HOLLER IF YA HEAR ME Previews- Page 3

[JeffDaEgg2]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:47am

Also, I saw in the other thread (bah, 2 threads) that their site apparently says no late seating, which was definitely NOT true tonight. I don't attend many first previews, so I don't know if this is normal, but they were seating latecomers for the first 15 minutes of the show without even waiting for a song to end or anything (another reason for applause breaks!). It was incredibly distracting and annoying.

[VotePeron]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:52am

For people that weren't there tonight, I stumbled upon some awesome pictures of the renovation!









IMO - the raked seating is completely unnecessary. There are 3 instances of floor projections, but none were substantial enough to call for the seating to be raked. There wasn't even 1 moment in the show where the entire company was downstage, or making valuable use of that space.

It was also really depressing and strange walking into the "Museum Part Of the Show" (-The Ushers), and being greeted by a few hundred empty seats that they didn't remove!

The house was almost sold out tonight. Idk if it was papering, TKTS, or what, but even the Balcony at intermission seemed pretty full, and they even stuffed people into the large box on the immediate side of the stage.

Overall, I personally didn't care for the show, mainly because I don't like the music, but my friends did like it. I thought the story was boring, the music didn't add to the production, and everything was kind of out of place in terms of pace. The ending hits you super fast and seems so out of place. It's like "blah blah blah, BOOM, MORAL OF THE STORY, curtain." Updated On: 6/3/14 at 01:52 AM

[AntV]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:02am

The audience wasn't laughing at the sudden tone shift, they were laughing at the two guys hiding in the car. And none of the characters we see are part of a gang. They are debating what to do about gang violence.

[VotePeron]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:05am

^ I didn't notice anyone in the car. Everyone I've talked to seemed to be laughing at the tone shift. That was a weird moment no matter what.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:11am

I liked this more than I expected to. It honored Shakur's work and interests. The songs played very well in a theatrical setting. The design was fine. The performances, strong and authentic. Leon will tighten the pacing issues. The book issues will not get solved but they can be helped. The insurmountable problem is the schedule. Critics will start coming in less than 2 weeks. Revivals get more time to preview.

[AntV]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:21am

There were two guys huddled down cowering in the car, while everyone else had jumped out. One was the chubby guy in the red jumpsuit who was the first to cower away earlier during the group disbanding scene which had elicited laughs. You could tell they were creating the laughs because their cowering movements were creating more laughs. I guess that is there for laughs to lighten up that serious moment a bit. Personally I didn't laugh for either reason. I don't find a tone shift like that to be weird, it happens often in movies, tv, theater. Big party/celebration scene then all of a sudden things get serious. I actually thought it was one of the better moments honestly.

And I also find it odd that some thought this was about two rival gangs like WSS. It isn't. Though I didn't quite understand exactly why Benny was shot, it seemed to be just some sort of mistake or random killing at the "dope fiends." It was made obvious however that these young gangs were now killing innocent people instead of just killing each other as the characters had hoped they would. The show wasn't about a gang ultimately deciding to put down their weapons and not fight with a rival gang. It was about a group of regular people trying to figure out how they should deal with gang violence. That's why you never see any of the gang members. They aren't important, especially with the characters' ultimate decision not to confront them. Updated On: 6/3/14 at 02:21 AM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:23am

Maybe they weren't officially part of a gang, but it felt like they were. I mean Christopher Jackson was a drug dealer and they were his posse. That's kind of a gang. Plus all they talked about was how they were going to take out the Four Fives.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:36am

I'm with AnTV on this. They"re a bunch of friends trying to figure out the right response to the shooting death of their good friend. Jackson plays a by who's dealt drugs but isn't part of anything organized.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 2:58am

Well, Jackson is an active drug dealer. He runs the block and the Four Fives expect him to give them a $3000 cut of his profits on a regular basis. He's not exactly the neighborhood watch.

