Lestat Viewing 4/20 Review (W/ A LOT OF SPOILERS)

[Phantomerik15]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 10:00am

As I've promised yesterday, I'm going to write a review on the show with, of course, inevitable spoilers....BUT for those who don't want to know what happens I'm being nice and I'm going to write another with the least possible amount of spoilers later, after this one.



Beyond this point you agree to read the spoilers...........Do NOT sue me if you really don't want to see the SPOILERS and have read this...I gave you a WARNING. :)
____________________________________________________________
This is from what I remember.




Act I
It opens with Lestat fighting the wolves, he has a knife and all, swinging it around. This part, in my opinion, was ok, Hugh played it out perfectly.
He then goes back to his mother, Gabrielle, where they talk a bit. Then Gabrielle/Carolee sings "Beautiful Boy" which was pretty sad. The song is good though. Then Lestat/Hugh gets reunited with Nicolas when he finds him doing some theatre in Paris.
OK, as you can see, the show is all over the place. Very choppy, though I would think they trimmed a lot of it based on other reviews I've read. Everything happens too fast and I think people who have not read the books will be mostly lost. The problem with this musical is that they try to explain too many things in too little time (2hrs 35min)
Make Me As You Are was silly. I think they needed to tell more on why Gabrielle is telling Lestat: "make me as you are." The audience was thinking: "she's suppose to be his mother, all conservative and all, why is she being so selfish?"
I will not take you through the sequence of the whole show but I will now jump to "Morality Play."
I know it's the play within a play and it's cool with all the masks and white powdered people and those nice colored sheets or whatever they are....BUT PLEASE LOSE IT!...It just pulls the people out from the real story. It'll just confuse people even more. (And the guy who tells the story, I think Laurent, kept on spitting on me) I had no clue what was going on in that part as well. It was corny and, as I said, throws people off the actualy storyline.
"Crimson Kiss" is probably the best song there was in the show. Carolee did an amazing job and that part, they did right, I LOVED IT! But, again, everything happens so fast! She leaves..........and Marius makes his grand opening "VIOLA" he emerges from the center, flying his above everyone else. "Come with me!" he says. I said this yesterday, it was all sudden.
Act II
"Welcome to the New World" was fun and entertaining, so cool. Lestat finds Louis and makes him into one of the immortals. He strives for new meaning in his new role in life. (EMBRACE IT-which I also loved) Now, here comes the choppy part again. Right after they finish Embrace It, Lestat finds Claudia and makes her into. The problem is that many people might say: "Why the hell is he making another?!" They need to explain that better...But, of course, they mention it later when everyone is lost in another part of the story. "I Want More" comes some thirty years after the scene before, AGAIN, trying to tell too much in too little time. Soon after "I'll Never Have that Chance" Claudia tries to kill Lestat, but she uses a knife so, of course he can't die, but Louis starts a fire (which is so SUDDEN) Now, this is really hard to understand, even for me (it's either that or I missed something in the book) the audience was probably asking themselves: Why the hell is Louis trying to kill Lestat when just before (I think) he was trying to stop Claudia and after thirty years of living together? Now, there comes the scene that I heard everyone talk about on panarophiles.net: one moment, Lestat is being killed, fire and all where he says "I MUST NOT DIE LIKE THIS!" and then he goes into the fire......*a quick flash on the stage: TEN YEARS LATER*....."SAIL ME AWAY!"...yep, they still have that scene. I almost burst out laughing. I mean, it was too sudden. Next comes "To Kill Your Kind" which I really loved. Armand/Drew was really HOT is this song, I couldn't help but smile. The death of Claudia was wierd, I mean, it was like "Ahhh" ok, she died. Embrace It REPRISE comes next, where Louis goes off on his own.
Armand emerges again and pulls Lestat down a cliff (did I miss something? why did Armand do it?) I had no clue why he threw Lestat down a cliff. And the finale...I didn't feel that it ended. Gabrielle comes out of the blue saying "Stand up, son." He stands up and goes up to the front and says " I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT AND I WILL LIVE FOREVER "
The end.

The songs were pretty much sung by Hugh, no one else got more than two songs! I was surprise because Carolee appeared so little, Nicolas had a very small part, Marius DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A SINGING PART, Louis appeared in a small part in Act II, so did Claudia.

[WaltSummersPI]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 10:32am

Really, no offense, but it seems like you weren't paying much attention.

"Why the hell is Louis trying to kill Lestat when just before (I think) he was trying to stop Claudia and after thirty years of living together?" -- It's already been established that Claudia and Louis are planning to leave Lestat. After Claudia injures Lestat badly, Louis knows that the only way to put him out of his misery is to start a fire and have him die by the fire.

Also, Louis is not a small part. He's in practically every scene of the second act.

The caption before Sail Me Away says a month later, not ten years.

You have no idea why Armand pushes Lestat off the building? Seriously?

[BluCat500]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:07pm

Armand emerges again and pulls Lestat down a cliff (did I miss something? why did Armand do it?) I had no clue why he threw Lestat down a cliff.

Hm, you did indeed miss something..the first act...

Armand was living underground with a slew of vampires, supressing them with myths such as the danger of the crucifix, and ruling over them. However, then Lestat and Gabriel come and dispel the dark laws which Armand had enforced, and convince the Vampires to live some semblance of a life, which is why they're all involved in theater the rest of the show...

