Moments in a play or musical that almost ruin it?

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 5:13pm

Have you ever seen a play or musical that totally had you going and had you loving it and then something happened that just totally made the house of cards fall down?

Recently, I heard this complained about with STUNNING and its last half hour or so. I kinda felt like this with the last few minutes of RUINED, but I didn't think it ruined the play for me. It just took away a little from the overall experience.

What other shows have you guys experienced this in?

Posted: 7/6/09 at 5:15pm

The part in Gypsy where Patti LuPone stops the show and screams at an audience member.

[TalkinLoud]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 5:17pm

Well the first time I saw Gypsy, right near the end after Rose's Turn there's the scene where Louise comes out and asks Rose to go to the party with her. I was soooo pissed because I thought it was a tacked on happy ending, but then the sign came down and Patti started grasping for it. Phew!

[yay_gerb]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 5:41pm

definitely agree about Stunning. i was loving it and then the ending came and i was just sitting there like wtf?

[Taryn]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 5:47pm

"He Could Be A Star" (or, in New York, "He Could Go and He Could Shine") in Billy Elliot. I was in raptures with the show up until that point.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:09pm

Last 20 minutes of STUNNING, where the show veers from pseudo-profound-statement-comedy to dark drama. It's a sign that the playwright didn't know where to go.

RUINED's ending didn't bother me.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:10pm

the dancing dresses in Expressing Yourself in Billy Elliot really bugged me.

[dayao]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:23pm

For me it's the last 5 minutes of "Pippin". Fabulous score and dancing for two hours and then the rug is pulled out from under the audience and we are told that we've been had. The show ends that way with no finale or anything. What a cruel cynical trick to pull on an audience. You could call it innovative and a lot of things but it is not musical theater.

[jordangirl]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:26pm

I absolutely LOVED Why Torture Is Wrong And The People Who Love Them until the Twilight Zone-eqsue do-over ending. They completely lost me at that moment.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:38pm

Oh, I agree about TORTURE, JordanGirl. Forgot about that...what a terrible ending.

[Mattt]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:39pm

Rent. "I jumped over the moooooon." The whole bit when Mimi returns from the dead at the end in a trans. It just takes away the seriousness of the moment for me.

[winston89]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:41pm

For me it would have to be the current revival of West Side Story. I thought that there were parts that were in Spanish that just made the dramatic parts of the show fall flat. For example, the scene where Anita tells Maria that Tony killed her brother and it was done in Spanish. It felt like a roller coaster where it was going up with dramatic tension and then speeding downwards VERY fast falling flat on its face.

[yay_gerb]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 6:41pm

i didn't want to like the ending of Why Torture Is Wrong, but i couldn't help like the cute ending. it was pretty random to just out of nowhere have them stop the show like that. it't not something i usually approve of, but i enjoyed it.

[onedaymore]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 8:51pm

Well the first time that I ever (yes, ever) saw Sweeney was the movie, unfortunately. I was so bored by the acting, and the singing, and depressed by the dark cinematography, I just wanted the movie to get done to see what happens at the end. Since everyone dies at the end, I thought it was really disappointing. Then I saw the George Hearn/Landsbury DVD and started to get the show. I then loved it. :)

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 8:53pm

That part in SWEENEY TODD where Patti LuPone was cast.

[binau]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 8:55pm

onedaymore,

has your opinion of the Sweeney movie changed now?

[onedaymore]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 9:00pm

qolbinau-No.
I still think the message Sondheim was trying to put out was hard to get in the film. Plus I don't think the movie makes Sweeney look as haunting as he was made out to be in the musical. Him and Lovett just look like they need a good shower. :P

[binau]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 9:03pm

hehe.

Though exactly what 'message' was Sondheim trying to put out?

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 9:06pm

I saw a college production of Chorus Line and the girl playing Cassie had this whole diva attitude around her, even in line readings. She also was the only one not doing pseudo-Bennett choreography, and at the end most of my friends were going, "I liked it, but why did he pick Cassie?"

[onedaymore]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 9:16pm

Okay, deep time...

When Sweeney kills Pirelli, no one can truly justify whether it was moral to kill someone who was threatening to blackmail you. When Sweeney kills the Judge, no one can justify whether it was moral to kill someone who took your wife and is about to marry your daughter.
So the question (rather than message) that Sondheim puts out-what IS the definition of right? What IS the definition of morality? What was moral to Sweeney is moral to you?

[Robert Taylor]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 9:17pm

Every time the actors stopped singing and started speaking dialogue in "9 to 5." Still gives me shudders.

[willrogers2008]

Posted: 7/6/09 at 9:30pm

Pippin finale was Fosse or Schwartz concept ?

[moowithme85]

Posted: 7/7/09 at 12:44am

LOL about 9 to 5 "shudders." I would like to say that I was loving the show until Allison Janney came out dressed as Snow White, but even that's not true...I think I was only digging that show until Marc tried to feel up Megan Hilty in his office.

And I completely agree about Mimi coming back from the dead in Rent. Don't get me wrong, I love the musical. But a "white light?" Please.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 7/7/09 at 2:12am

I know that August: Osage County is a funny play, but both times I saw it the audience laughed long and uproariously at most lines. Far be it from me to stop people from laughing, but it ruined the pace of the play.

The trip sequence does not by any means ruin Hair, but it does drag a bit.

It's taken me a while to start to appreciate Sunday in the Park, but I still think the first act just runs itself into the ground, especially after We Do Not Belong Together.

The final scene of Sweeney Todd drags a little. I always thought it should end with a fadeout after the police barge in on Toby holding Sweeney's body.

[onedaymore]

Posted: 7/7/09 at 2:14am

Speaking of dragging...

The Dream dance sequence in "Oklahoma!" makes me sleepy.