Is the Company 2011 Philharmonic DVD still happening? — Page 4

You're a Tennessee Williams fan--one thing we agree on. Would you want to have Stanley Kowalski over for dinner? (Or Blanche, for that matter...)

What's wrong with Charley? Frank is the most unlikable character in Merrily.

"and don't get me started about productions that cut Tick Tock..."

You know I've never liked Tick Tock particularly mostly because the music sounds like it is cut from a different cloth. It is schmaltzy and not Sondheim sounding at all. Of course, it was written by David Shire, so the schmaltzy shouldn't really come as a surprise.

What I think is most interesting about the number and the decision of whether or not to use it is the fact that while the standard score licensed by MTI uses the 1995 Broadway Revival score which included Tick Tock, it is listed as optional. In addition to this, productions that elect to use it have to specially request the materials. They are not sent as a part of the standard package. For completeness sake, it should be noted that the script licensed by MTI is actually an amalgam of the 95 Broadway Revival and the 96 London Revival, the latter of which did NOT use Tick Tock. And for that matter the 1970 Broadway original version is also available for licensing as an "alternate orchestration" and needless to say it does include Tick Tock. Regardless, in the "standard" licensed version, Tick Tock is listed as optional, which I feel is a rather clear statement by Sondheim that he at the VERY least approves of the number being cut at the discretion of each individual production, if not recommending that it be.

Eric,

Thank you for pointing out that when you referred to "people" and "we" you were only referring to your own preferences. And thank you for so generously letting me "have" Dolly. I'll be similarly generous. You can have Fosca and Joanne. I think I've got the better of the bargain.

Ljay,

Charley is a smug, superior, in-your-face, smartass.

As far as I can tell, only the 1970 score/instrument books are materials that MTI can send, leaving the script still the 95/96 rewrite. That's based only on their website, however, so I'm not 100% on this

I believe the replacement for that is considered official and required no matter which version you're doing. As I recall, the vocal parts they send for that song have the fag lyric in them and then they send an errata sheet saying to change it.

Eh, I'm happy to have no song at the end of Act One. It was the one point in the Philharmonic version (which I saw in the movie theatre) where I got a little bored and my mind started to wander. We know who Bobby is at that point and what he's about, it just seems like padding.

But I'm of the opinion that the show should stay a '70s period piece and use the original orchestrations which have never been remotely equalled.

I think that's exactly Joanne's problem, John. She's way too smart to have so little to do. No wonder she drinks!

And I'm surprised to hear New York has changed so much since I moved West 27 years ago! When I lived in Manhattan, a Joanne wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. That "I don't suffer fools gladly because I'm rich and I don't have to" attitude was very common in the 1970s. Even among the not so rich.

(Yes, Eric, the Philharmonic version does have at least one birthday party scene in which Joanne is rude to some of the other women, along with the last scene with Bobby. Why is she Bobby's friend? He enjoys her candor AND she picks up the check.)

John, my dad was the South Florida version of your stepfather. Yes, you may shudder. My mother and her family were deeply religious, however, so no Playboy clubs for me. Thank heavens, I think.

I'd argue that Joanne is not a lady who lunches, but instead is a girl who just watches. That's her frustration. She's not in the lunch set, but she does have money. So...what does she do? If you watch MAD MEN, her equivalent is the former Mrs. Roger Sterling (and that actress would be a dynamite Joanne if she could sing a note).

Jonn Hamm should play Bobby!

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Robbie, you have the right arc, no doubt about it. Of course the song is ultimately about Joanne; otherwise, it has no impact and why the hell is she singing it so late in the evening?

But the lyric is very carefully structured:

1st chorus: the ladies who lunch (the overall category)

2nd chorus: Subset A-the girls who play smart

3rd chorus: Subset B-the girls who play wife

4th chorus: Subset C-the girls who just watch (Joanne's own subset)

Final chorus: girls on the go (ironic)/ladies who lunch (back to the overall category).

I know you're a smart guy, so we can certainly agree to disagree on this, Robbie. But I don't think the structure of the song supports your argument. If Sondheim had intended "Subset C-the girls who just watch" to be a category mutually exclusive of "the ladies who lunch", he would have written that section as something other than the same chorus as the other subsets. IMO, obviously.

Why does she "grudgingly give props to the ladies who lunch" except that she is among their number? That's what makes her demand that everybody "rise" so raw and moving.

Robbie, we should be clear that Joanne is singing about upper-middle class women of New York only. Obviously, she isn't talking about the working class.

In my view, the ladies who lunch are those upper-middle class women. They are the ones with the income and leisure time to have luncheons rather than, say, grabbing a sandwich in between nursing shifts at the hospital.

All of those women have too much money (and often too much education) and therefore too much time on their hands. So they play at improving themselves in dilettante fashion (girls who play smart) or they try to be the perfect spouse and mother (girls who play wife) or they sit and drink themselves into a stupor while making sarcastic comments about the others (girls who just watch).

All of these are "girls on the go", running from their fear of death but really running in circles and going nowhere, i.e., the "ladies who lunch".

OT, but I finally caught Julia Roberts in MONA LISA SMILE, a much better film than I expected. It takes place at Wellesley in 1953-4 and details exactly how the most brilliant women in the country were educated to be the "ladies who lunch". The film portrays Wellesley in that period as a "Joanne training camp".

(I'll shut up on the subject now until you have a chance to respond. I trust that my remarks here convey nothing but respect for you and your views, even when we disagree.)

Updated On: 8/14/12 at 05:55 PM