Failed musicals that are actually pretty good

[magruder]

Posted: 11/21/03 at 8:52pm

As a counterpoint to the Failed Musicals You Wish Were Better thread, there are some flop musicals that were actually rather good shows. Some good shows fail because of bad timing, half-baked productions or just plain bad luck. Starting it off, three pop immediately to mind...

1. Darling of the Day - Maybe the most hapless musical of all time, the show went through numerous title changes (Alice Chalice, The Great Adventure, Married Alive, Buried Alive), different directors, book writers and limped into town with no book writer listed in the opening night program. With an ill-suited leading man, Vincent Price, and the brilliant Patricia Routledge (who won a Tony for her performance) but a somewhat listless production, the show still received decent notices from some of the critics. Clive Barnes, who was the first stringer at the Times in those days, chose to cover a dance event, leaving the review to second stringer Dan Sullivan, who destroyed the show. When Barnes got to Darling of the Day, he filed a positive notice, but it was too little, too late. I always enjoyed the atypical Jule Styne-Yip Harburg score, but what a pleasure to discover at York's Mufti series that the show itself, though somewhat sketchily written and overly long, is frequently a delight, and should have been a community theatre staple all these years. Maybe people can't get past Price's stangulated singing voice on the cast album?

2. Carmelina - A great story about a girl who is getting married and doesn't know who her father is. Her mother has been collecting support for years from three potential candidates. Then, the daughter, who is getting married, invites her three possible fathers to her wedding and... yes, Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner got to the uncredited source material, Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell long before the Mamma Mia! people. Carmelina was another frequently great score, hampered by a clunky, boring production. It's another show that should be having productions all over the place, but has not seen the light of day, apart from its lovely Mufti airing a few years ago.

3. 70, Girls, 70 - a mess, but a total delight. I've worked on a production of this show, and despite the messy, flimsy book, audiences eat this show up and it plays like gangbusters, even coming up with some things to say about the plight of the elderly. The history is that 70, Girls, 70 suffered after opening alongside Follies and No No Nanette. Critics, however, were unduly harsh on this show, and with the Florence Hendersons and Carol Channings of the world, it would be nice to see this one on its feet again with a proper coterie of stars.

Any others to add to the list?

Updated On: 11/21/03 at 08:52 PM

[alterego]

Posted: 11/21/03 at 11:17pm

I too would like to see a new production of 70 Girls 70. Here are a few that I have never seen but get enjoyment from the albums..Goodtime Charlie, Nefertiti,The Barmitzvah Boy and Over Here!

[robyn525600]

Posted: 11/22/03 at 12:26am

THE CIVIL WAR

[jesseeinstein]

Posted: 11/22/03 at 12:33am

agreed! Civil War!
Songs for a New World
Parade
The Last Five Years
Floyd Collins
A Man of no Importance(what a recording, I love "confession")
A New Brain
Parade(I know that I'm saying it again! It's just that good)
Updated On: 11/22/03 at 12:33 AM

[bob8rich]

Posted: 11/22/03 at 4:05am

Regarding your original list of good musicals that failed, Magruder - I have to say that I love the score of Darling Of The Day, though I have never seen the show performed. (In fact I love anything with music by Jule Styne - one of the most under-rated of composers - he wrote so many incredibly beautiful melodies.) Similarly with Carmelina - I have not seen the show but the score is packed with great songs.

I saw the West End production of 70 Girls, 70 in 1991 - which had a revised book by David Thomson and worked better than the original Broadway version. It is not Kander and Ebb's best show by any means - but it was very enjoyable none-the-less.

Of "failed" shows that I actually saw on Broadway, there are a couple that I thought were quite superb. I saw "The Scarlet Pimpernel" twice - and absolutely adored it. It has a delicious score. Also, I saw "The Civil War", which blew me away. I was stunned when I read that it was closing.

And in the early 1990s I saw Matador in the West End - the show that launched the career of John Barrowman, one of the finest actor/singers to grace West End & Broadway stages in recent years. The show had some flaws but I loved the way it dared to be different and it had some terrific songs, notably A Boy From Nowhere and I Was Born To Be Me. I thought this show deserved greater success than it achieved.

Updated On: 11/22/03 at 04:05 AM

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 11/22/03 at 8:33pm

i will be vilified, but i think a version (hopefully re-titled) of THOU SHALT NOT, without Stro, but with Harry Connick himself in the lead, could be very good theatre. It needs work, but a better storyteller at the helm than it got the first time around. Connick's score, to me, is very promising.

[itstheM]

Posted: 11/22/03 at 9:35pm

I'm sorry people, but I liked the music in Seussical. I seem to be the only one though. Oh well.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 11/23/03 at 7:52pm

i liked it too. "Alone in the Universe" particularly.