NBC's SMASH - Series & Broadway Adaptation Thread — Page 51

Honey...once you got a title, you don't need a book.

Speaking of titles, nobody thought the use of "bomb" in the title of a new Broadway musical was a bad idea? They know Riedel but have never read Mandelbaum?

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Yeah, look what happened to BOMB-BAY DREAMS.

"at least on Smash the characters basically act consistant from episode to episode, something you really don't get at all on Glee..."

Glee started out like that but quickly became camp. The problem with these type of shows is that It's always conflict then resolution, conflict then resolution with people stabbing each other in the back one week and then making up a few weeks later, just so that they can turn around and stab each other in e back again. After a while, the cycle gets boring.

I'm sorry, but if you screw me once, I'm not going to be friends with you so that you can screw me again.

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Nope, Michael you're not even close to having a point here. Even those three songs you named are quite different in tone and tempo, never mind the ballads and love songs you've ignored to attempt to prove your point.

Those reviews of this show on the New York Magazine should be read aloud and sold in an album entitled Smash: The Ugly, The Bad and the Who are we kidding? I think that would go solid gold or platinum.

I agree that the songs have the feel of CATCH ME, though I think the whole thing is kind of silly in that the big point of drama is that they don't have a script. As Sondheim himself said when asked, what comes first, the lyrics or the music, the answer is the BOOK.

Updated On: 4/5/12 at 04:57 PM

BOMB-ITTY OF ERRORS

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I actually felt the songs for Marilyn we've heard sound a bit too schizophrenic--while they're all Shaiman style pastiche, if played back to back you have a fairly modern style power ballad, then a duet that sounds out of mid 40s Broadway, a 50s style movie musical tune, etc... Not completely alien from each other, but I didn't think they sounded too similar,.

That said, I agree otherwise completely with Michael Bennett, that they largely seem to form similar functions (if any function) in the book (we've already mentioned how the two DiMagio duets with Marilyn serve the complete same function albeit one's sentimental number, and one a sort of do-wop), and I guess they've shown bits of plot driven numbers sorta (that song I can't remember where Marilyn is too drunk to film a movie and Arthur Miller comes in, as well as the one about herbecoming famous when DiMagio has his own power ballad moment), but it doesn't seem like there was any thought of how these could function in a coherent show. Maybe that's too much to ask for from the program, but I would have expected when Shaiman and his partner (who I never remember) were asked to do music for the show that they'd have some correspondence with the writer about how the songs could work with the episode and believably progress the show within the show.

I'm not sure why they didn't scrap one of the other characters and throw in a book writer character. There's no sense that Debbi's character is doing ANY work on that part at all, and as has been said, few successful dramatic musicals start with a good 7 or so songs on a theme and then someone coming in to tie them together. It also may have made more sense (if the story needed to be told) to have Debbie not wanna work with the librettist they hire because she had the affair with HIM, not the actor, or whatever.

Well regardless of whether the show is good or bad, Uma Thurman will make it better. She's one of the best working actresses alive (If you have any doubts at all about that, I BEG you to watch her film HYSTERICAL BLINDNESS, where she gives one of the best performances I have ever seen on film).

According to a LA Times article season two is going to be about "Bombshell" going to Broadway alongside a SECOND musical being developed as well.

I wonder if having two musicals being developed at the same time on the show will further derail it from having a clear central focus and be even more sloppy than its first season...

Does anyone else think that Uma Thurman is too old to play Marilyn Monroe?

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I think the points made about SMASH's original songs are valid - they would not work in the context of a real Broadway show. However, this is just a TV show, and the songs only really have to work in that context. In that respect, they succeed - almost all the original numbers showcased (with a few rare exceptions, including "Touch Me," "The National Pastime," and "I Never Met a Wolf") parallel the journeys and storylines of the main characters during the episodes in which they were featured. The more obvious examples are "Let Me Be Your Star," which is as much about Karen and Ivy's yearning as it is about Marilyn's, and "On Lexington and 52nd," which Michael sang directly to Julia. But almost every other number similarly intersects the main storyline in interesting yet subtle ways - Karen sings "The 20th Century Fox Mambo" as she, like Marilyn in the song, attempts to transform herself into a star. Even "The Higher You Get," which isn't even from BOMBSHELL, seems to reference Ivy's travails over the course of the episode; the title could just as easily be applied to Ivy's demotion from star-in-the-making back to lowly chorus girl.

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