HAPPINESS Reviews

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 12:19am

"Happiness, the new musical by Grey Gardens Tony nominees Michael Korie and Scott Frankel, officially opens Off-Broadway at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater March 30.

Tony winner Susan Stroman directs and choreographs the production, which has a book by John Weidman (Road Show, Assassins) and a score by writers Korie and Frankel. Both Stroman and Weidman earned Tonys for their collaboration on the Lincoln Center Theater musical Contact.

Happiness began previews Off-Broadway Feb. 27 and will run through June 7.

According to Lincoln Center Theater, "Happiness unfolds the stories of a dozen or so New Yorkers stuck in the morning rush of a stalled subway car and required by the spectral trainman to recall and re-enact the happiest moment in their lives before they can continue their travels... and travails. Happiness celebrates those fleeting moments in everyday lives typically unanticipated, largely overlooked, always ephemeral — that upon reflection become people's fondest memories..."

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/127816.html

Updated On: 3/30/09 at 12:19 AM

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 12:23am

Before the criticism pours in, I firmly admit to being a bit snarky in starting this ridiculously early out of annoyance of LimelightMike's seeming obsession with threads such as these.

Regardless, best of luck to the cast and crew.

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 1:22am

I hope this show gets the glowing reviews it deserves! Best of luck to the cast, crew, and creatives!

P.S. I hope the creators made some of the changes that were pretty glaringly necessary during previews. It was very close to being a great piece of theater. Very close.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 2:07am

It's by no means a great piece of theater. It has some great moments, but some really stupid moments (the chicken? the tooth fairy?). The audience seemed to enjoy it, and I really liked it, but it's not exactly the best it could be. The score was serviceable, but c'mon, that Tooth Fairy song is horrible. And the hippie number. Awful. I don't understand how no one else on the creative team could understand they were awful.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 9:50am

After the first preview I would have bet money on them rewriting the Hippie number for Gleason, but apparently that has not happened. Even with that number in tact, the show was fresh, often beautiful and all around well acted. I wish favorable reviews for all involved tonight, although wouldn't be surprised if they came out quite mixed.

[broadwayfan7]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 9:50am

I hope it has a wonderful run!

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 10:21am

They really should have re-written Joanna Gleason's number. I hope it get positive reviews, but that number (and maybe the tooth fairy number) is singled out as weak.

I'm expecting glowing reviews for Jenny Powers, who was fantastic in the show.

Looking forward to seeing it at least one more time before its run ends on June 7th.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 12:14pm

WithoutATrace, they did tinker with Gleason's number, "Road to Nirvana."

By the end of the preview period, they made it much more clear that Arlene ultimately chose that moment at the concert because of the social freedom and vehement passion the 1960's offered her, a stark contrast to the harsh realities that led her to "sell out" and abandon her idealism later in life. It was when everything was possible that she was truly happy.

Giving Mick Jagger a blow job was a very small part of the finished product, where as it seemed to be the center piece of the number earlier on.

Updated On: 3/30/09 at 12:14 PM

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 6:01pm

I can def. see it getting mixed reviews. Jenny Powers was awesome though! She just so spot-on with everything. Sebastian A. was pretty good too if not a little too "angry" all the time. Hunter Foster was deliciously creepy.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 7:03pm

Talkin' Broadway is Mixed:

"If real MTA employees were as helpful as Stanley, the subway conductor at the center of the new musical Happiness at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, New Yorkers might not mind the impending fare hikes. Stanley may be bitter, brooding, and unapproachable, but once you leave the station, he?ll ensure you get where you need to be, even if it?s not where you expect or think you want to go.

Of course, Stanley does charge an unusual fare: Rather than wanting MetroCards or tokens, he requires that you reveal one perfect moment you?ve experienced and then, bang, you?re off. To... well, that?s not so important. What matters more are those flawless jewels of memory tracked down, sometimes with great difficulty, by the passengers aboard Stanley?s train on one fateful day, that give this show more than its fair share of glimpses of brilliance and wonder.

Only glimpses, unfortunately. As long as you accept this musical, which has a score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (of Grey Gardens) and a book by John Weidman (Big, several Stephen Sondheim shows), and which has been directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, as a collection of individual elements, you can have a good - or maybe great - time. But take aim at the bigger picture and you'll find the recoil a killer..."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/03_30_09.html

Updated On: 3/30/09 at 07:03 PM

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 7:13pm

Thanks for the info about Gleason's number, somethingwicked. I'm glad it is now more clear why that is her "happy moment," because at the first preview, it was very random...

[April Saul]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 7:40pm

I think Happiness had some lovely moments, but overall just missed. I think the reviews will reflect that...

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 8:32pm

The Associated Press is Negative:

"Threatened fare hikes. Possible service cuts. And now a pretentious new musical about folks trapped underground in a subway car for what could be an eternity. New York strap-hangers can't seem to get a break.

Or, for that matter, neither can audiences at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, where "Happiness," the unfortunate show in question, opened Monday.

