MATILDA WAS ROBBED- Page 8

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 12:19am

Oh, I'm sorry you had to actually THINK about what the person was saying instead of humming it.

[gigicee]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 2:56am

the advance sales of matilda were leaked to the times and they are more than kinky. double i think. And I agree that it outshone everything at the tonys.

[binau]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 4:56am

That advance thing is such an interesting perspective. When you look at the grosses that extra few hundred thousand a week to Kinky Boots made it look like the show had the edge in ticket sales, when in reality they were 10 million dollars behind lol. Maybe the Tony for Best Musical was better off going to Kinky Boots to help them survive, but Matilda was still robbed of best score.

I've already shown examples of Naughty and Quiet lyrics I really enjoy, let's take a look at When I Grow Up. They are a bit simpler, but I just love the metaphor:

When I grow up
I will be tall enough to reach the branches
that I need to reach to climb the trees
you get to climb when you're grown up.

[Wishing Only Wounds]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 5:13am

Oh jeez, give the Best Score thing a rest. Kinky's score was loved by many; that's also reflected in the reviews. Many voters have gone on record saying how they felt Matilda was extremely overhyped. Regardless, even going into the awards, a majority of those hoping for Matilda as Best Musical agreed that Kinky Boots would most likely win (and deserve) Best Score.

To those saying Cyndi won due to her popularity, shame on you! If history shows us anything, 2009 took away any merit that void claim may have had.

[After Eight]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 6:03am

"Oh, I'm sorry you had to actually THINK about what the person was saying instead of humming it."

Don't be sorry. One can't even make out what is being said, much less think about it. I guess diction, audibility, intelligibility are no longer considered an essential part of the theatregoing experience. But hey, why bother with such inconsequential matters when you can write it all off, as you did earlier, to the stupidity of Americans?

As far as the humming part goes, though, you are absolutely correct. Who could-- or would even want to -- hum this ugly, tuneless farrago? I'd rather listen to a tin lizzie clunking down the steeet.

This whole thread can be summed up thus: sore losers and snots.

Not the best of pairings.

Their offense is rank.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/13/13 at 7:00am

Oh girl. You have worn me out.

It won't be the first time.

[TheatreKid3]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 12:30am

Apparently AMNY agrees.

http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/snubbed-at-tonys-5-all-time-musicals-that-got-robbed-1.5479428

[binau]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 12:51am

Great list there.

[Theater'sBestFriend]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 6:50am

"Apparently AMNY agrees."

So it's AM NY's word against the American Theater Wing, the Outer Critics Circle, the Drama League, and the general public. Now I know why I say "no thanks!" when it's pushed in my face in the subway.

If Matilda's advance is what the uncredited "leak" says it is, I am glad. It will have been based upon the advance word from London. They will need it for advertising and keeping what must be a very expensive show running. Their weekly grosses and average ticket prices have been on an inexorable glide path downward since previews started on Broadway (apart from opening week and Memorial Day bumps), reflective of negative word of mouth. That is more important than anything.

I hope they get another big bump post Tony's, because I only wish them well -- it's an interesting show of much merit, even if Brantley killed it with overhyping and 50% of the audience can't hear 80% of it. But Matilda on Broadway wasn't robbed for one simple reason: it didn't own the Tony, any more than all the other Best Musical awards it kept losing. No one did before June 9th.

[John Adams]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 7:26am

One can't even make out what is being said, much less think about it. I guess diction, audibility, intelligibility are no longer considered an essential part of the theatregoing experience.

Oh, After Eight... Everybody knows the sound design was really poor. But, how would you account for so many of us who DO know what was said and sung in spite of the bad sound design? Are we some kind of extraordinary beings with cryptological superpowers?

Who could-- or would even want to -- hum this ugly, tuneless farrago?

That's Geraldine Page as Madame Medusa in The Rescuers, isn't it? ("Who would want to love an ugly little girl like you?")

...loved her in that.

Updated On: 6/15/13 at 07:26 AM

[Steve C.]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 7:32am

Aside from the visible and audio merits of both shows, I still think that M lost because of how the RSC kept playing with the potential producers that wanted to bring it to their own theater companies in NY. These are the people voting for the awards and I think that was like a political payback for the way they dangled the eventual rights to transfer it to the U.S. (The Tony rules and exemptions committee change like a baby's diaper). Anyway, M will still be fine with ticket sales; and if it does close earlier than expected, I think the RSC would probably do it in spite of their self.

[binau]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 7:42am

Theatre's best friend. Your analysis of Matilda's grosses is completely incorrect. No such pattern exists. Please look carefully at the data.

[After Eight]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 8:26am

"Are we some kind of extraordinary beings with cryptological superpowers? "

Well, isn't that obvious? Super minds, super powers.

Like Matilda.

[Theater'sBestFriend]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 8:29am

"Please look carefully at the data."

Oh, I have, on this website; the link to the data is below. They show Matilda's weekly gross falling more weeks than not; it is now in 7th place by gross. I hope the Tony broadcast and summer tourist season will give it a boost.

I do appreciate it when folks excerpt and print the Matilda lyrics here -- it makes me realize how much I missed when I saw the show because they weren't intelligible to me. Obviously, some people can make them out, and apparently studying them beforehand or seeing the show more than once helps a lot.

I think the widely reported intelligibility problem, which has been well analyzed in this thread as being a problem in how the lyrics were written, doesn't affect 100% of audience members, just a significantly higher percentage than in your typical musical. Maybe that was less of an issue with British audiences. But I thinks it's a big reason the Broadway production kept losing the various Best Musical awards. It is musical theater, after all.

