'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway
'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway
'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#1
Posted: 7/17/07 at 6:30pmBroadway Legend Joined: 11/15/05
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#2
Posted: 7/17/07 at 6:40pmI just don't think this is at all necessary. The film is absolute perfection. No one could live up to the Tracy/Hepburn performances (imo) and I really don't want to see P. Diddy in the Poitier role.
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/25/06
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#2
Posted: 7/17/07 at 7:00pm
i dont get this, either.
i agree the film is perfection.
but it's also a product of its times ... how on earth is anyone in a new york audience going to find the notion of a black man marrying a white woman controversial in 2007????
and we're supposed to believe these people live in SAN FRANCISCO????
oh, wait -- here's an idea: cast RUPAUL as the doctor!!!! hahahahaha.
seriously, i know lots of period pieces get revived successfully, but the whole point of the story was to provoke, and (thankfully) for most of us that ship has sailed ...
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/15/05
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#3
Posted: 7/17/07 at 7:07pmActually - if it were Rupaul as one half of the couple, and TR Knight as the other half - THAT might work!
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#4
Posted: 7/17/07 at 7:52pm
"but it's also a product of its times ... how on earth is anyone in a new york audience going to find the notion of a black man marrying a white woman controversial in 2007????"
That was my initial reaction whatever. Will they keep the play in period?
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#5
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:26pm
Why?
It has it's place in cinematic history, etc. but in terms of a message, I don't think this is one people care about anymore. Maybe an "update", but then you mind as well NOT associate it with Guess Who's Coming to Dinner because, why mess with perfection...
Very disturbing, next thing it'll be a musical with an Andrew Lloyd Webber & Leslie Bricouse score.
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#6
Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:23pmTaye and Idina or no dice.
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#7
Posted: 7/18/07 at 8:49am
It will work if they keep it as a period piece.
And anyone who thinks intolerance isn't thriving in our world today needs to wake up and look around.
Idina and Taye have received death threats. DEATH THREATS.
And the last time I checked it's not 1967 anymore. Forty years later, and just look how far we've come! Not far enough.
As far as casting... which people around here (including me) love to do, the real leads are the girls parents.
My dream casting would be Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. It would never happen, but it would sure sell tickets. As for the Sidney Poitier part, the doctor, I would cast Dennis Haysbert (Far From Heaven). For his young wife, I would cast Scarlett Johansson. There is an age difference between this couple, not just a racial difference. And I believe seeing Haysbert and Johansson together would STILL cause people to squirm today. For his parents (the other two main roles)? How about Morgan Freeman and Phylicia Rashad?
This would NEVER happen, I realize, but you couldn't get a ticket, if it did.
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/03
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#8
Posted: 7/18/07 at 9:18am
What a tired, lame idea.
They don't come this bad very often any more.
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#9
Posted: 7/18/07 at 4:42pm
Has it occurred to you that 1) Perhaps someone looked at the film and thought, "There's much more gold to mine, here.", and 2) That there are perhaps millions of people who never saw the movie or who hold it in such esteem they would like to see it on stage?
Insofar as "the movie was perfection" argument, if we draw that line in the sand Steppenwolf's "The Grapes of Wrath" would have never seen the light of day or more recently the musicalization of James Joyce's "The Dead" which was although preceeded by a wonderful John Huston film, found a very enthusiastic audience during its limited run several years ago.
We'll also have to tank Des McAnuff's relaunching of "Dr. Zhivago".
Anybody here interested in how that might turn out?
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#10
Posted: 7/18/07 at 4:55pm
Who's going to play Ron Goldman?
Oops, I think I'm in the wrong story.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#11
Posted: 7/18/07 at 5:46pm
Trying to top Tracy/Hepburn & Poitier is an exercise in futility
Why Why Why
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#12
Posted: 7/18/07 at 6:14pm
You know, I agree there are certain "sacred cows" that are so emblazoned in our psyches that they become iconic.
Movies like Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca... all contain characters, costumes, sets, music, camera angles, etc. that are locked in our minds forever. They have been celebrated, torn apart, imitated, deified and replicated endlessly.
But "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" isn't one of those, as good as it is.
