"MRS. A" From The Rink
"MRS. A" From The Rink
"MRS. A" From The Rink#1
Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:27am
I am obsessed with this song lately. I really enjoy this score, but still don't really understand the plot. Could anyone explain in detail what is going on during "Mrs. A?" I feel that it's one of K&E's best songs, and it certainly sounds like some of Chita's best acting ever. Truly wonderful.
"MRS. A" From The Rink#2
Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:34am
And OUCH, just read Frank Rich's review for the first time. Not pretty, but it really sounds like Chita stole the entire show.
The RInk#2
Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:48am
It was the Chita & Liza show but really featured Chita...Been a while since I've listened to that "great" score but recall it dealt with Angel (Liza) confronts her estranged Mom Anna (Chita) and her indiscretions.
Here:
http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_r/rink.htm
The RInk#3
Posted: 4/22/15 at 2:19am
I love that song
The RInk#4
Posted: 4/22/15 at 7:22am
I love "Chief Cook and Bottle Washer".
The RInk#5
Posted: 4/22/15 at 7:25am
^^^
Me too.
And also Angel's Rink and Social Center, We're Gonna Make It, and The Apple Doesn't Fall.
The RInk#6
Posted: 4/22/15 at 7:57am
Chita supposedly stole the show and gave a really great old fashioned musical comedy performance. BUT Liza, even all-drugged-up-at-the-time Liza, acted the hell out of the role, imbuing Angel with a tragic/comic aura that I'll remember forever.
The RInk#7
Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:43am
A real off-Broadway show if ever there was one (obviously not with those stars)
You inspired me to go back for a listen after 5+ years away.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/13
The RInk#8
Posted: 4/22/15 at 10:23am
At her cabaret show last fall at Birdland, Chita included Chief Cook & Bottle Washer in the concert. It was a nice surprise.
The RInk#9
Posted: 4/22/15 at 12:26pm
Robbie2 is right about "Mrs. A."
I think THE RINK is one of those shows where the score (at least as recorded) is better than the show as a whole. I feel the same way about BABY and RAGS. I still listen to all three CDs relatively frequently.
I loved all three CDs without ever having seen the shows (ah, those heady days when I ran out and bought every cast recording I could get my hands on!). I have since seen productions of all three (at the same venue, oddly enough) and enjoyed them, but not nearly as much as I thought I would from listening to the CDs. I thought The Rink had the coolest concept, followed by Baby, and felt Rags was a Fiddler rehash, and an unnecessary one at that.
The RInk#10
Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:44pm
Despite not finding an audience, I thought the original THE RINK was simply magnificent, so much so that even on my crappy starting-out-in-New-York salary I saw the Broadway show 4 times. Dazzling direction and absolute magic created out of that male ensemble of 8 (or was it just 6?) versatile guys playing all the other parts, male and female. Stunning set, goose-bumply score, a show obsessed with deflating the nostalgic tales we tell ourselves about how we grow up and become the adults we become.
Way too many folks focused on the star turns of Chita and Liza, but that wasn't the important thing about the show at all. If anything, it was a distraction from the deeply affecting story it had in mind to tell. I must have been 28 or 29 at the time and I already understood that all the plans of youth were gonna be traded in for what life hands you, and you can make of that what you will. When Liza got to the verses of "All the Children in a Row" I was always in tears.
The RInk#11
Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:46pm
I think "All the Children in a Row" is a wonderful collection of gorgeous Kander melodies. It's a great number.
I am a big fan of the score of THE RINK. I think Patti LuPone ought to play Anna one day. Sooner, rather than later.
The RInk#12
Posted: 4/22/15 at 10:13pm
LuPone as Anna and Benanti as Angel: Encores! perhaps?
The RInk#13
Posted: 4/22/15 at 10:15pm
^ God, I wish. Couldn't be more perfect for Encores!
While Benanti isn't the strongest belter, it would be fun to see her as mother/daughter with Patti again.
The RInk#14
Posted: 4/22/15 at 10:17pm
And to hear that score with that orchestra...
The only thing a revival could never do is rival the original set. Someone (Pal Joey, If I'm remembering correctly) posted a GORGEOUS picture of the set...
I'll try to find it.
