LEMPICKA Reviews- Page 20

[MezzoDiva47]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 7:23pm

JSquared2 said: "gibsons2 said: "Lola Getz2 said: "Matt Gould: We have to do better.

Me: Yes, YOU do."

Matt Gould is not the one to blame. He wrote beautiful score. Book writer, director and marketing team are to blame."



While many (most?) would disagree with you about it being a "beautiful score", the quality of the work is not what people are (justifiably) raking him over the coals for -- it's the sense of entitlement, playing the victimand "blaming the Broadway model" in his curtain speech. If the actual show had that much drama -- it'drun for 10 years!

lol

they knew full well what the broadway model was

so to turn around and blame it for their shows demise is disingenuous

no one forced them to move the show to broadway

especially given the tepid response at la jolla 

vanity project

[inception]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 8:21pm

Wick3 said: 
As for Lempicka, if Madonna liked the production, perhaps she can save it if they produce this in London's West End by starring in the lead role? I can see her fans at least buying tickets."

Madonna is 65, doesn't like to perform her own concerts 2 nights in a row if she can help it, and relied heavily on backing tracks for a lot of the vocals on this recent tour.  She's not doing live theatre.

 

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 8:59pm

"Has there been a flop where it was worked on for 10 years, performed out of town, was well received, came to Broadway and flopped, was worked on for 10 more years and then it did well?"

Uhhh.... MERRILY?

[leefowler]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 9:12pm

Well yes…Merrily…But out of the thousands of flop shows over the last hundred years Merrily is the only one. Will Lempicka be the 2nd one? We’ll see…

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 9:55pm

Madonna sang over pre record for songs on this tour, but she sang every song (bar 2).

 

I agree though, she ain't gonna perform in a musical night after night.

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 10:11pm

If they were truly going to refuse making major changes to the material then they should have done the cast recording before they even started previews and had it available before opening. 

[Robbie2]

Posted: 5/20/24 at 10:17pm

JSquared2 said: "Robbie2 said: "Wick3 said: "I agree that the average person goes to tiktok and other forms of social media for information rather than BWW.

I used to come here for information on rush, etc. but nowadays I tend to go to reddit more.

As for Lempicka, if Madonna liked the production, perhaps she can save it if they produce this in London's West End by starring in the lead role? I can see her fans at least buying tickets."



Can you really see Madonna performing this role and singing Woman Is? NO! Madonna bolted during the start of the curtain call and did not go backstage for a photo op so the questions is: Did she like it?"



Madonna is a HUGE fan of Tamara de Lempicka and is a major collector of her paintings. She even showed a collage of them on her recent tour. She also attended the off-Broadway play TAMARA several times."

 

I know that!!! 

Can you really see Madonna performing this role and singing Woman Is? NO! Madonna bolted during the start of the curtain call and did not go backstage for a photo op so the questions is: Did she like it?"

 

In her apartment on CPW 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 8:47am

leefowler said: "Well yes…Merrily…But out of the thousands of flop shows over the last hundred years Merrily is the only one. Will Lempicka be the 2nd one? We’ll see…"

Call me a skeptic but I truly doubt that 

[kdogg36]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 11:52am

Someone in a Tree2 said: ""Has there been a flop where it was worked on for 10 years, performed out of town, was well received, came to Broadway and flopped, was worked on for 10 more years and then it did well?"

Uhhh.... MERRILY?"

Well, Merrily was worked on extensively after flopping on Broadway, but it wasn't publicly developed for many years before Broadway, which the previous post also specified.

 

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 1:55pm

Yeah, the fact that Lempicka has been in workshops for over a decade is really notable, vs Merrily being put together over the course of (iirc) a year and change. I'm not sure if that more likely indicates that they hit a wall in development or if they're just confident about what they put onstage (or both). That whole opening really felt like the kind of thing too many people have spent too much time hammering away at.

[binau]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 2:08pm

Well given how many productions of Merrily were mounted over the years and didn’t really work it does feel like they kind of workshopped it for years until the found the secret ingredient - the cast. 
 

I haven’t seen any other production of Lempicka but I think if it’s the same artists involved you will get to the same outcome. They need a book doctor, a director without such a camp vision, and a new choreographer. That’s not something you can just solve in a workshop. Something needs to change about the first 30 min of the show and all the structure and framing, ‘our time’ etc. it needs radical changes to well and truly work. But I think the foundations are there - a very strong score, an incredible lead and supporting role, you could find another cast, the shakey broad foundations of a book. 
 

 

[JSquared2]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 2:17pm

Charley Kringas Inc said: "Yeah, the fact that Lempicka has been in workshops for over a decadeis really notable, vs Merrily being put together over the course of (iirc) a year and change. I'm not sure if that more likely indicates that they hit a wall in development or if they're just confident about what they put onstage (or both). That whole opening really felt like the kind of thing too many people have spent too much time hammering away at."