It's a wonderful movie, and arguably a classic. But it's not a perfect film by any means. It was even considered a little hokey and contrived back in its own day, let alone 40 years after.
I personally love the film, as many others here obviously do, but I think this story could be improved upon and rediscovered. It could have a different resonance and "speak" to a new generation of audiences who prejudge each other for many reasons.
I also think that Katharine Houghton was only "fine" at best here. Perhaps it's because I know that Hepburn swooped in after Lee Remmick had been cast in the part, and basically stole it away for her own niece, the budding young actress. Everyone was excited about Remmick's screen test, but as they say, "That's show biz." Hepburn won out. I can't help but watch this movie and wonder how it might have been, if the actress they cast had actually played the part. So I've always seen it with potential cast changes.
Also... The movie is very "talky" and feels like a stage play anyway, so why not? It may fall flat on its face, or it may be terrific.
But I certainly don't feel they're walking on any sacred ground here by trying the material out in other ways.
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/25/06
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#13
Posted: 7/18/07 at 6:50pm
> And anyone who thinks intolerance isn't thriving in our world today needs to wake up and look around.
yea, right on. no one said that, tho. the point (i think) is that the story line is no longer provocative.
> Has it occurred to you that 1) Perhaps someone looked at the film and thought, "There's much more gold to mine, here.", and 2) That there are perhaps millions of people who never saw the movie or who hold it in such esteem they would like to see it on stage?
in a word: no.
in a few words: i think that most posters object to the idea precisely b/c they (we) think the movie spoke so eloquently. really, what more of relevance do you think could be "mined" from that particular plot that would appeal to "millions" (!) of people today?
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#14
Posted: 7/18/07 at 6:54pmBest12 tends to say just what I'm thinking, and did so here. Bravo.
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/25/06
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#15
Posted: 7/18/07 at 7:01pmi dont think the ground is sacred, just fallow.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/03
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#16
Posted: 7/18/07 at 8:00pmHow bout if they updated it to a Conservative Jewish family who's daughter is about to wed a Muslim who came to the US for his medical degree. There's lots to explore there.
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#17
Posted: 7/18/07 at 8:12pm
I think it's a wonderful idea.
Good chance for some star power onstage too.
I wonder if they will update it, though.
That could be REALLY hokey, like the recent remake with Bernie Mack and Ashton Kutcher.
I'd like to see it kept in period, because as much as we say that there's nothing new to be seen, how many inter-racial couples do you see represented onstage?
re: 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' Play Headed for Broadway#18
Posted: 7/18/07 at 8:47pmI see Charles Busch in the Hepburn role. And put them all in roller skates.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
'Guess Who's Coming to Pine Valley#19
Posted: 7/18/07 at 9:07pm
To those who recall perfection, and I respect that feeling, I advise you go back and take a new look. The performances are legendary to the point of iconic, yet the script cloying and at times startlingly soapy. Yes, the underlying issues are relevant, sadly so; but this material is at best period-specific, at worst, treacly and precious. If done in period, it will be creaky, if updated, it needs -- well, let's just say a lot of updating.
The Poitier doctor is a paper-thin creation made real by a true star, yet a black saint, nothing less. And nothing more. He has no flaws or contradictions, he's out to save the world, and fell in love -- instantly -- with a white woman. And what a woman. That Houghtan daughter, pie-eyed and naive and almost vaccuous, wears out her welcome quite early. Her upbeat optimism and rah-rah, isn't he wonderful, mother?! mindset seemed dated in the 60s (check out Pauline Kael and others). She isn't tolerant, she seems in acute denial. The differences between black people and white people are steamrolled over to make it all about "humanity" and "the power of love," without attention paid to more nuanced aspects of two communities with wildly differing experiences.
And Hepburn and Tracy are so baldly patronizing to the black family, so "rising above" throughout, never more so than in the dinner sequence Ugh. I was in high school and I wanted to smack em. The script was hardly embraced as a major exposure on race. It's remembered for Tracy's near-death feat of finishing a performance and delivering a moving portrait.
Why not write a brand new play which tackles the same themes in a fresh way, and leave those folk played by Hollywood royalty to film history?
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