Great scores, not-so-great books

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 5:54pm

Looking back at DO I HEAR A WALTZ?, what are some of your favorite shows that had marvelous scores, but lousy books? My two favorites are CAMELOT (which was famous for its book trouble) and ASPECTS OF LOVE (I consider the score Webber's best work). Other favorites:

FOLLIES
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE (Hmm, a Sondheim theme...)
110 IN THE SHADE
JUNO
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN
SUBWAYS ARE FOR SLEEPING

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 5:58pm

You're evil. :)

[misterchoi]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:05pm

Merrily has an impeccable book!

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:06pm

Have to disagree with you on the FOLLIES book, castalbumfan. It's a terrific piece of writing, with not a second of extraneous or unnecessary dialogue. Depressing, certainly. But not an example of a bad book, in my opinion.

I don't think the books for 110, JUNO, or A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN are particularly bad either.

I do agree with you about MERRILY. And I don't think that one has been fixed. I like that they've gone back to the original Kaufman in lots of places (especially during the first scene) in the revisions, but it remains a terrific score with a book that doesn't work.

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:16pm

Snoopy. I love the show but the book's not too great.

[MyNameInLights]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:18pm

Taboo's book was mediocre. There were some great one liners though, but not the best book by far.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:27pm

Aida
Taboo
Amour
The Last 5 Years
Camelot
Follies
Aspects of Love
A Class Act
Steel Pier
The Life
Merrilly We Roll Along

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:28pm

R&H Cinderella - Ugh *vomits*. Destroying a musical with that much potential and AMAZING music with a book thats a disgrace to books everywhere should be illegal...

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:30pm

You are so right about CINDERELLA, I hadn't thought of it.

[magruder]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:32pm

As far as Merrily, I have a close relationship with this show for a number of reasons, so perhaps I can't be unbiased. But seeing the Kennedy Center production and watching the audience watch the show, I think that show exerts an emotional pull and delivers a surprising amount of laughs. To me, it plays like a hit, and I think the book does work. The path of the six main characters is now clearly charted, along with all sorts of period details to set the backward time firmly in the audience's mind. The score was always unimpeachable and I think the book does the job it needs to do. I think now it's a very good show in search of a definitive production.

[BWayBoy88]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:39pm

Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, A Chorus Line

JK

[misterchoi]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:42pm

Magruder- you are so right.

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:43pm

Magruder, I love MERRILY. It's my personal favorite Sondheim. (I wouldn't say it is his "finest" work, but it's still my favorite).

But I think it's deeply flawed. My biggest problem with it is on a conceptual level. The audience is required to buy into the hypothesis that writing Broadway musicals is "art," and making films isn't. Which is hogwash. Does Frank really sell out by going to Hollywood? Is the revue "Frankly Frank" a good example of high art? It's not, of course. Frank, Charlie, and Mary all have a great desire to achieve success. When Frank achieves it and it destroys their friendship, is it because he's changed? Or are they simply angry that they didn't do that very thing? The musical wants us to believe in their pure ideals. But those very ideals don't make much sense.

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:46pm

Camelot
Carousel
Steel Pier
Pipe Dreams
Me and Juliet
Cinderella
Any Cole Porter or Gershwin...but that was a thing of the times...lets just hang a story on these amazing shows.
Also most of Rogers and Hart.

Akiva

[Jon]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:49pm

How can you say 110 IN THE SHADE has a bad book? It is based on THE RAINMAKER, which was a big hit play and a successful movie, and the book was adapted by the original playwright, N. Richard Nash himself. About 75% of the dialogue is taken verbatim from the play, and many of the lyrics are amazingly close to the monologues they're based on. The only thing really different about the musical is the addition of a chorus and the character of Snookie, who's talked about but never seen in the play.

[gertiecummings]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:50pm

Kiss Me Kate is the only one that really pops into my head right now

[Liam]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:53pm

taboo

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:57pm

Holy smoke! I COMPLETELY forgot about ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER! The quintessenial "Great score, bad book" show!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 6:59pm

I would argue that with the exceptions of Sweeney Todd and Forum, every Sondheim show has a book that is unworthy of the score he created. Weidman's books are very interesting and thought-provoking, but overreach in their ambition, frequently ending up being somewhat muddled and meandering in spots, Lapine's books are disjointed, too "concept" and not enough coherence in the storytelling and character development and overall lack the incisiveness of the music, Furth's vignettes for Company and Merrily are cute but sitcom-ish and one-dimensional, while Goldman's work on Follies is melodramatic, morose and lacks conclusion. The Frogs and Bounce (along with a few other shows) lack the sort of singular vision and "through-line" in the book that you find in his compositional work. Perhaps it's too much to hope that Sondheim would work with book writers whose genius is equal to his (do they exist? Laurents' books for Gypsy and WSS, I suppose, match his brilliance as a lyricist), but it's rarely happened in his career.

[magruder]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 7:01pm

I don't think Merrily is saying Broadway=art and movies=bad. Frank and Charley set out to do work that will "change the world". But Frank sells out almost immediately (when he gives in to Gussie's demands to write the tawdry Musical Husbands), and he keeps putting aside the project that Charley wants to do in pursuit of the quick buck. Charley goes on to write that play and is deemed an artistic success, while Frank has gone on to put aside songwriting and produce successful but "formula pictures" as he describes them to Mary, betraying his true talent. He's also wasted his life loving the wrong people for the wrong reasons, destroying Mary's life in the process. (Her "I gave up waiting" in that first scene has a dual meaning, of course). I don't think the Merrily authors are valuing one art form over another. I think they are examining remaining true to your dreams as you go through life.

[belterboi]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 7:05pm

Baby and Aida

[Ruth Sherwood]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 7:11pm

The recent production of "Mack and Mabel" at Goodspeed. I think this is the third version of the book.

[VeuveClicquot]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 7:11pm

Magruder, I hear what you're saying, but I'm not really buying it.

Frank doesn't destroy Mary's life. Mary does.

And it's just the conflict that you're describing which makes the book unworkable for an audience, in my opinion. We're obviously supposed to side with Mary and Charley. And yet the actions that we see them perform during the course of the musical are much more dispicable than what Frank does by "selling out" and going to Hollywood. Charley's "Franklin Shephard, Inc." breakdown is inexcusable behavior, and Mary's drunken rage during the opening scene borders on terrifying. And yet we're still supposed to like these characters, and side with them in the argument that the belief in art as an ideal is more important than financial rewards.

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 7:14pm

Oooh, forgot about BABY and MACK AND MABEL, too!

Also, add HIGH SPIRITS to the list. If you haven't heard the score yet, Decca Broadway is planning on remastering it this year. Pick it up!

[belterboi]

Posted: 1/2/05 at 7:17pm

THo the music isn't that great.....FOOTLOOSE's book is awful as well as Saturday night fever...ugh..so bad