John Doyle to direct "BARNUM"- Page 3

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 7:12pm

Thank God I saw the original with Jim Dale

I will take a pass on it

[D2]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 8:16pm

Me too.

[colored by esteem]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 9:26pm

Exciting!
Best of luck to all trying out!

[keen on kean]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 10:48pm

Doyle's West Coast opera production of Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is not going to require the singers to play instruments. It is scheduled for February 2007.

[purpleprince101]

Posted: 12/29/06 at 10:52pm

i think it would work well with once on this island and suessical

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 12/30/06 at 3:47pm

Before COMPANY opened, I wrote on these boards that I thought Doyle's "actor/musician" style was wrong because it was coming straight on the heels of SWEENEY, and the response here was almost enough to warrant the need of a flame-proof suit. Then I saw COMPANY, and (sorry to say it, guys) I was sorry-grateful to see I was freaking right... and you guys are just now catching up?? It was a lame idea layered onto a show that didnt need such gimmickry, but we got stuck with it because, after all, that's what John does to a lot of his musicals, right? Doyle even said, in the days prior to COMPANY, that he wants to do the same thing to NIGHT MUSIC. And now BARNUM? Please, someone take away this man's union card... NOW.

And now he wants to tackle opera. Oh please God, no. I dont think I could take even LA BOHEME with "actor-musicians" playing Puccini.

[davalmar]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 10:52am

Albeit a bit late to reply, here are my 2 cents. I am very excited for another Doyle production. I am a singer/actor who plays many instruments and I see it as ABOUT TIME I had any sort of upper hand in an audition. Also, Doyle's Sweeney Todd was absolutely mesmorizing! I loved it! Company didn't work as well, in my opinion, but Barnum seems like a perfect fit for actors/musicians.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 11:33am

I'm glad I'm not the only one underwhelmed by "Company." I saw and loved the original (the sets alone were worth every penny charged BEFORE the amazing cast and great score). The new version is, sorry to say, excruciating to listen to. Maybe I caught an off performance, but this is not a score to be played by anyone other than the best musicians money can but and I thought the music sounded godaweful.

Perhaps in "Sweeney Todd" you could get away with the odd bad note, but "Company" has a much more vibrant score (not as melodic but if you screw up the rhythm, you're all alone out there) and all too often, I found myself noticing wrong notes, lost notes, lousy playing...

It just did not work for me because this time, the magic was not there.

Mr. Doyle should shuffle his cards or even get a new trick.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 11:51am

Ummmmm do you really think company is harder than sweeeney? You've never looked at either score have you? Sweeney is leagues harder than Company. I think what you may be reacting to is the orchestration. I think the use of saxes and very little percussion makes the score sound a but honk-ish but that's hardly Doyle's fault. I actually think Barnum works perfectly. And yes they do already have stage musicians written into the musical. I think because the whole show is a big circus, it works very well. It's performance based.

I love how people are saying "I'll take the original" or "the orignal will stay in my mind". What I want to know is who is asking you to forget about the original. The point of a revival is to remind people of the original yet present it in a new way. Now it can be mildly new like the Music Man revival or drastically new like Sweeney. I personally say GREAT I don't want to see another revival of a show that I know and have seen. I don't want to see Les Mis or A Chorus Line done just as it was 3 or 15 years ago (complete with carbon copies of staging and costumes). That, to me, is not artistry it's a reconstruction. I prefer true revivals even if the style is similar to others, it's new for this work.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 3:16pm

There have been revival that have worked, stunningly so. The pared down PACIFIC OVERTURES, for example, or the brilliant CANDIDE that Prince did in the 70s.

But the point is: the COMPANY score is a lot more complex from a rhythmic point of view than SWEENEY. There's less room for error in COMPANY because of how tightly written the score is. SWEENEY may be tougher to sing, but COMPANY is far tougher to perform as a musician.

Then, to the larger question: did the revival work? No. Sorry. It was an embarrassment, almost as piss-poor as the Roundabout take on FOLLIES a few years ago. It has this cute "hook" that goes nowhere, and people are so desperate to celebrate its return to Broadway that they'll actually post, "See, when Bobby sits down at the piano, it's, like, cathartic." No, it's not; it's lame.

But whatever. I'm waiting for the day when we see LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, performed by orchestra musicians taking on acting roles.

[WriteInNYC]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 3:34pm

This is truly a case of the Emperor's New Clothes...I just don't see the so-called "genius" of this tired idea. And it's not even originally Doyle's. Sam Mendes had the wonderful concept of having the chorus members of "Cabaret" double as the show's musicians which worked for several reasons: first, it served the setting of the show (it made sense that the cabaret musicians were actually onstage playing the entire score) and secondly, it didn't require the principal players to sacrifice their work as actors to deal with awkward instruments. (This is what watered down "Sweeney Todd," in my opinion, and why "A Little Priest" was one of the few great moments in that revival, because Todd & Lovett got to sing and act the number without having to play instruments. I'm sorry, but when your actors are playing instruments they are not fully giving themselves to the work of being actors, that's just a fact.) "Barnum" seems like a random choice for this now-hackneyed approach. Isn't it enough that half the cast need to be jugglers, tumblers, etc.? I'm envisioning Joyce Heth playing a trumpet, Tom Thumb wrestling with a big trombone, Charity on drums...ugh, it makes my brain hurt!