 

For a musical, 10 years in development isn't really THAT rare and/or notable.  Look at HARMONY -- that was in development for over 25 years (and they still completely botched it).  The key difference is that Barry Manilow didn't throw a temper tantrum at the final curtain call blaming the rest of the world!

[GiantsInTheSky2]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 2:29pm

What happened to that rumor of a dramaturg coming onboard during previews? Only change I can think of was near the top of the show. 

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 3:14pm

JSquared2 said: "Charley Kringas Inc said: "Yeah, the fact that Lempicka has been in workshops for over a decadeis really notable, vs Merrily being put together over the course of (iirc) a year and change. I'm not sure if that more likely indicates that they hit a wall in development or if they're just confident about what they put onstage (or both). That whole opening really felt like the kind of thing too many people have spent too much time hammering away at."

For a musical, 10 years in development isn't really THAT rare and/or notable. Look at HARMONY -- that was in development for over 25 years (and they still completely botched it). The key difference is that Barry Manilow didn't throw a temper tantrum at the final curtain call blaming the rest of the world!"

Sorry, I worded that poorly! I meant moreso the fact that Merrily was at least partially a flop because they hadn't had the same development time and tryouts, as opposed to Lempicka coming to Broadway after thirteen years of workshops and tryouts and still having huge structural issues, feels indicative of slightly different problems (underbaked vs overbaked). The whole first thirty minutes felt like a parade of darlings they were unwilling to kill.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 3:22pm

GiantsInTheSky2 said: "What happened to that rumor of a dramaturg coming onboard during previews? Only change I can think of was near the top of the show."

It wasn't a rumor –– Peter Duchan was billed as "creative consultant" (aka Dramaturg) and was involved even prior to previews, as he was on Waitress too. But as we've discussed, it can be so hard to implement BIG changes once a show is up and previewing. Rehearsal time is limited, any staging changes require changes in lighting and other departments, and new material has to be written, rehearsed, orchestrated, and teched before it can be implemented.

The expensive but smart thing to do (which most shows do not do because they're confident that they won't need it) is pulling a Shuffle Along and scheduling 3-4 days of previews off in the middle of the preview process, to make changes. Even 1-2 days where they can rehearse on stage all day without a show at night would be beneficial.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 3:58pm

IMHO, after a certain amount of time, no amount of time is going to improve a show.

Has any new Broadway musical in modern memory had less than 3 years of development, from inception to start of previews? (Announcement ≠ Inception.) 5-10 years is the norm, usually somewhere around 7.

The creatives aren't always working consistently throughout the "10 years of development". They might set it down for a while (which can be helpful for some fresh perspective, but not always) or sometimes a plan is in place that's far off. i.e....."we're opening at A.R.T. 18 months from now and we're not scheduling a workshop between now and then", or "collaborators have other projects so this can't be their focus," or "they're waiting on a Broadway house," or "they need to raise more money."

[Kad]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 4:42pm

The longer a show is in development, the more likely that more cooks start getting involved- particularly producers who want to keep their investors happy.

[Hey, Zelda!]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 4:49pm

Kad said: "The longer a show is in development, the more likely that more cooks start getting involved- particularly producers who want to keep their investors happy."

Or families and/or intellectual property rights holders.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 6:49pm

Remember yesterday when we were the ones responsible for the show closing?
 

That was fun. 

[yahyahyah]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 7:02pm

Jordan Catalano said: "Remember yesterday when we were the ones responsible for the show closing?


That was fun."


Sigh. While we’re critiquing, let’s talk about your reading comprehension? 😂

[verywellthensigh]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 7:34pm

All right, now.  The show is closed.  Y'all can just stop.

[kdogg36]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 10:45pm

I thought this show was good but not great - specifically, in the second act, it devolved into maybe the fourth best anti-fascist show of the season - but it sure seems like a lot of collective time has spent on savoring its demise.

[jkcohen626]

Posted: 5/21/24 at 11:35pm

kdogg36 said: "I thought this showwas good but not great - specifically, in the second act, it devolved into maybe the fourth best anti-fascist show of the season - but it sure seems like a lot of collective time has spent on savoring its demise."

I think there was double polarization regarding this show. It got lukewarm reactions and bad reviews, which caused the show's fans to make it their ENTIRE personality and the creatives to respond to the fans with indignation. In response to how obnoxious the fans and creatives became, the haters made hating the show their entire personality. It made for a whole lot of virtual shouting about a show that came and went in two months. 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 5/22/24 at 9:55am

Yesterday Eden posted a story saying they would have been doing act II by now.

Matt Gould posted something as well that I almost rolled my eyes at. 

Here come the tributes, but now they're just annoying me so much. 

[veronicamae]

Posted: 5/22/24 at 9:59am

hearthemsing22 said: "Yesterday Eden posted a story saying they would have been doing act II by now.

Matt Gould posted something as well that I almost rolled my eyes at.

Here come the tributes, but now they're just annoying me so much."

You can unfollow them if it bothers you, you know.

People are allowed to "grieve" the closing of something they cared so much about and invested so much of their time and energy in, even if some of them made a poor showing about why it closed.