MCC to produce Off-Broadway CARRIE revival in 2011-2012 — Page 2

Like I was saying earlier, the end is never in doubt (especially if they retain using Sue as a framing device like they did for the reading), so "I'm Not Alone" can really only work ironically, but it's just not a good enough of song.

I wish they'd retained "Heaven" in the reading. I wonder if that might come back for the actual show. It's like the only Act Two song that I really like.

Updated On: 10/6/10 at 01:09 PM

Originally I was excited about this new incarnation of CARRIE but after hearing all the changes to the score, etc... I'll be skipping this production.

I was fortunate to have seen the original Broadway production late in previews back in May 1988 and enjoyed it as much as those who were in the audience that night. If the rookie producers didn't panic, the show could have had a longer run based on its advance in ticket sales. Audiences WERE clamoring to see it -- for all the good and for all the bad things the word-of-mouth was spewing. I had a few friends who had tickets for after the show opened. They never got to see the show, unfortunately.

Namo, I know you're right and I know the song is out completely out of place. I just like it. So there!

With Lindsay Lohan as Carrie?

Orfeh as the PE teacher!

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Double-take. One thing I read that I wasn't crazy about:

"Mr. Telsey said the authors had gone far in “humanizing” Margaret White, Carrie’s oppressively religious mother (played by Ms. Buckley on Broadway) and portraying Carrie’s varied emotions, which were swamped in the 1988 production by the special effects for her kinetic powers."

I hate this. While I love "When There's No One", I think it's so important that we hate Margaret. We have no reason to like her, IMO.

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"it might squeeze out a run"

Ew.

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I simply meant the story would stay the same, when someone was saying the book would be totally rewritten and meant it could only be rewritten so far, the story would remin, we were not gonna see new characters or changing plot points....sorry, i worded what i said badly.

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I'm finding myself agreeing with you quite a bit on your thoughts on the show, songanddanceman (and I also completely understood what you meant about the story/book rewrites being able to only go so far).

"Do Me a Favor" has always polarized me. I find myself loving that heavy, techno-ish beat, but of course it is majorly flawed in that Chris is already planning a revenge based on information that there is no way she could have, since Sue is simultaneously asking Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. So unless Sue and Tommy are loudly discussing this in the local teen hang out (which apparently was some sort of S&M club in the original staging) how does Chris know that he's going to ask her, let alone that she will say yes. If the song is staying it would need to be reworked, maybe even split into two sections, to make sense, in my opinion.

The story may indeed play out like a Greek tragedy, but it shouldn't look like one (do we really want Miss Gardner in a toga-inspired track suit?). Part of what makes the novel and movie work so well is that the Greek tragedy story is set against a very real and identifiable world. I don't think they need to go for kitchen-sink-realism in the design, but it definitely needs to be a bit more real than the original production.

"They humanized Glinda in "Wicked" and look how much dramaturgical sense that made!"

I blame that on the script. Gregory Maguire created a wonderful Glinda (like her or love her) in his book.

"We have no reason to like her, IMO."

Despite what romgitsean seems to think, humanizing does not mean making the character someone we like or root for, but it does make the character real. Even a "monster" needs some motivation. Just stating that a character is a religious whack-job is boring. The character will be far more interesting if we know WHY she is a religious whack-job. Go back to the novel and the movie. King gave you plenty of insight into her background, and if Piper Laurie had simply played an inhuman monster with no insight into Margaret's motivation she certainly would not have received her very well deserved Oscar nomination.

And what I'm saying is that the source material did humanize the character quite well, and if they had not strayed so far from their source then it would have worked much better than it does.

You know, I can understand the Don't Waste The Moon hate for what it was in the original production (Those cars! Those costumes! That choreography!), but I just don't feel like it's that bad of a number musically, and I don't feel like the replacement number in last year's reading was any sort of improvement. The World According To Chris was more irritating than anything.

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Don't Wsate The Moon was fun, but for all the wrong reasons, it was a camp song in a bad way. The lyrics DID NOT capture anything of the kinda teens it was representing.

I agree the lyrics needs reworking, but what the scene represented in the characters, setting and intention was spot-on. And I admit I love the catchy melody. When I first heard Carrie (oh, so many years ago), I had a terrible copy on cassette and I was asking a friend of mine who had seen the show about that particular song. I told him it sounded like they were singing "Don't break the mood" and he told me that my interpretation sounded more appropriate. At any rate, I like the juxtaposition of the two couples brooding over what happened in the locker room (the idea of using Carrie as a c*ck blocker is pretty funny) against a backdrop of teens on a date typically portraying the horny boys and the romantic idealism of the girls illustrating that part of adolescent life of which Carrie is excluded. From a teen perspective, Carrie may be missing out on a lot, but from a more mature point of view, perhaps she's not really missing anything but a lot of headache. Whatever the number ultimately becomes, the show needs a scene of social interaction amongst the kids to contrast with Carrie's life at home.

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Ooooh, good one, doodle.