John Doyle's Barnum CANCELED — Page 2

As far as I know, the singers are just singing.

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Barnum is far from a 3 rd rate musical

It was very good & I would love to see a revival of this show

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The Mahagonny press release is bull****. The opera is by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Brecht is ALWAYS performed in a "stripped down" style. Anyone with a knowledge of theatre history knows this.

Jon - the MET did Mahagonny in the 1980's in full opera-sized production, not necessarily stripped down, even though Weill-Brecht is no Verdi.

It sometimes makes me laugh the way people respond to John Doyle's productions. Do people say "Ooh, can't believe Susan Stroman is directing another musical with actors who can DANCE. When will she try something new?" In the UK, quite a few directors have employed the actor/musician thing. Even before John Doyle made it big on Broadway.

I think people take the demand for triple threats for granted, but when a director wants to stretch it to something additional - they get criticised for it. Weird.

Goldes: Success always breeds a backlash - look at THE PRODUCERS and how within a year of its opening it had gone from being a golden ticket to being the show that people loved to trash. The concept of actors/musicians has worn out its welcome a little faster than most trends. And to compare stripped down orchestrations and characters playing instruments to Susan Stroman, Jerry Mitchell, Kathleen Marshall (to say nothing of Bob Fosse, Michael Bennet, Jerome Robbins...) directing a musical with dance is, at the very least, a strange sort of logic.

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Updated On: 1/12/07 at 07:15 AM

>> Jon - the MET did Mahagonny in the 1980's in full opera-sized production, not necessarily stripped down, even though Weill-Brecht is no Verdi.

Uhm... even the Met's production was pretty stripped down. A lot of their mid-80s productions were scaled back because of financial problems, even though it gave us amazing things like DIALOGUES OF THE CARMELITES and LE PROPHETE, both of which were done with sets that were almost non-existant by Met standards. The MAHOGANNY was performed in true Brecht style, with tilting placards and other overtly theatrical scenic pieces.

East Bay Opera did a more or less "full" production, and it visually worked, to a degree.

>> Do people say "Ooh, can't believe Susan Stroman is directing another musical with actors who can DANCE

The *issue* is that Doyle's actor-musician thing was a gimmick in COMPANY. It didnt really add to the production; if anything, it detracted from it. It was also his second Sondheim show in as many seasons, and the back-to-back comparisons are almost inevitable, especially when so much else in the current production falters. And now he wanted to do the same thing with BARNUM and, as reported elsewhere, NIGHT MUSIC (Yet *another* Sondheim!). And at that point, it will be nothing more than a directorial gimmick, no matter what spin he puts on it. Looking at the call sheet for BARNUM, it had moved completely into la-la land. I'm not surprised people are suspicious about what he'll do with MAHOGANNY, even though for that work it might actually play well. But it's just going to the well one too many times. Even Stroman knows you cant repeat choreography from one show to the next, but Doyle, IMHO, was attempting to do the directorial equivalent. And no matter how he packages it, people will *always* say, "Oh look, it's that actor-musician thing again." It's inevitable.

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His SWEENEY had the same problem, CPD - not across the board, but enough to downgrade the production.

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It's difficult, but not impossible to play the flute while you're walking a tightrope

It was GREAT the first time... second... fine...but again, and with Barnum? maybe it will make Mr. Doyle use new creativity, and get a new awesome idea... which he will!