Fish! Gesundheit!- Page 2

[broadwaybondchik]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 1:46pm

ME TARZAN NAH NAH NAH NAH

I love it thats my favorite part!

[bythesword84]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 2:19pm

that Me Tarzan part is great!!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 2:29pm

I knew about the transformation in the song of Ruth, but I didn't see that happen on the Tonys. I found the number to be somewhat bland. It could've been so much funnier. Listen to the original recording with Rosalind Russell. Now THAT'S funny!

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 2:30pm

you should see the show--it all fits in the way it should. It's also funnier in the show as it is the full length version.

[Wicked_Elphie]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 2:31pm

haha..yah I was very impressed with this number as well. I had only ever heard a couple songs from WT and I wasn't very eager to see it but I crack up every time I watch this. The physical and vocal comedy in it is great and I really wanna see the show now!

[magruder]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 2:31pm

There are jokes upon jokes in the lyrics...things that no doubt would be funnier to a 1953 audience, but some things that still come across. I've always been amused by "Red sails in the sunset calling me-me-me." "Red Sails in the Sunset" was a popular song in 1935, that even in its day was a bit of a cornball, schmaltzy number. So even when Ruth is being hep, she's still square.

Also too, for those that are unaware, the Village Vortex is a stand-in for the Village Vanguard, a jazz club that opened in 1935, and is still very much with us on Seventh Avenue near Greenwich Avenue. (Wonderful Town lyricists Comden & Green made their early club debuts as the Revuers with Judy Tuvim (later Holliday) at the Village Vanguard, and Comden & Green make a number of very funny references to the club in A Party with Comden & Green).

Updated On: 6/15/04 at 02:31 PM

[bythesword84]

Posted: 6/15/04 at 2:39pm

You also have to take into account that the Tony version was a shortened version of the song. So it was like they fast forwarded through the transformation a bit.

[StrStruckDreamr9]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 1:14am

I was absolutely engrossed in the Tony's for the whole time...except for the Wonderful Town number. I found it to be pointless and boring. LSOH should have been nominated for best revival in its place.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 1:24am

ya know--I can TOTALLY understand one's wanting to stick up for a show. I can also understand one wanting to give a fair critique of a show. But I do not understand the out and out NASTY comments against a show or a performer. Those exhibiting this behavior need to grow up and learn how to be respectful.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 1:25am

If LSOH should have replaced any of the revivals it should have replaced Fiddler on the Roof, not Wonderful Town. Until Assassins opened, Wonderful Town had a really good shot at the Tony in my opinion.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 1:31am

And the opinion of most every pundit. Assassins' being placed in Revival hurt WT's winning, LSOH's getting a slot, and allowed Avenue Q to win its awards.

Updated On: 6/16/04 at 01:31 AM

[bythesword84]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 1:33am

Oh absolutely if Assassins had be placed in the new musical category the Tonys would have gone a lot differently. Or at least the competition would have been very different. I love both Q and Assassins and thoroughly enjoy WT (just not AS much as the other two) so no matter how it was placed someone had to lose.

[alterego]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 3:11am

I thought the number a bad choice for the Tony's. I doubt if anyone would race to the Martin Beck on the strength of that song/performance. I would have thought that Conga! might have created a little more interest.

I agree with MisterMatt. I just played the Rosalind Russell version to prove to myself that it can be amusing.

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 4:09am

the Frank Lippencott coughing fit is, for some odd reason, one of the funniest things I've ever seen. excellent performers can take a borderline show show far. i absolutely love this new Wonderful Town.

[NuggetMonkeys]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 7:38am

i don't find the coughing fit extremely funny, for some odd reason...
-d.b.j-

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 9:26am

Thanks jrb. I asked in another thread if it worked better in the actual show than on the Tonys, but no one ever answered my question. I was hoping it was just an out-of-context problem I saw on the Tonys.

I personally love Wrong-Note-Rag. I couldn't figure out why they didn't use it for the Tonys, since it is a big number that uses almost the entire cast.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 10:52am

Tho I passably liked this revival of Wonderful Town, I felt the pilot light of the entire production, represented by SWING on the Tonys, was turned down way too low. And that is strictly a directorial problem. Obviously, the actors are playing the truth of their characters and situation but don't seem to have been instructed to also crank the 'truth' up a notch and 'sell' the laughs in what is after all, a slam-bang musical comedy. It's part of the all-pervasive trend in musical theatre to make everything "serious" or 'truthful' or 'real' at the expense of the style of the piece and the audience's enjoyment, like trying to turn FLOWER DRUM SONG, a lightweight, second-rate musical comedy romance, into a socio-historical-cultural tract. Pretentious and dumb. It's another sad example of how Broadway practitioners are forgetting (if they ever learned) the essential style and craft of their own indigeneous art forms. And, yet, of course, EVERY choreographer fancies him/herself a director. Most I have met, however, have no idea how to talk to actors or speak with any critical intelligence about a script. And so it goes. Updated On: 6/16/04 at 10:52 AM

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 11:03am

We should never reexamine a play or musical. We shouldn't ever treat it as if in came in the mail today. We should always just copy the way it was done originally. This is because society never changes and likes to see the same style recreated over and over and over.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 11:04am

Amen!

[MusicMan]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 11:17am

Not every piece merits reconsideration. Imposing qualities on a property that it cannot beat is not only foolish but a betrayal of the author's intention. Misunderstanding the nature of how a piece works does not lead to further illumination. Rodgers ahd Hammerstein, for example, did NOT write 'dark' musicals, regardless of what any number of critics and directors might claim. They wrote musicals in a Shakesperean vein, emphasizing the balance of darkness and light, the dramatic and the comic, the carnal and the spiritual. If you have no understanding of that, you have no business tampering with Rodgers and Hammerstein in the first place.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 12:43pm

In the case of Flower Drum Song, it is probably the one R&H show with the distinction of have much more light than dark (with the exception of State Fair, but that was written for the screen). I think there was a definite attempt to create a balance that did not really exist in the first place. The show was much more frothy than their others and the stakes were not as high (as with the unsucessful Allegro and Me and Juliet). Not to mention that with the sky high level of PC occurring in the country, it could not be replicated in its original form without offending more audience members than not. It was a valiant effort that didn't hit the mark, but it wasn't altogether dismissed either. With permission from the estate, anyone can tamper with R&H as they choose. The critics and audiences will decide if they like what they see.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 6:20pm

"the Frank Lippencott coughing fit is, for some odd reason, one of the funniest things I've ever seen"

I absolutely second that!

[MusicMan]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 8:22pm

Re; Flower Drum Song: "I think there was a definite attempt to create a balance that did not really exist in the first place."

Precisely. And the second-rate R&H material couldn't bear the weight of such interpolation. Poor judgment calls on the part of Hwang and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization. But that's a much lesser offense than allowing the brilliantly eccentric and characterful choreography of Agnes de Mille, who was the guiding sensibility of OKLAHOMA! in its inception (ask Rouben Mamoulian), be sacrificed to the drivel of the ever-vulgar Susan Stroman in the most recent revival. If the theatre community had a brain in its head, it would have risen up in violent protest against such shenanigans.

[Plum]

Posted: 6/16/04 at 9:40pm

Hey, I liked most of Stroman's choreography. But to each their own, I guess.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 6/17/04 at 12:01am

Yes, every musical should use the original choreography only!! Same for film adaptations. Damn that Bob Fosse for not using Michael Kidd's choreography for Cabaret!!