[Fosse76]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 3:41pm

He has turned what at first was interesting into an endless gimmick.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 3:50pm

Actually SeanMartin I'm speaking as a musician. I've played both the Company and the Sweeney scores and I'm telling you Sweeney is leagues harder than company. As a pianist I say try to play Another Hundred People, then try to play Worst Pies in London or numerous other pieces in the Sweeney score, you tell me which one is easier. Frankly it's not as if Sweeney is rhythmically all that easy. Frankly Another Hundred People is the hardest song in Company (rhythmically). That was my point.


Now my question to you is, What qualifies it as an embarassment? You think it didn't work? Fine. But while you were in your sit embarassed, plenty of people were actually enjoying the performance. It's doing fairly well at the box office.
Updated On: 1/9/07 at 03:50 PM

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 4:01pm

>> But while you were in your sit embarassed, plenty of people were actually enjoying the performance

There are millions of people who enjoyed "Dumb and Dumber" as well. Somehow that's not much of a barometer, thanks.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 4:10pm

lol Yes because you know EVERYTHING about theatre and therefore if YOU didn't think it was good, everyone else is uncultured. LOL right.

[JRybka]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 4:14pm

I think it should be done in VEGAS and have the ones who do Cirque du Soliel do it. That would be awesome.
But what do I know. I am not a director

[bwaybud]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 5:04pm

I feel jipped of seeing any real productions of major shows. Like the idea for sweeney, and company was great but its still not the feel of seeing a broadway production, its like a mini off-broadway concert.
damn this generation.

[Plum]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 5:48pm

Damn this generation? What the heck's that supposed to mean?

Doyle is milking his American success for all it's worth. *shrug* Fine. Why don't we get outraged at the thousands of conventional revivals going on, ones that don't even bother with creativity or thought but simply package nostalgia? At least he's doing something different. And it's not even something that invalid, in my opinion. He's just bringing musical expression onstage in one more way, a way that, done well, can add new dramatic wrinkles to shows we thought we knew.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 6:12pm

>> lol Yes because you know EVERYTHING about theatre and therefore if YOU didn't think it was good, everyone else is uncultured. LOL right.

And LOL yes because you, o Great Shining Star of the Stage, know EVERYTHING ELSE and therefore if YOU think it was AMAZING, it had to have been for everyone else. LOL right.

God. Give me a break.

You want to pay serous money for a half-baked concept like that? Go for it, sweetheart, and do it with my blessing. But it wont change the inescapable fact that Doyle went back to the well once too often, and this time it flat out did not work, and anyone with even a marginal understanding of musical theatre can see why within the first ten minutes of the first act. If you cant, that's your problem and not mine. Get over it and move on.

[desiree armfeldt]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 7:50pm

Whoaaaa....Barnum is a great show, no doubt, but I think the general idea of having people singing and playing the violin while tumbling is bound to crash. Sure, the show deserves a revival, but not like this

Now, I am in no way bashing John Doyle, but the idea was created to be innovative. If a third production mounts, its just going to be old. It basically worked for Sweeney because it made it more intense and it worked for Company, due to the amazing orchestrations by Mary Mitchell Campbell. However, I just don't see it happening for a show about a circus....

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 10:24pm

Ohh sean LOL it's time for you to shut up now because frankly you really don't know who I am. I could have more theatrical knowledge than you, you don't know. The difference is I'm not sitting here stating things as fact. I mean really what do YOU do? what makes you so great.

The funny thing is that you tried to throw my comment back at me but I never said I liked Company, I never even said I saw it. I was just defending the MANY people (many of which are theatrical professionals) who did. So what is there to get over? The fact that you're mildly annoyed that I said you don't know everything about theatre should point to an issue you have...

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 11:03pm

Ummmmmmmm, I happen to OWN both scores and consult them often. I am perfectly aware of the complexity of "Sweeney Todd" but I still say that "Company" is far more difficult to perform, at least to perform and sing - or it must have been when I saw the show because frankly, it was so maddeningly botched throughout the night that it took my attention away from the story, the lyrics and the vocal performances.

I loved the Doyle version of Sweeney because it was so raw and earthy. It felt like a show performed by a bunch of music hall actors in a smoke-filled chamber in 1890 - to gaslight to boot.

Company is a slick machine of a show (look at Boris Aronson's original sets) and this version seemed like a group of unemployed musicians getting together to hammer out the score (and the marching around with the instruments got very tedious very quickly).

There just seemed to be no originality. And the gloss was missing.

[D2]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 11:15pm

I don't think Mary Mitchell Campbell's orchestrations for COMPANY are as successful as Sarah Travis' work on SWEENEY TODD. Travis captured the flavor and tension of Jonathan Tunick's original orchestrations, while Cambell's work just gives the COMPANY score a thin, reduced sound.

And Jazzy, not to butt in and defend SeanMartin, but have you checked out his website? He is an accomplished theater professional, and his work is gorgeous.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 1/9/07 at 11:17pm

allmylife I own them both too. I've actually done Sweeney, but I didn't have to worry about playing too. I still think Sweeney is harder than Company. This is me speaking as a pianist. I suppose for different people different things are harder than others. If I'm having a bad playing day, I'd rather have to pick up Company. Whatever, I must say I'm not a fan of the orchestration.


I actually had seen Sean's website and I do know what he does. My question was rhetorical actually. Updated On: 1/9/07 at 11:17 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 1/10/07 at 12:24am

Jazzy, neither score is a walk in the park, on Sunday or any other day. I agree they are both tricky. It's the king, after all, n'est ce pas?.

I guess I just MUCH prefered Todd.

And SeanMartin is very talented indeed.