How did The Life (or anything else) lose out to Titanic? — Page 2

Has anyone seen a mounting of it recently?

I saw a regional run of it, in March, and it reminded me of how terrible the show (as a whole) actually is.

It's so disconnected and really all over the place. The score is good but the book is awful!

THE LIFE (for me) was straddling tow worlds, aiming for gritty reality with poetic lyrics (written in a vocabulary way beyond the grasp of the characters.) Cooper, White and Issacs were good. Harris sensational as the slime ball Jojo, and the music was Coleman still at or near the top of his game. The lyrics were perfunctory to embarrassing. But the brutal scene in Act Two where the pimp kicks the **** out of hooker was too much for some people.

TITANIC had its problems: For one thing the director spent so much time on the set and effects he hardly seems to have directed the cast. (No one was surprised when he was not nominated.) Unlike others here, I was impressed with the brilliant tableaux at the end of Act One, and Maury Yeston's score is wonderful.

I think the best score was for STEEL PIER, which was also problematic but blessed with a dynamic cast and some stunning choreography. Had it not been for CHICAGO (revival) that same season this show might have cleaned up. (It got 5 positive reviews; TITANIC got just 1 favourable notice.) STEEL PIER might have had a run but producer Roger Berlind was also co-producer of THE LIFE. Both shows were struggling at the box office and he chose to focus the marketing on THE LIFE with its 2 Tony-winning performances, and decided to close STEEL PIER.

As for J&H - No it was not worthy of a Tony nomination for best musical. The one Tony-worthy element was Robert Cuccioli's performance.

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How did Act 1 of Titanic end?

How did Act 1 of Titanic end?

^^^^^

They clear the whole set (the titanic triple deck) and there's a miniature model of titanic ship sailing across the stage (coming from stage left gong to right ) and it hit an iceberg! background was dark sky with flickering stars (but not very visible)

Curtain down.

I thought it was fantastic!

J*

Updated On: 6/5/08 at 05:03 PM

yeah I could see the book kinda sucks and some parts just drag. I love the skinking of the Titanic scene though! ( the triple decker set tilted to the right and all the table and chairs fall on the actors.. I can still remember how the table fell on Michael Cerveris!)

J*

They clear the whole set (the titanic triple deck) and there's a miniature model of titanic ship sailing across the stage (coming from stage left gong to right ) and it hit an iceberg! background was dark sky with flickering stars (but not very visible)

That's sort of right. What made it so visually stunning for me was that the entire stage floor had transformed into a calm sea with the ship upstage at the horizon. Both the sea and the sky were forced perspectives giving the three-dimensional illusion of looking out at the ocean with the ship in the far distance. You don't actually sea the iceberg or the ship striking it. The ship sails across and once out of view, the music reaches a dramatic climax to signal that the tragedy has occurred. Building up to this, there is a scene portraying all three decks in the center, the smoking room below, and the captain's thingamajig up above (I totally blanked out what thats called).

During the number (No Moon), the ceiling in front the stage opens and the crow's nest lowers from above in front of the stage. The music changes and a curtain is lowered while a scene continues with the captain in front of the curtain. We hear the announcement about the iceberg and the crow's nest disappears. The men leave the stage and the curtain lifts revealing the tableau. I imagine you had to be sitting in the orchestra level to get the full effect. Either that or you hated it and thought it looked silly from anywhere in the theatre. There seems to be no middle ground on the subject, actually.

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"I think the best score was for STEEL PIER, which was also problematic but blessed with a dynamic cast and some stunning choreography."

What show did you attend? Karen Ziemba is the most boring actress on Broadway. The show didn't have any energy until Debra Monk sang "Everybody's Girl". Monk and Chenoweth stole the show right out from under Ziemba. And of course, everyone knew that a "Cassie - Music & the Mirror" moment was coming in Act 2. But even Ziemba couldn't produce enough spark to make that interesting.

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Updated On: 6/5/08 at 05:35 PM

I saw Titanic the night before the Tony Awards and having already seen the other nominated shows at that point, felt that it would indeed win Best Musical (just my opinion). I originally had no interest seeing it until Rosie O'Donnell featured the opening number on her show one day. I can still hear the audience's reaction at the conclusion of that number. To this day it remains one of my favorite shows and I saw the Broadway production 9x (including its final performance).

The only things I remember about Steel Pier is Kristin's cellophane dress, Debra Monk's "Everybody's Girl", and how Karen Ziemba just kind of blended into the scenery.

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Updated On: 6/5/08 at 05:54 PM

I loved this show. Victoria Clark, Michael Cerveris, David Garrison as a villian! Henry Stram. It was a great cast. One of my favorite shows.

"I can still remember how the table fell on Michael Cerveris!"

It was a piano, jaystarr.

Updated On: 6/5/08 at 10:48 PM

Don't really care for the "bathroom humor" in "Spamalot."

It's funny you say that as that was one of the reasons I didn't like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

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I love all three scores (The Life, Steel Pier and Titanic) and I regret missing all three shows. Well, maybe not Steel Pier. That show's book was an absolute mess. Of course I was only 8 when The Life was out so no way in hell would my parents have taken me to that show.

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I was just going to say that. Rosie O'Donnell seemed to mention "Titanic" on her TV show every single day. It was akin to Brooks Atkinson's incessant "Bring back 'Threepenny Opera'" newspaper crusade in 1954.

And also don't underestimate Richard Christiansen's rave review of "Titanic" in the Chicago Tribune. It was day after opening, on the front page, above the headline. Not in the arts section, on the front page!

Every arts critic west of the Hudson knew that he loved it. And his words were used by the show in all their New York advertising, by the way.

I'm just saying that on a national level, "Titanic" really stood out from the pack, and it had nothing to do with publicity surrounding the long-announced and delayed movie version.

Plus, the opening sequence ROCKS.