New Pal Joey

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 5:10pm

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/161358-Revamped-Pal-Joey-With-New -Book-by-Patrick-Pacheco-to-Open-Rubicon-Season

This article has a typo the barn staging was in 2012, it just finished yesterday.

Anyone else see this?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 5:19pm

Oy. A gay subplot again? That didn't fix anything the last time.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 5:21pm

I liked "Are You My Love" and "I Still Believe in You" being added in the last revival, but I don't see how they're going to work in the three songs mentioned in that article. I don't really think they belong in Pal Joey.

And I don't understand why people feel the need to keep rewriting the book. Joey is an antihero! He sort of needs to be for the story to work. No amount of rewrites is really going to help the audience to "like" him any more or less. You just need an unbelievably suave and charismatic actor to pull it off and there should be no problems.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 5:30pm

"The Lady Is a Tramp" was added to the movie--for Vera. "Sing for Your Supper" is probably done as a song in the club. And "Glad to Be Unhappy" is probably a solo for Linda.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 5:31pm

The "first anti-hero to propel a musical"?

Gaylord Ravenal isn't exactly Dudley Do Right.

But I agree with CATSNY that "fixing" Joey isn't the answer. The answer is to find the new Gene Kelly. (Yeah, I know he didn't have a hit with the show, but that was 70-some years ago.)

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 8:10pm

Just Do the damn show, dammit!

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 10:29pm

My first thought when I saw "New Pal Joey" was our very own BWW's PalJoey. Huh? from RC in Austin, Texas

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/2/12 at 11:26pm

Nah. You're stuck with THIS one.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 12:37am

I know it's old (so is SOUTH PACIFIC) but it won the friggin' Pulitzer! Would you rewrite Tennesee Williams for christ sake?

It's the productions that don't work, not the book.
Difficult, yes, impossible, I don't believe it.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 12:41am

^I do wish they would have published Richard Greenberg's book. I'd love to read it. I did sort of like it, but I can't say that it really improved on the original in any way. It created just as many problems as it solved.

[dented146]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 1:48am

Probably the greatest work Hart ever did. The subject matter and the forthright portrayal was way ahead of it's time.

Atkenson's "mixed" review was quite harsh and sent Hart into a tailspin from which he never recovered.

[ck12]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 1:54am

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117998274?refCatId=1019

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 4:25am

cK12---that Variety review you posted is not from this recent revised incarnation, which just closed in Michigan for the first time this past weekend.

And CurtainPullDowner---Pal Joey didn't win the Pulitzer.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 8:54am

ooooops, my bad.

[North2009]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 9:20am

Oddly it is one of the most rewritten shows out there. And I have to agree that no one seems to trust the original libretto and the key is in the casting.
I did a production of it once where the director (SIGH) reset the show in the 1920's, used huge chunks of the screenplay, reassigned songs and generally made a huge mess of the entire thing - complete with the miscasting of Joey and Vera.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 9:52am

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/06/barn_theatre_and_actors_put_di.html

Joseph Anthony Byrd has the charisma to pull off the character. From friends who have seen previous versions they say it needed a new book. This show has some awkward transitions in the 2nd act. Scenes change and the actors just start singing without setup.

Questions for those have seen previous incarnations:
1. Did Ted step out and talk directly to the audience as narractor?
2. This show has "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" reprised as a trio, with the three characters that love Joey (Ted, Vera, Linda). Can I assume there was nothing like this in the original?

Pal Joey: Yes, "Sing For Your Supper" is sung as show number written by Ted for the club.

Updated On: 7/3/12 at 09:52 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 11:59am

They use "Ted" as the name for the gay love interest?

That's the name of Joey's pal in the original stories, the one all the letters are written to. All the stories begin "Dear friend Ted" and they're all signed like my signature below "Yr pal, Joey." But there's no indication in what John O'Hara wrote that Friend Ted is in love with Joey.

I kinda wish Patrick Pacheco had come up with another name.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 12:10pm

"The new version creates a dynamic between African American crooner Joey and society dame Vera (played by a white actress)"

Sort of like what was done with the musical version of Golden Boy in the 1960s?

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 1:25pm

Ted, in this story, is the bar's piano player and composer, who admits to the audience he is gay, homosexual in the venacular of the 40s, and is shown bedding many men, including Joey. Joey sleeps with practically every person in the cast.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 2:06pm

Yeah. That would be an interesting story...if it weren't called Pal Joey.

And...bars had composers?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 2:50pm

I'm not liking the idea of Joey being bisexual. He looses some of his appeal for me if he's suddenly "attainable."

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 2:51pm

Do you guys ever sit and wonder if in 50-60 years they'll be a production of Phantom where Mme Giry is a pimp and Raul is in love with the Phantom? or Sweeney Todd where Johanna is Joey and Mrs Lovett is the real killer (ya know, to make Sweeney more likable and sympathetic!)?

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 2:59pm

Well, incidently, he is a composer and he gets noticed by people in the media for his compositions at the club, which gets him more notoriety than Joey. Joey's jealousy of Ted, starts his downward spiral.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 3:20pm

Does Joey murder Ted? That would be a good plot twist.

When he is asked by the police if he killed his friend Ted, he could answer, "It Never Entered My Mind."

And when they ask him where he was between the hours during which Ted was killed, he could tell them "I Didn't Know What Time It Was."

[PattiLover]

Posted: 7/3/12 at 3:27pm

LOL @ Pal Joey! ^^^

I love the song "Sing for Your Supper" so I'm interested in seeing what they do with it, as long as they keep it a female trio.

The rewrites sound ridiculous though.