If the Tony were given for Best Poetry Award, perhaps it wouldn't have lost...
Weekly Broadway Grosses

[John Adams]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 8:29am

Well, isn't that obvious? Super minds, super powers.

Like Matilda.

^^^ GOOD ANSWER!!!
(Heaven help me... I'm starting to enjoy your presence...) Updated On: 6/15/13 at 08:29 AM

[binau]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 8:59am

"Oh, I have, on this website; the link to the data is below. They show Matilda's weekly gross falling more weeks than not"

1. That is not true. It has increased and fallen about equally - however this is completely irrelevant because of this point:

2. It has been completely sold out every week for many weeks now. There appears to be random fluctuations due to slightly more discounts in certain weeks, but there is no clear trend. For your claim to be true the grosses if graphed per week would show a line with a negative gradient as time increases. However, none exists. There is no trend in Matilda's grosses "inexorably" declining at all. It just isn't in the data. Your interpretation is completely incorrect.

[Movidude742]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:02am

Regarding the lyrics, I erally enjoy them. The fact that there is a TARDIS reference on Broadway is awesome. But put me in the camp that couldn't make them out in the house. Was it the sound design or the way the lyrics were put to music, I am not sure. but I keep going back to Sondheim's books. Instead of paraphrasing, I will quote from the Preface of "Finishing the Hat"

"I have not always been skilled or diligent enough to follow them as faithfully as I would like, but they underlie everything I've ever written. In no particular order, and to be written in stone:

Content Dictates Form
Less is More
God is in the Details

all in the service of

Clarity

without which nothing else matters."

In his introduction he makes clear the difference between poetry and lyrics:

"Lyrics, even poetic ones are not poems. Poems are written to be read, silently or aloud, not sung. Some lyrics, awash with florid imagery, present themselves as poetry, but music only underscores (yes) the self-consciousness of the effort. In theatrical fact, it is usually the plainer and flatter lyric that soars poetically when infused with music. Oscar Hammerstein II's

'Oh, what a beautiful mornin',
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin'
Ev'rythin's goin' my way!'

is much more evocative than this couplet from his "All the Things You Are":

'You are the promised kiss of springtime
That makes the lonely winter seem long.'"

Okay I have drifted from my point.

Clever is awesome. If it services the story great, but if you sacrifice clarity you have missed the forest for all the trees.

Me. I like the lyrics as I have started to learn them from the London cast recording. I liked performances (Lesli and Bertie particularly) I liked the set, I liked the melodies. I liked the story.

But for whatever reason that I have not figured out, my first viewing left me a little cold. The whole was less than the sum of its parts. I liked it, I just didn't love it, and I thought I would. For me, that counts in my overall rating of a show.

I am going to see it again, probably a few times. and I hope I grow to like it even more

I am thrilled that so many shows are doing well right now tho. I mean come on, a Tonys that did not cause a beloved show to post a closing notice a day or 2 after the statues were given out?

Forget Kinky Boots, Forget Pippin, the fans were the big winners this year, and none of us lost.

[Theater'sBestFriend]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:03am

"M lost because of how the RSC kept playing with the potential producers that wanted to bring it to their own theater companies in NY."

That spin just doesn't stand up to fact and reason. If Matilda had only lost the Best Musical Award with the Tony voters (non-critic theater professionals), maybe. But it also lost with the Drama League (non-professional theater lovers and aficionados) and the Outer Critics Circle (non-NY critics). Surely no one thinks all these diverse groups, who had no dog in the dispute purported above, lacked integrity in voting down Matilda?

I first heard the argument above made by press who failed to accurately predict the Tony results. Whenever I hear it repeated, I confess I wonder whether the person doing so is being either self-serving, or foolish.

[John Adams]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:07am

Forget Kinky Boots, Forget Pippin, the fans were the big winners this year, and none of us lost.

Except for the fans of Hands on a Hardbody, which (in terms of representation on the telecast) didn't even exist this season.

[Theater'sBestFriend]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:09am

"It has increased and fallen about equally."

That is not the trend producers want to see. Weekly grosses reflect the release of presales. The current selling out may reflect substantial presale based on London buzz. When there's good word of mouth, weekly grosses don't just reflect presales, they grow steadily, like Kinky Boots, Motown and Lucky Guy have all done.

[tazber]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:12am

Every "spin" stands up to logic and reason.

Unless someone can read every Tony voter's mind it's all conjecture.

Nothing can be definitively proven right or wrong.

Also, the RSC spin was reported weeks before the Tonys by Riedel. It wasn't invented after the fact.

[binau]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:12am

Your claim was that the grosses were trending to drop in ticket price and total gross. Neither were true. Let's establish that before we start to discuss why they aren't increasing.

[Up In One]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:41am

The Times already gave a reason for part of the gross issue at Matilda where they have less orchestra seats to sell and many of those awful third balcony seats to sell at a lower price. Add to that the fact that hype, excitement and glamour (stars visit nitely) have people willing to pay premium prices for Kinky and you have your trend. Matilda grosses will stay flat to lower but still sell out while Kinky will trend higher and recoup sooner. The question on the advance is how far in advance is it and how many empty seats do they need to move in each upcoming week. The hype and Tony assures Kinky to keep doing well where Matilda may need to advertise more driving up costs.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 9:52am

Excellent post, Moviedude.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/15/13 at 10:52am

Theatre's Best Friend.....your analysis doesn't hold water. They aren't losing anything weekly. Take a look at the actual GRAPH. Yes, their average price is less than Kinky's but they are making good money, each and every week. They have no concerns.
What's dropping?