#1
Posted: 4/8/25 at 11:24pm
Did anyone here see the original; production? If so what did you think? Is this considered a great show?
#5
Posted: 4/9/25 at 12:38am
Saw it late in the run with Victoria opposite Katie Rose Clarke (who was not as good as kelli but utterly charming) and Aaron Lazar (who blew Matthew Morrison out of the water.) Just spectacular.
#6
Posted: 4/9/25 at 12:51am
The original production was just incredible. Aaron Lazar was the definitive Fabrizio, sure, but the rest of the original cast was sublime. The simple details like leaves blowing in the distance upstage to signify the windy day were breathtaking. One of the best musicals (and certainly one of the best scores) in the last 20 years. (I can’t believe the show is now 20 years old…)
#7
Posted: 4/9/25 at 12:53am
Saw the Reunion concert at LCT and thought it was wonderful. Looking forward to the Boston production (at The Huntington) later this spring
#8
Posted: 4/9/25 at 1:57am
Saw it and loved it. It is a masterpiece and I still can’t believe Spamalot of all things beat it for Best Musical at the Tonys.
#9
Posted: 4/9/25 at 3:51am
I love the score. I’m not sure if I 100% buy all of the story and specifically the major plot point re: accident so I don’t find myself fully engrossed the way I would be otherwise.
Give me claws and a hunch, just away from this bunch.
#10
Posted: 4/9/25 at 7:39am
binau said: "I love the score. I’m not sure if I 100% buy all of the story and specifically the major plot point re: accident so I don’t find myself fully engrossed the way I would be otherwise."
I felt the major plot point is what gives the show its gravity about love and relationships.
#11
Posted: 4/9/25 at 8:17am
Beautiful music. The lyrics are not as great as the music.
Updated On: 4/9/25 at 08:17 AM
#12
Posted: 4/9/25 at 9:07am
Loved the original production and also the Encore's production was pretty top notch. One of the most beautiful scores.
"I hope your Fanny is bigger than my Peter."
Mary Martin to Ezio Pinza opening night of Fanny.
#13
Posted: 4/9/25 at 9:16am
It doesn’t all work for me but Dividing Day always rips my heart out of my chest
#14
Posted: 4/9/25 at 9:27am
Beautiful score, but the show always left me sort of cold. It’s a marble statue of a show for me.
(I do think the revelation about Clara is borderline camp, though, in both detail and execution).
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#15
Posted: 4/9/25 at 9:30am
I’ve seen the show twice. The first time I saw it was with Renee Fleming as Margaret when the Royal Festival Hall production played the Lyric Opera in Chicago and again when NYCC did it in 2023. Both times I thought the show was incredibly sung and performed, though I preferred the former a tad more just because it seemed to be a more “realized” production than the NYCC version.
An issue I had with both productions, and the way the show is routinely cast; they never cast Clara age appropriately. Especially the NYCC production, I just could not suspend my disbelief and imagine Anna Zavelson as a 26 year old. That’s to no fault of her own. She acted and sang the part incredibly.
My father (AIDS)
My sister (AIDS)
My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS)
The gays and the straights
And the white and the spades
#16
Posted: 4/9/25 at 9:59am
It's a major plot point that Clara's age is a surprise, though. She is supposed to both look and behave much younger than she is.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#17
Posted: 4/9/25 at 10:36am
I love it. It's such an unusual and beautiful story with a marvelous score. Intensely romantic. I have seen the original, the TV broadcast, Chicago Opera and Encores. I have my ticket to see it at the Huntington in Boston in May.
#18
Posted: 4/9/25 at 10:41am
It’s a masterpiece. When performed well, it’s at the absolute height of what musical theatre can be: sweeping, romantic, moving, surprisingly funny, and complex in a way that is both mature and accessible.
As far as the original production goes, Victoria Clark’s performance as Margaret will go down (and has) as one of the greatest to grace a Broadway stage. Bartlett Sher's direction, combined with Michael Yeargan’s and Catherine Zuber’s designs, was stunningly beautiful as well. Absolutely a modern classic.
#19
Posted: 4/9/25 at 11:24am
The original production was an experience of overwhelming beauty that has stayed with me for the past 20 years. I saw it twice -- the second time from the front row, dead center -- and both times was overcome with emotion. The combination of the music, the design, and the performances was perfection. I also saw the first national tour, with Christine Andreas and Elena Shaddow, which was very good but not quite on par with Broadway.
I've since seen several subsequent productions of the show, and while I still admire it and love the music, it has never quite worked as well as that first encounter. Perhaps it has to do with knowing the music and the surprise going in, and perhaps it's because there are very few performers who are on the level of that original cast. I thought the Encores staging was underwhelming in nearly every respect.
I'm looking forward to seeing the Huntington's upcoming production in Boston, with Emily Skinner as Margaret.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#20
Posted: 4/9/25 at 12:28pm
That original production was nothing short of magic. Saw the OBC, and was fully enchanted. Then I saw it later in the run with a few replacements, but do remember thinking the new Clara was several steps down from what Kelli O’Hara did with that score. But overall, that LCT production was a masterpiece.
#21
Posted: 4/9/25 at 1:46pm
Kad said: "Beautiful score, but the show always left me sort of cold. It’s a marble statue of a show for me.
(I do think the revelation about Clara is borderline camp, though, in both detail and execution)."
Borderline camp, you say?
....I'm just gonna leave this here...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0ZyPozPNXd/?igsh=aWVzejUxMmFuNDVj
#23
Posted: 4/9/25 at 6:16pm
Saw the original Broadway cast, the national tour in Miami, and Encores. It has one of the most beautiful scores ever. In Miami, it was the first Broadway show to play the then-brand new Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and was a box office disaster, and most of the people who did see it were not kind, dismissing it much like a great deal of the New York audience dismissed the also-gorgeous Days of Wine and Roses.
Sister George
#24
Posted: 4/10/25 at 2:40am
cjmclaughlin10 said: "Saw the Reunion concert at LCT and thought it was wonderful. Looking forward to the Boston production (at The Huntington) later this spring"
I was there too and bawled from start to finish. It was immaculate.
#25
Posted: 4/10/25 at 3:20am
Ravenclaw said: "Kad said: "Beautiful score, but the show always left me sort of cold. It’s a marble statue of a show for me.
(I do think the revelation about Clara is borderline camp, though, in both detail and execution)."
Borderline camp, you say?
....I'm just gonna leave this here...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0ZyPozPNXd/?igsh=aWVzejUxMmFuNDVj"
OMG haha.
But yes, I think this and the 'borderline camp' comment kind of illustrates it for me. There is something just a little off about it. And I WANT to love it of course.
Give me claws and a hunch, just away from this bunch.
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