Happiness.........?

[raulmark]

Posted: 5/9/09 at 11:07pm

hey everyone
I was just curious if anyone has seen "Happiness". What did you think? I don't feel much attention is given to it for some reason. Are they transferring to Broadway? It has a well-known creative team....

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 5/9/09 at 11:11pm

I have seen it twice so far and LOVE the show. However, it got mixed-to-negative reviews and will definitely not be transfering to Broadway. I believe it is currently running through June 7. Please go see the show if you can...the story is so original, the score is wonderful, and the cast is outstanding.

[raulmark]

Posted: 5/9/09 at 11:16pm

ugh..that's the kind of response I wanted and expected haha I want to see the show...june 7th? hmm gotta hurry

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 5/9/09 at 11:18pm

I adored the show, as well. The critics really had it out for this show. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's filled with talented performers, and the concept is so creative. Definitely don't miss it.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 12:08am

Well, I really didn't enjoy it. The cast is strong but the material is weak. It's a creative concept but the problem lies in the execution. If you're getting TDF tickets to see some good performances, go. But if you're paying full-price or even going via TDF to see a great show with great performances, I'd say rethink your decision. It's definitely not a great show by any means, IMO. But to each their own.

[aliciag]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 12:10am

Yeah, I'll just add to the responses saying the show is well worth seeing. The cast is amazing and I thought the story was really moving.

Plus I've seen it on TKTS quite a bit lately... Not necessarily what I would want for the show's success but good for those of us unable to pay full price.

[BroadwayBoy2]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 12:23am

I paid full price in previews and I'm glad I did! Worth every cent.

[jv92]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 9:58am

It was enjoyable, creative and well performed. Some of the writing leaves a little to be desired, but I'd still say it's one of the must-sees of the season. I certainly liked it.

[Drunk Chita Rivera]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 10:05am

Do they have a rush?

[spiritx33]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 10:18am

Two kinds of ice cream.

[Drunk Chita Rivera]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 10:20am

^^What? That was random....

[aliciag]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 10:21am

Lincoln Center does student rush two hours before the show for $20, subject to availability. I did it a few weeks ago for a Saturday Matinee and got a seat no problem.

[Drunk Chita Rivera]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 10:23am

Is it just for College Students?

[aliciag]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 10:46am

I just checked the website and it says 1 per college id. Sorry.
http://www.lct.org/studentixMain.htm

And at first I thought spiritx33's post was random, then I totally got it. You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, good stuff!

[sfdann]

Posted: 5/10/09 at 11:14pm

I want to thank every member of the creative team, the orchestra and the actors who bring this remarkable piece to audiences every night. It is the best thing I have seen in New York this year - and it is SO ambitious. This brave cast busts their asses every night as if they are committed to 'saving' each and every audience member personally so that we live the happiest life possible and snap out of a cynical world of absenteeism. Naturally, critics are not going to understand or appreciate this message - most have given up being able to embrace the joy of simple, human moments, but I, for one, am grateful for this vision of 'eternal' joy. Thank you for the beautiful music, for the lovely book (it must have changed a lot because the comments I have read are not present in the show I saw this week) and to all the passionate musicians and actors associated with this Lincoln Center gem. Bravo! And thank you again, with all my heart.

Updated On: 5/10/09 at 11:14 PM

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 5/11/09 at 3:12am

LOVED this show. Couldn't imagine seeing it only once, so I'm making a special trip to see it again before it closes. It's my favorite show of the season, and I'm disappointed that the critics couldn't muster up a little imagination and appreciation for so original a piece. Performances are superb. Sebastian Arcelus really impressed and surprised me. (I've always liked him, just never had an opportunity to see his range until now.)

I think the music is wonderful, the performances delightful and the off-beat story just my kind of thing. In addition to the obvious "names" like Joanna Gleason, Hunter Foster and Ken Page who are all marvelous, I want to give a shout-out to the ensemble who really out-do themselves in this production. So good to see James Moye again on Broadway.

HAPPINESS had me crying practically throughout the whole thing and when it didn't, I was just feeling exhilarated. Yet another instance of me and the critics being miles and miles apart. (I'm getting used to it though.)

SEE IT!!!! HURRY!!!!

Updated On: 5/12/09 at 03:12 AM

[D2]

Posted: 5/11/09 at 4:53am

^^^What she said^^^

A truly beautiful, moving and wonderful new musical that shouldn't be missed by anyone who cares about anything.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 5/11/09 at 9:10am

I just saw this for the third time this weekend and it keeps getting better and better. I still start to tear up during Fred Applegate's moment and I could listen to Jenny Powers sing Gstaad all day.

Go see this show before it quitely slips away. The fact that this hasn't/won't be recorded is criminal.

[jv92]

Posted: 5/11/09 at 7:53pm

On ATC someone said that there's the possibility of a recording. Despite duds like "The Tooth Fairty Song", "Best Seats in the Ballpark", the opening and a few others deserve to be recorded.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 12:46am

I think the problem with this show is that when it soars it soars. Jenny Powers and Sebastian are both really great in their roles, and Hunter Foster (who I saw at Barnes and Noble) is equally great as a skeezy sort of train conductor. But when the show thuds, it really thuds. The Tooth Fairy song is ridiculously awful. I mean seriously, the guys who gave us "Around The World" and "Another Winter in a Summer Town" gave us this? Awful. And the hippie number is trash. But I'd recommend seeing it. I paid full price and I don't regret it (as I do with West Side Story). It's worth seeing, and the production values are great, so you won't feel like you wasted your money. And it's worth it for Jenny Powers moment at the end alone. Her dancing while the car twirls is amazing.

