I'd love thoughts from anyone seeing it myself. And if you saw it at Papermill back when, even better, so you can compare and contrast! But from the sound of it, it's not retooled all that much...
VintageSnarker says a lot of things I missed myself. Another thing that I think the creative missed is what songs are supposed to do in musicals...they drive a plot but they drive it differently than how dialogue does. Most of these songs don't drive a plot via the characters emotions or thoughts at that moment. Ex-The baroness' first entrance is about how everything isn't up to her usual luxurious standards basically, but not only is that a terrible idea for a song, it doesn't say much about her character in a 3 dimensional way, but there's no way a woman of her status of that era would "complain"...because they couldn't. She obviously had a husband who died previously so she is trying to marry well again, so she doesn't have the socioeconomic room to complain. The film does this very well, her first line in the film is "It's charming, really!". To me at least, It's obvious Huston was playing this line as trying to hide her mild disappointment, but she can't complain, she has little options for marriage left at her age, as a woman no less. Which contrasts what ScarletLeigh said about Danielle, which I was trying to think about but couldn't put worlds to. If Danielle is the anti-ingenue who is everything a female of that period ISN'T, the Baroness is EVERY BIT the traditional female back then was. They contrast. Granted, this still shouldn't be the mainstay of this musical, it's still not about a "feminist Cinderella" but they def need that contrast to butt heads as they do. Which is why Sierra isn't exactly the right choice for this.
The ONE song I liked when I saw it was I Remember because it's was the only song that made any sense within it's surrounding context. The song itself wasn't great, BUT structurally, that was the one scene I remembered from the film that I could see working as a song (You've probably all guessed I know the film VERY well...) because that the emotion that you need to start a song. But the catfight that we all love so much...was slightly sung. And it was ridiculous. Some moments don't call for songs, because that not what that plot point relies on. That scene relies on action, not a song because a song would stop that action dead in its tracks, and you need momentum to keep that scene moving. One can't write songs for songs' sake, and that's what the musical fell like. The songs were just there because it's a musical, not because it was thought through as to where songs belong.
I honestly feel like I should be a dramaturg for a living because over the years I watch shows with a writers/critic perspective.
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