Benny seems like the only one who wasn't involved in the business in some way. He was the only one who had a legit job at the body shop. His death wasn't an accidental shooting either. He was targeted specifically to lean on Jackson to get him to pay his cut (which he hadn't been doing).

They were in a drug territory dispute. They weren't a bunch of innocents defending their neighborhood.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:01am

Who said they were innocents?

[PlayItAgain]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:02am

just so people know i.e the chairs in the back of the orchestra they didnt take out, speaking to a producer they said they are using that space for post show talkbacks and other events TBA.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:07am

True you didn't call them innocents, but calling them a group of friends trying to figure out what to do when a fellow friend is shot is painting them in a kinder, more innocent light than I would. Like they were they were the victims here.

They are criminals and other groups/gangs/dealers moving in our another's turf and the violence that brings with it comes with the territory. That might sound cold, but it was hard to feel for Jackson when his brother was killed because it was his lifestyle that put him in harm's way. (Plus Benny was a developed character, and thus hard to have any emotion for.)

[AntV]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:29am

Well I said Benny was an innocent person who was killed, which is true, but how many of the other characters were involved in the drug trade with Jackson? I know for sure Saul Williams wasn't, not certain about the others. The plot seemed to be to me that Jackson had drug ties with the Four Fives which is what caused Benny's murder, so his friends were trying to figure out if they should respond violently, some wanting to more than others. It wasn't that they were one big gang who were at war with the Four Fives. They were talking about if they should take out the Four Fives, because they aren't a gang.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 3:41am

The way I understood it (and I could easily have been wrong!) Saul was once a part of/the leader of the drug trade in the area. He was arrested and had finished serving his sentence. It was his second strike, so in an attempt to keep out of going to jail permanently he was attempting to go legit at the body shop.

Before Saul was arrested he had managed to get Jackson into the drug ring, and over the course of the prison sentence Jackson rose to be the leader as well as steal his girl.

I assumed Darius was a part of drug business and the younger guy wanted desperately to become a solider although he really wasn't cut out for it. If Jackson was banking enough to be expected to pay a $3000 cut, this wasn't a one man operation. The rest of the guys were his crew in the drug business.

They way they talked about Benny it seemed like he was the only one in the group who had avoided being in the business and that was supposed to compound the tragedy that he was the one who was killed.

As far as the Four Fives were concerned- we never found out much about them, but the small story we got explaining their name was FAR more interesting to me than any of the backstory we had learned about Jackson and his group.

[AntV]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 4:15am

Okay, so probably a lot of them were part of the drug trade, I admit there were details I tuned out, but being in the drug business together didn't make them a gang. The Four Fives were described as a gang of young kids who regularly murder rival gang members. That being the typical definition of a violent gang. But the group of characters we knew weren't like that. It was obvious they weren't experienced with guns and murder. I believe it was Jackson who was telling the young guy about how terrible his experience was the one time he shot a guy. They were hesitant with the idea of retaliating violently and using guns. This wasn't a story of a gang war, but a group who were the victim of gang violence and had to decide what to do about it.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 7:53am

It's true that this wasn't the blood vs the crips here. This was small time stuff, in an industrial Midwestern town.

Slight SPOILER

The Four Fives themselves were only four kids who had turned bad when the fifth member of their group had been shot. They were not some big powerful organization either.

End slight SPOILER

I think the story of the Four Fives would have made a better central storyline than the rather ambiguous glob of characters in Jackson's circle.

It wasn't Jackson, btw, who had previously shot a man, but a different friend who after telling the story left the group. He told how he tried to shoot a man in the face, but the gun slipped and he ended up shooting him in the ass. He couldn't deal with psychological problems of shooting someone again, and he had to walk away.

Darius made a comment in one of the early scenes when they were discussing Saul's attempts to go legit at the body shop. Darius said something like, "When I'm living on my second strike I won't be playing it safe like that. When I go down I'm take down as many people with me as I can." I guess that line steered me in the direction of thinking of them as a "gang" even if that's not exactly the correct word.

