Is Michael Greif today’s Hal Prince?- Page 2

[Owen22]

Posted: 8/27/21 at 1:32pm

SouthernCakes said: "Be curious to know why Greif’s staging of DEH did It for you! To me it felt like a show designed for an off Broadway house and not a big Broadway musical - which it is exactly that. The sets move on from wing to wing and the band is in a loft which makes sense for its off Broadway house but doesn’t make much sense given its current home. And the staging just felt lacking to me. So be curious to hear your views.

Besides his brilliant use of social media projections (which could have been too much but was completely on point) the show just moved.  And in Act Two, where I would argue all three writers just basically gave up (they were way more interested in the Act One plot machinations, the dialogue and especially the songs) he kept the show on a it's forward momentum. If not for him, Act Two would have melted into complete melodrama in its last thirty minutes, but somehow he was able to make the second half almost as vital as the first (and somehow control it's predictable plot denouement) and turn that show into the hit it is.  Not that we always saw his hand, sometimes he just sat back and let the power of the actor and/or song simply do the work. The contrast between the busy and the quiet moments--that's how you direct a show!

 

Updated On: 8/27/21 at 01:32 PM

[SouthernCakes]

Posted: 8/27/21 at 2:09pm

See, to me, the social media aspect felt very much like an older person trying to relate to the youth. But hey if it worked for you then it worked for you! I just wish they had restaged it for the space it was in. It felt cramped for no reason.

[Jarethan]

Posted: 8/28/21 at 10:38am

Late entering, but i think the premise is stupid.  Hal Prince became Hal Prince based not just on the quality, but on the brilliance of his works.  Every time you turned around, there was another Hal Prince work of genius.  If you add his producing credits, it is mind-boggling; his output sets the bar so high, in terms of both quality and quantity, that none of the people mentioned -- as talented as they are -- is ready for such a comparison.  

The other thing /i would add is that, at least in the case of Grief, his direction was not the reason for the success of the shows's successes.  Would the original Follies be the legend it is without his direction?   The answer can be found in looking at any subsequent production of the show.  Phantom?  Evita?  Candide?   Even with a flop like Grind, the only thing I remember being remotely impressed with was his direction.  

Maybe with X more years, Y more shows, and Z more of those being great ones, there will be viability in suggesting a comparison.  Until then, no.

[binau]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 5:54am

Now Michael Greif has a string of other shows coming such as the Alicia Keys musical coming and the Notebook. I can’t help but double down that this man is becoming a legend. 

Updated On: 10/7/23 at 05:54 AM

[BETTY22]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 8:20am

Michael Greif is today's Michael Greif - and that is why he is so successful.

Never be anyone but your best self! PERIOD. 

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 8:22am

He's working a lot. Good for him. I've enjoyed several of his productions. The idea that a director who has never really surprised me once with an image or a staging device should be compared to Hal freaking Prince ain't it for me. 

[inception]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 9:29am

And some people call the line cook at the greasy spoon down the corner a legend for how they can fry up one burger after another without quite turning any to charcoal.

 

binau said: "Now Michael Greif has a string of other shows coming such as the Alicia Keys musical coming and the Notebook. I can’t help but double down that this man is becoming a legend."

 

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 9:58am

Michael Greif is not today's Hal Prince. But to say "there could never be another to equal Hal Prince" is the same as saying "theatre has jumped the shark; it's all downhill from here even if it's a slow decline." Which is just another rephrasing of the old "fabulous invalid" argument.

I choose to believe the best is yet to come, though I doubt I'll live to SEE better.

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 10:12am

Michael Grief had a specific style right out of the gate as a director that he's more or less kept to. The blocking is tightly controlled and actors move back and forth and up and down the stage grid. Which he does nicely and there is a thematic sense that the characters are under the pressure of societal control so it works on multiple levels. The control over the blocking/choreography is also well suited to musicals as it can be "danced" as a production with the pacing picked up or slackened but little dead air time is allowed which most audiences appreciate. The one drawback of his style I'd say is that it tends to be presentational and 2D with actors mostly facing and playing to the audience and a bit overdetermined with actors being moved back and forth on invisible gliders by some unseen authority. 