The RInk#15
Posted: 4/22/15 at 10:20pm
Here's a link to the thread with the pictures: https://www.broadwayworld.com/cuba/board/readmessage.php?thread=1070466&page=2
And I was wrong: it was morosco who posted the pictures, not Pal Joey.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
The RInk#16
Posted: 4/23/15 at 2:00am
I've listened to the score and read the script. The main problem is that the show is horribly depressing. Even if you like your musicals heavy, the show is just bleak, and not so much in the deliciously fun way of The Visit, but in the hopeless way like Death of a Salesman. The score is wonderful, like all of Kander and Ebb. I like all of the songs, but Marry Me and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer are my favorites.
The RInk#17
Posted: 4/23/15 at 6:37am
^ I didn't find the actual show onstage bleak at all. Nowhere in "Death of a Salesman" do we get the romance of "Blue Crystal", the comedy of "What Happened to the Old Days", or the happy dance sequences of "Wallflower" and "I Wanna Go 'Round the Rink".
The story of the Anna and Angel had tragedy, sure, but it also had catharsis-- a benediction that all the pain might have been necessary to get to a place of celebration at the final curtain. When the walls and arched trusses of the rink itself flew to the heavens on those final chords (something you can't view from reading the script or hearing the CD,) your heart flew up there as well.
The RInk#18
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:10am
I haven't listened to The Rink in a very long time...maybe 10 years at least so I am inspired to go listen to it again later today. I remember thinking it was a solid score though as a whole, the show was a kind of a mess.
BABY and RAGS were brought up and while I do like both shows as full shows, I can agree that the scores of both outweigh the rest.
I also feel Stephen Schwartz is the king of having shows with fantastic scores but pretty much everything else around them is meh or plain bad. RAGS can be placed in that group, but the two that really come to mind are The Baker's Wife and Children of Eden. The former should work as a show but it just never has...yet his score (Meadowlark in particular) lives on. The latter is a VEEEERY long show and it does have some filler but with the weak, bland though practically non-existent book, the show is almost a chore to sit through. Despite that, some of those songs are among the best he has written.
Wow..I wasn't expecting to go off on that editorial. I'm sorry!
The RInk#19
Posted: 4/23/15 at 4:46pm
The big problem in Children of Eden's book, I think, is that the "generations repeating themselves" concept never QUITE gels. Adam and Eve rebel against God, and Cain's rebellion against Adam at least feels LINKED to that, but Japheth appears to be the hero, and not the antihero, of Act 2. Shem acts like a borderline sociopath to Yonah, and no one ever calls him out on it, but Japheth righteously tries to defend himself and his wife, and everyone acts like the curse has returned.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/3/05
The RInk#20
Posted: 4/23/15 at 6:12pm
I don't post much; however, when I see a thread about The Rink, I have to comment. I have seen a lot of shows in my fifty-five years of living, and I remember The Rink more vividly than many shows that were classified as hits. I really, really loved it. The last scene is burned into my mind as are many other parts of the wonderfully emotional experience I had at the Martin Beck in 1984. I am truly grateful to have been there.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
The RInk#21
Posted: 4/23/15 at 7:39pm
The problem with Children of Eden is the dialogue is terrible; if it sounded more naturalistic, the show would be great. As it stands, it's a wonderful score and not much else.
Featured Actor Joined: 2/15/15
The RInk#22
Posted: 6/5/15 at 2:08am
I recently started to listen to this score and while I like most of it, I cannot standthe reoccuring theme melody. Forgive me if my description is wrong but it's sort of an oom-pah-pah rhythm with heavy synth/electronic-y sound. It kinda freaks me out...a lot. Super reminiscent of a creepy, run down carnival. Anyone else feel the same way?
edit: when I was looking for a thread for the Rink, one of the first searches was just titled "the rink" and I now realize that someone changed the subject from the original convo about Mrs. A. Sorry for not adding to the first post!
Updated On: 6/5/15 at 02:08 AM
The RInk#23
Posted: 6/5/15 at 1:48pm
"...it's sort of an oom-pah-pah rhythm with heavy synth/electronic-y sound. It kinda freaks me out...a lot. Super reminiscent of a creepy, run down carnival."
And this is a problem because...?
The RInk#24
Posted: 7/13/15 at 5:14pmThanks ljay889 for posting this topic about The Rink! I've only just started listening to it, on a Chita and Kander & Ebb high from The Visit and I think it's a great score. And thanks Sally Durant Plummer for circling back to a former thread with pictures from the production. I agree with those who said this would probably get the best treatment at Encores! or in a concert performance. I would love to see it sometime.
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