[sfdann]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 11:40am

Extremely well said. The good material is SO good that it makes other moments seem less than - its not that the material isn't good - its just that some of it is outrageously good. The moments you describe - Jenny Powers (in EVERYTHING) and Sebastian's opening and closing are so spot on that I can't get enough of them. The WWII number is performed with great care and love, as is the baseball stadium and hospital scenes. You can feel the audience completely rise out of their seats and the applause rushes over the stage before the numbers are even finished. The 'flash cards' song is not particularly good but the actors make it completely worthy - and I have to say the same thing about the Tooth Fairy. It has been slammed by everyone but in context, I found the moment so tender and honest. I mean, we were set up to assume that his moment was a blow job in a closet and that he was an absentee father and instead, we are reminded that the jerks we see on the streets may actually have a genuine connection with a child at home. It is a good concept and I found that the song served it. Joanna's number has apparently come a long way to the point where it is about finding a voice instead of another 'happy ending' in a bathroom stall - so that's good. She makes the moment honest. They all do. Jenny, Sebastian, Miguel, Phyllis, Fred, Hunter, Ken, Cindy and Neil. Its outstanding direction. Oh, and a total shout out to the ensemble too - Alessa Neeck is a major star in my opinion, with all she showed in her roles. I wish this show a safe journey on to its next 'station.'

[Roscoe]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 11:45am

I posted this elsewhere, but here it is again...

The show is glossy, well-performed, and well-produced. The lights went on and off efficiently. The performers do their best.

It is not based on the Todd Solondz film of the same name. It is about a group of New Yorkers trapped on a subway car who find out that they are all dead, and have about 90 minutes to choose which moment of sublime happiness from their pasts they want to spend eternity in.

No, really, that's the plot. And it doesn't exactly get any better: the characters are a batch of cliches, and by time the show is over we know everything the creators of the show want us to know about them: there's a hyperactive interracial couple (she's Asian, he's Jewish), a gay black man (two birds with one stone there, he's also an interior decorator, believe it or not), an Ann Coulterish radio host, a heartless lawyer, an hispanic bike messenger, a female fashion-industry wannabe, and some old lady in a wheelchair. There's also the train conductor who has, of course, His Own Tale to share with us.

It isn't bad enough that they're all dead. They have to have a little group therapy session, too. And we have to watch. Intelligent design my ass.

The show is easy New Age type pablum, the kind that I'm surprised made it onto a stage at all. And the sentimentality of the proceedings masks some really icky moments. The gay character decides to spend his eternity at the deathbed of his AIDS-afflicted lover, while the Conservative Bitch character (played beautifully by the sublime Joanna Gleason who can get laughs out of thin air) chooses to spend eternity blowing Mick Jagger in a 60s club. The absolute tastelessness of this choice on the part of the show's creators just beggars description, and I'm going to have to take a minute to put down exactly why it pisses me off so thoroughly.

No character ever comes alive as anything other than a stereotype. We aren't given real people here, just a batch of ciphers with assorted tics that make them identifiable as Comic Relief Over-Sexed Latino Guy, Mean Ann Coulter Bitch With A Well-Disguised Liberal Past, and most unforgivably, for me at least, the Big Cuddly Gay Buddha. As played by Ken Page, he's a big pudgy black man whose testosterone seems to have called it quits after producing that lovely baritone voice. He's quick with a one-liner but still completely unthreatening, even allowing the Conservative Bitch character to get the last word in a way that no self-respecting 'mo would ever do. Seriously, I started to expect him to call people "honeychile." As noted, the creators would have me believe, that this character chooses as his Eternal Happy Time what seem to be his last moments with his dying lover. The Conservative Bitch Lady reveals that she was once (gasp!) a LIBERAL, and finally settles on a specific election night (the night Eugene McCarthy lost) when she went to drown her sorrows at a 60s nightclub and wound up in a bathroom stall giving head to Mick Jagger (we know it is the 60s because of the suddenly psychedelic lighting and the bellbottoms the chorus suddenly appear in). After some misgivings, she gives in and reverts to her youthful wild freedom loving self and runs off to enjoy a joyful happy eternity for a woman who has spent so much of her life being, on the evidence the play supplies us with, a woman even Ann Coulter would think was too damn mean.

So there you have it. The gay guy gets an eternal vigil at the deathbed of an eternally dying loved one, the conservative bitch gets an eternal celebration of freedom, the freedoms she herself would deny to others.

Now this might work, if it felt like any serious legit examination of different ideas of happiness were actually going on, rather than the mere coughing-up of tired cliché material. But there's nothing like that here. The AIDS- patient is wheeled on, tears are jerked, and he's wheeled off again to make room for the next bit of poorly written psycho-drama to unfold.

The show blows. It blows CHUNKS.

There's more to it of course. Some elements from Albert Brooks' DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (some really outrageously contrived stuff about second chances, god forgive them all) remain.

It can't be a surprise to anyone that I disliked this show. It is just nothing like my cup of tea, and I can respect that folks are going to like it. If I'm going to have to deal with dramatic visions of death, I'll take the revival of Ionesco's brilliant EXIT THE KING, which makes this HAPPINESS drivel look like the well, the drivel it is. The oblivion into which Rush's King Berenger disappears is far more interesting and feels far more truthful, than anything on display in this musical parade of crap.

[Nick Plasia]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 11:54am

Poor Roscoe, he keeps posting about this show over and over and having a tantrum.

He is either:

a) a jealous, failed writer

b) a jealous, failed actor

c) a jealous, failed director


Sad, really...

[Roscoe]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 11:55am

Poor Nick, he can't make an intelligent response to my criticisms of HAPPINESS, so he goes for the cheap and easy personal attack.

Pathetic, really.

Updated On: 5/12/09 at 11:55 AM

[jv92]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 2:44pm

More news from ATC-
PS Classics is indeed very interested in recording Happiness. Hooray!