Harold Prince came from a period in American theater that has very little to do with the Fine Arts degree to Nonprofit to Commercial theater trajectory of Grief's career. Prince was a great commercial showman and could wow an audience but he was also capable of adjusting and expanding his directorial style and vocabulary to suit whatever new work he was tackling. He was prodigiously versatile and adventurous as a director and had what you would call in singers a remarkable vocal range. 

Updated On: 10/7/23 at 10:12 AM

[Jarethan]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 12:24pm

inception said: "And some people call the line cook at the greasy spoon down the corner a legend for how they can fry up one burger after another without quite turning any to charcoal.



binau said: "Now Michael Greif has a string of other shows coming such as the Alicia Keys musical coming and the Notebook. I can’t help but double down that this man is becoming a legend."

NOTE: I missed the original post or don't remember it (so I may have already posted and forgotten a couple of years ago).

Binau, I have always enjoyed your postings but this one must have been started during a period of serious mental lapse (or you are Michael Grief or a close friend of his).

To put Michael Grief in the same sentence as Harold Prince is patently absurd.  Harold Pince has directed some of the greatest musicals in Broadway history.  I won't mention them all, but I just have to list Cabaret, Follies, Company, Evita, Candide, Sweeney Tood, ALNM and Phantom as proof positive for me that we may NEVER see another musical director who comes close to Prince.  In every one of those shows, the direction played a significant role in their success.  I would argue that the direction of Phantom, Evita and the Candide revival in 1973 (and the revival of Show Boat in 1994) were the most significant factors in their success, although I know that is a fairly hyperbolic statement).

Even his mega-flops were well directed.  Grind was a really bad show, but there were visual images in it that I still remember; same with A Doll's Life.  Only once in his directing career was his direction bad, in the original production of Merrily.  His track record is mind-boggling.

Grief is a competent director who doesn't show a lot of inspiration IMO.  Clearly, he has been associated with some excellent musicals; for me, I don't think the direction was a serious factor in any of their successes.  The fact that he has never won a Tony, despite being associated with some really good musicals, is further evidence, at least to me, that I am not the only one who feels that way.

Re contemporaries, I have not seen enough of Rachel Chavkin's work to make any sweeping comments, but I wlll say that there was immense creativity in every show of hers I have see and her direction was a significant contributor to their success.  I think Alex Timbers has a visual flare that probably owes a great debt to Prince, but he has not tackled anything of substance.  Since he is still young, maybe he will get the opportunity to go deeper beyond the glitz).  (I DO believe that he deserved both of his Tony's). 

 

Updated On: 10/7/23 at 12:24 PM

[RUkiddingme]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 12:48pm

No.

[Robbie2]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 9:08pm

No way! Prince won 21 Tony Awards  - Greif ha won 0!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/7/23 at 11:57pm

But Prince was also dealing with shows of a much higher caliber - to me - than Greif - for the most part. I mean, Candide, Follies, Evita, etc. But then you can debate, how much of their success was tied to his influence and guidance? 

For the most recent, I think Greif did decent work on The Noteboo, and he employed all the right elements - lighting, etc - but I think the overall concept of the 3 couples playing through time wasn't totally realized or sucsessful. Now, does that fall on his shoulders? Or the book writers? 

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 10/8/23 at 9:04am

Robbie2 said: "No way! Prince won 21 Tony Awards - Greif ha won 0!"

I don't follow the Tonys that much but it is basically a popularity contest where Broadway crowns its Prom royalty each year, because in America high school never ends. I don't think that means the awards mean nothing but I do think they favor the big performance, the look-at-me directors and designers and tend to not favor the self-effacing performers who are also there to support the other performers on stage and the directors and designers whose presence is meant to recede so the audience will focus on the actors, the characters and the story and not themselves. 

 

Updated On: 10/8/23 at 09:04 AM