I understand a missed cue here and there, but these people are professionals and it shouldn’t happen 5 times- I don’t care how short tech time or rehearsals are, it’s not an excuse- it’s a musical, you need to hear it.

Updated On: 3/19/22 at 06:59 PM

StageStruckLad said: "Well, if Billy Porter's revision of THE LIFE didn't actually kill Encores, I'm afraid it put Encores in critical condition. Last night's show was by far the worst Encores production in the past 29 years and was also one of the worst musicals I've ever seen...and I saw METRO! I don't blame the performers, many of whom were excellent. I place ALL the blame on Porter. His inept rewrite of the book drained 99 percent of the humor from the show, and in place of humor he inserted countless lectures from the narrator about social injustice. I didn't disagree with any of the points Porter was making, but THE LIFE was not improved by these additions. Did we really need to have the cast put on masks of Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan (or was it Donald Trump Jr.--it was hard to tell) and lecture us about trickle-down economics? The new and vastly inferior orchestrations, with their bass heavy funky 1970s beat, made all the songs sound alike. The sound design was the worst I've heard at City Center and also too loud. I was sorry to see a man in the front row cover a speaker with his coat during the second act, but I understood his pain. He probably should have just moved to the back of the theater, where there were many empty seats after the intermission. And were the original orchestrations by Don Sebesky and Harold Wheeler too much fun for Porter and Company? And why was "Why Don't They Leave Us Alone," one of THE LIFE's most enjoyable songs, cut from the show?

If someone wants to fund a new company to present rewritten P.C. versions of musicals for today's delicate sensibilities, I say go for it. But Encores is decidedly not the place for rewritten or re-imagined or re-anything versions of classic musicals. For almost three decades Encores has presented musicals that have great scores and sometimes great, good or troubled books. But the whole point of Encores is to hear the scores with their original orchestrations. Anything other than that is not Encores.

I think that new artistic director Lear deBessonet has made a big mistake with her new Encores mission to include one rewritten show every season. And I really disagree with her statement "Almost zero shows written before the 21st century have a worldview and politics that sit well with a contemporary viewer." So her solution is to rewrite those shows to make them palatable to today's audience? I guess that's the same thinking that gave us a rewritten "Shipoopi" in THE MUSIC MAN.

I really hope the Encores board comes to their senses and jettisons this policy. If there is an Encores audience talk-back for THE LIFE, I also hope someone berates them for this new direction. Bring back Jack Viertel! At least he loved old musicals."

The man throwing his coat over a speaker is just precious. It sounds like a Tim Conway sketch on the Carol Burnett Show.