[brdway411]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 12:09pm

For the record I chuckled because of the people hiding in the car. not the tone shift.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 12:20pm

I am absolutely adoring the "blind men exploring an elephant" style of the discussion of the confusing plot/story for this show! I'm trying to imagine similar discussions for past musicals:

"She was either a nun or she wanted to be a nun, I'm not sure - she might have been a prostitute living at the convent. And they send her away for something, I'm not sure what, to be a kind of babysitter for a bunch of ill-behaved kids. I think the kids are related, but I know they all live in the same house. This older guy comes in, who also might be related to the kids, and the nun falls for him, but she runs away (I don't know why), but comes back. And then a bunch of people - gangsters? soldiers? - threaten them, and they all run away."

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 12:30pm

LOL That has the makings of a fun theater game.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 12:55pm

Hahaha! Damn, newintown. That gave me a good chuckle.

I guess all these discussions of who is who and what is what go back to the original point that the book is rotten. Maybe everyone is too close to the piece to see this stuff, but hopefully they start with the rewrites ASAP so the actors have enough time to learn new material.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:02pm

I have read through this thread like four times trying to make sense of the story, and I am still so damn lost. I can not wrap my head around this plot.

Updated On: 6/3/14 at 01:02 PM

[newintown]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:08pm

One big thing I'm unclear on is - who is the composer? I thought someone else was initially credited, but the official site and ibdb only list "Book by Todd Kreidler; Lyrics by Tupac Shakur; Musical Director: Zane Mark; Music orchestrated by Daryl Waters; Music arranged by Daryl Waters."

But who actually wrote this Tyler-Perry-reminiscent music? Is it Waters, but no one wants him competing with the "genius" that was Tupac?

[haterobics]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:12pm

I like that it is so vague you can really embrace the story and still make it your own. So many shows only let you ride through a show on their chosen narrative, whereas this show has that lovely tofu quality, where it can absorb whatever plot you need it to have perfectly. That seems harder to do than some one-size-fits-all thing.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:16pm

Yes, I agree - anyone can write a story that makes sense; it takes a rare and superlative talent to write a show during which no one knows who anyone is or what's even happening.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 6/3/14 at 1:19pm

Here is the basic plot (as I understood it)- some SPOILERS will naturally follow:


There are two main characters played by Saul Williams and Christopher Jackson. They used to be best friends, but have drifted apart. Saul just got out of prison (his second strike) and has decided to give up his drug dealing ways by taking a job at the local body shop.

While Saul was in prison Jackson has taken over the drug business in the neighborhood and stolen his girl (Saycon Sengbloh). At the start of the show Jackson's brother Benny is killed by this gang called the Four Fives because they want Jackson to pay them a $3000 cut of his profits. He's been refusing so they are going after his family to show him who's boss.

Tonya Pinkins, Jackson and Benny's mother, desperately wants Jackson to give up his criminal ways and go legit. Jackson and his gang/posse/crew have to decide how to retaliate for Benny's death and how to deal with the Four Fives in general.

Saul and Saycon are still in love and their romance is eventually rekindled. (We never really see Jackson and Saycon as a couple so this love triangle falls pretty flat.)

Eventually Jackson and his group decide they are going to confront the Four Fives in a big rumble type thing. (Hail Mary basically functions as the Quintet from WSS.)

At the last minute Saul convinces that peace is the answer and they shouldn't use violence to settle this dispute. Everyone seems pretty ok with this (!) and they all disperse.

Saul and Jackson go to the body shop (owned by a white guy who had built a car with Benny before his death) and they decide to become business partners and start a new legit life at the body shop.

Two members of the crew apparently weren't so satisfied with the rumble being called off and show up at the body shop. Saul gets shot and killed. All of their dreams are washed down the drain.