Thus, Armand's motivation for killing Claudia and pushing Lestat would be this ancient grudge.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:07pm

That's not a review. That's a poorly written recap. You're like the heir to Eug's throne.

Updated On: 4/21/06 at 12:07 PM

[WaltSummersPI]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:10pm

BluCat, to add on to that, Lestat pushes the one button Armand can't deal with. Armand has searched high and low for Marius, and when Lestat not only proves that he has seen Marius, but tells him that Marius thinks of Armand as his biggest crime against his own kind, and that Armand is unable to love, Armand simply cannot deal with Lestat's presence and is pushed to the literal edge.

[BluCat500]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:15pm

Oooh yeah forgot about that...

Oh, and it wasn't just a recap he profoundly reviewed it too, didn't you see the song Beautiful Boy...is sad... but good

Updated On: 4/21/06 at 12:15 PM

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:20pm

Yea, you definately missed some stuff, the writing was quite clear in my opinion, I have not read the books.

If you have any questions, PM me. Thanks for the review!

Also, the ending is constantly changing it seems. I saw the show on Sat and it ended with a reprise of "The Crimson Kiss" and then Marius and Lestat slide backwards on an elevator thing and rise, and then he comes out in modern, well 90s, attire. In the playbill, it says "From the Dead" reprise, that didn't happen when I saw it.

Can someone clear this up?

[jimnysf]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:26pm

She was probably falling asleep during the first act so it is possible that she missed something.

[WaltSummersPI]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:28pm

There was a reprise of From the Dead in SF, and the orchestral part of it has appeared as a reprise in some previews, but it's gone now. The show is frozen as of Tuesday night.

[Phantomerik15]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 12:42pm

Ok, yeah, I probably missed some stuff..I wrote this in a hurry early in the morning and didn't reread it. ok, now I get why Armand pushes Lestat off a cliff. But I think the characters came on and off. There was too much of that reappearing and disappearing.

[WaltSummersPI]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 1:39pm

That is hardly the case. Lestat has some definite flaws, but none of them have anything to do with the appearance of characters.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 10:21pm

Wait a second. That finale is frozen? So that means it just Lestat coming out, saying the line then blackout?

Oh god no...

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 10:38pm

What cliff? Armand throws Lestat off of the top of a building.

[LiteMyCandlePhantom?]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 10:49pm

And to "The songs were pretty much sung by Hugh, no one else got more than two songs!"....the title of the show is Lestat its not "Lestat and some other vampires"and Hugh plays Lestat don't you think that he would sing most of the songs?

I'm not trying to be nasty but its just common knowledge

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/21/06 at 11:01pm

Keep in mind the Phantom isn't on stage for more than half an hour, and HE'S the title character...

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 4:19am

What I want to know is why you're all acting like a complete bunch of assholes because someone posted a re-cap about Lestat?

Sheesh.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 4:41am

Hey, we were assholes before that!

[secret-soul]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 9:47am

The Phantom appears onstage for a total of 35 minutes, and sings a lot offstage too.

As for Lestat...I saw it on April 3rd so it was still quite a mess and it sounds like they've fixed up parts of it since then. That ending though...I guess they REALLY want that last line in there...but it SUCKS. I mean, come ON! It's good for the commercials, but take it out of the friggin show.

As for the "review" up top--it wasn't very good. I'm sorry that I didn't post mine weeks ago but I've been off the boards. And is the part of Claudia getting Lestat with the tainted Absynthe gone? When I saw it the part with the girl and the Absynthe and the drug was still in there before she starts slashing him. And yes, Louis and Claudia want to leave Lestat, but Claudia's plan was unbenownst to Louis so when she stabs him and slashes him and drugs him, leaving Lestat in intense pain, but cannot die, Louis is trying to honor Lestat and "respectfully" kill him--ending his pain, letting him go into the fire. However, Lestat will not be quashed. Going into the fire must be voluntary as with his maker and Nicolas. So he escapes.

Question--this is very important--PLEASE tell me they've cut the constant "wolf killer!" coming out of the dark silence, accompanied by the image of a rippling eye upstage of Nicolas' apartment...

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 10:43am

"Hey, we were assholes before that!"

Hahaha!

[Gingersnap]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 11:40am

The part with Claudia offering Lestat a present of a girl with absinthe in her blood is still there.

And, yes, the bit with the disembodied voice saying "wolfkiller" is gone. The voice does whisper Lestat's name instead. No eye, though there's a swirling of the projections. I could do without the swirling, but the whispered name creeps me out because I though I heard someone call my name when I was home alone...turned out it was someone outside, but it was creepy.

[Phantomerik15]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 12:24pm

OK, since everyone's so mad at me let's just drop this. I'm sorry I missed some stuff and i'm sorry that i posted this, making everyone mad and all.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 12:41pm

Phantomerik. No need to apologize and you should feel free to post whatever you want. Some people will attack you and others will support you, no matter what the subject, but you should not feel bad for asking questions or expressing your opinions.

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/22/06 at 12:43pm

That's not a review. That's a poorly written recap. You're like the heir to Eug's throne.

--- LMAO!

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 10:27am

Don't be sorry, Phantomerik. Do not *ever* be sorry