The Lincoln Center Theater production features a fine collection of actors struggling to overcome John Weidman's contemporary, high-concept story that is awash in squishy, cosmic significance but short on fully developed characters theatregoers could actually care about."

http://www.canadaeast.com/entertainment/article/620059


Variety is Very Negative:

"The creative talent pool behind "Happiness" is not at all shabby. Director-choreographer Susan Stroman and book writer John Weidman last teamed on the exhilarating 1999 dance-musical triptych "Contact," while composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie turned heads with their beguilingly eccentric exhumation of "Grey Gardens." It's easy to understand Stroman craving the freeing experience of crafting a small-scale, relatively off-the-radar show again after shepherding Mel Brooks' behemoths "The Producers" and "Young Frankenstein." But despite the best intentions of everyone involved, and the resources of Lincoln Center Theater, this underwhelming meditation on mortality doesn't resonate at all."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939964.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

[BroadwayBoy2]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 8:41pm

Bologna!

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 8:49pm

Backstage is Mixed-to-Negative:

"...The conceit conjures up such works as A Christmas Carol and Outward Bound, influences the creators acknowledge. Zack is a latter-day Scrooge, having lived a soulless, ambition-driven life. Unfortunately, Zack just isn't very interesting. And he can't take action; he can only be acted upon. That's also true of Scrooge, but the events that change Scrooge are largely the events of his own life. He is personally involved with them. Zack's change can come about only through the examples of his fellow passengers. It's not enough.

With a device rather than a character at its center, Happiness has nowhere to go. And its revuelike structure?each passenger gets a number about his or her moment?puts it at the mercy of its songs, which vary in effectiveness. Nevertheless, there are ancillary pleasures. Frankel and Korie's score is attractively eclectic and gratifyingly particular to character. Weidman, forced by the conceit into a predictable structure, adeptly disguises it. He's helped by Stroman's virtuoso staging, which turns an inherently static situation into a kaleidoscope of shifting perspectives, with assistance from Thomas Lynch's motorized set, Donald Holder's acute lighting, and Joshua Frankel's projections."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003957014

[jv92]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 8:53pm

Some of the score seems to be getting good reviews.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 10:20pm

The New York Times [with Brantley] is Negative:

"Anyone who travels regularly by New York subway has experienced a moment when your heart lurches along with the train as it slams to a stop between stations. You tell yourself to stay cool and that you?ll be moving again soon, but a panicked little voice inside keeps whispering, ?You?ll never get out of here.?

Give points to ?Happiness,? an anxious smiley face of a musical set in a stalled subway car, for reproducing those sensations with eerie exactness. At around the same point its characters register that they can?t escape their underground prison in this Lincoln Center Theater production that opened on Monday evening at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, directed by Susan Stroman, you begin to grasp a similarly uncomfortable realization.

You, it seems, have been caught inside an intermission-free, 1 hour 50 minute singing version of one of those whimsical, metaphysical fantasy novels that dominate the best-seller list around Christmastime and tend to have ?heaven? in their titles. Well, that or a particularly preachy episode of ?The Twilight Zone.?"

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/theater/reviews/31bran.html

[scaryclowns2232]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 10:38pm

It sounds like John Weidman is slipping.

Between this and Road Show, he hasn't had a good year. (And yes, I know many critics praised him for Road Show, but I found his book to be disjointed and sloppy.)

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 10:48pm

I don't think John Weidman ever really had it. His writing, to me, has (except for almost all of PACIFIC OVERTURES, which I commend him on) never seemed tone-confident, and doesn't often dig deep enough to break the "superficial" barrier.

Except for CONTACT, I don't see why Mr. Weidman keeps getting top-drawer work.

And scaryclown, a lot of critics actually agreed with your thoughts on his ROAD SHOW book.

[BroadwayBoy2]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 10:48pm

I'm sorry but I couldnt find enough good things I liked about HAPPINESS, it was the most thrilling piece of theatre I sat through this season.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/30/09 at 11:01pm

What happy pills is John Simon taking, and where can I get them?

John Simon is a Rave:

"Strangers in a New York subway car bound for -- who knows where? -- may not seem to be the most surefire bet for a musical.

Yet ?Happiness,? at Lincoln Center Theater?s intimate Mitzi E. Newhouse stage, does more than just offer 110 minutes of flawless, nonstop entertainment. It amazes."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601098&sid=a0ZxI.nOJMfc&refer=movie

(Check out the last sentence of the review: I couldn't think up a more un-John Simon line if I tried.)

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/31/09 at 12:44am

I thought these reviews were going to be mixed, but not so negative. While the show was not perfect I certainly thought more of it than the critics did.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 3/31/09 at 12:54am

Well it def. does have the typical "Life is Wonderful" message. It is a TAD on the cheesy side, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless, but I just wish the score stuck with me more. I couldn't recite you bit of music after seeing the show.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 3/31/09 at 9:28am

While I try not to be unduly influenced by reviews prior to seeing a show after it's opened, both the Times and the Post reviews made me thankful that I didn't hock the family jewels to see this.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/31/09 at 9:35am

Likewise.