PIPE DREAM!!!!!!!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:29pm

Is anyone as excited about this as I am? This is the one show I've wanted City Center to do for as long as I can remember and I'm beyond stoked for this!

Did anyone see the Dress last night??

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:36pm

Yes, I am extremely exited about this show. Sadly, I won't be seeing it until Saturday evening...very busy theater week this week!

[Lefou]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:36pm

I was there! It was in fine form for a dress at Encores (I've seen some messes). Laura, Will, Tom and Leslie (!!!) were uniformly strong and had a great pacing...as soon as the overture began, you knew it was an R&H musical. Beautiful melodies and a simple story, but quite dated (obviously, or why would it be at Encores). It's one of those where you have to just let yourself go with it and enjoy the music and the fun atmosphere. I think the one buzz word would be "delight".

[jv92]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:40pm

And now the news of a recording!!! Hooray!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:45pm

WOW! I just saw that! That's amazing!!



http://www.playbill.com/news/article/161231-Pipe-Dream-a-Rodgers-Hammerstein-Rarity-Will-Get-Live-Concert-Cast-Album

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:51pm

A recording?? That's AWESOME. The original cast recording has a lot to recommend it, but like nearly all cast albums from the pre stereo days, it leaves a lot, sound wise, to be desired (and from a concert staging I saw in San Francisco, there's a fair bit of material that could be added).

This is my fave lesser known R&H show and I've been obsessed with it since I was a very young teen, who read Canary Row and then found out that Steikbeck wrote a sequel, Sweet Thursday,specifically to give a more fully shaped story for a musical adaptation (which was intended initially for Frank Loesser, who may have been a better fit). I became obsessed with the score-- I do think there are issues--mainly R&H toning down so much so that by the time it got to Broadway they barely even aknowledged that Fauna ran an actual brothelk and her girls were prostitutes, but...

Jealous of everyone who gets to see this--but excited for a recording.

[Emmaloucbway]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 5:58pm

That's a lot of exclamation points....

and I'm very excited about the cast recordings! So glad encores is recording some of their shows!!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 6:01pm

Just watched the clips, and the it seems well cast. It's interesting to hear Fauna's material sung less operatically (at least in the clip), as I know that got a very mixed reaction with the original and the casting of Helen Traubel.

I wonder if there would be any way to go to the out of town script which according to at least one Hammerstein bio was significantly more bawdy, as that seems to be the major issue with them toning down part of the charm of Steinbeck's original--the charming vulgarity.

(I always found it interesting that the well known 1980s film of Canery Row actually uses much more of Sweet Thursday for its basis as well--I guess mainly because the whole love story is there, Cannery Row is much more just a sequence of vignettes).

[SamIAm2]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 8:51pm

Will reviews of this show be coming out tonight?

[jv92]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 9:30pm

Usually, Encores! reviews come out maybe(?) Friday...most usually Saturday though.

[SamIAm2]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 9:51pm

Thanks, jv92.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 10:30pm

I never saw the show but have always loved the OCR. There are some real gems in the score that should continue to be known. Yes, Traubel sounds awkward in the recording, but there's the wonderful Judy Tyler and Bill Johnson, both of whom died way too soon. Best to all!!!

[dave1606]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 11:22pm

I was there tonight and really enjoyed it. This is the definition of an Encores show. Laura Osnes, Will Chase, and Leslie Uggams were all standouts. ts

A few thoughts.

The overture is worth the price of admission alone. I cannot wait for the live recording for this.

The story is silly silly silly. I can't imagine anyone coming out of this and saying that this would work for modern audiences. This is one of those shows where the ensemble repeatedly shows up for now reason other than to do another dance number. I found the book to to be extremely weak.


That said I thought the whole thing was a delight and the score was glorious. I cannot wait for the recording!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/28/12 at 11:29pm

An orgasmic evening of musical theater. I fully realize this is a majorly flawed show that as stated above could never work in a full revival due to a book that at times is just, well, stupid. But as I said earlier, this is THE show I've dreamed of having Encores do so to get to finally see it was really really special to me.

I can't imagine them having a better cast for it, either. And while Chase and Osnes are fantastic, please make no mistake that this is Leslie Uggams show and she was nice enough to share the stage with everyone else. I'm going to see it twice more before Sunday because I know good and well chances are slim I will ever get to see it again.

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 12:09am

I look forward to seeing it.

Is there much of a set, or is it just a band box decorated for the show? Encores! sets seem to have got more complex over the past couple years.

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 12:28am

Is the book more "silly" and "stupid" than the much ignored at the time 1980s Nick Nolte/Debra Winger/Audra Lindley/John Huston film version, also based primarily on the Steinbeck sequel novel to "Cannery Row" "Sweet Thursday"? This film is still and increasingly much beloved by fans of the sentimental romantic comedy/drama genre. Not a genre to be much associated with the Steinbeck of "Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden", but I have read the novel and the film does not venture far from it.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 1:40am

OlBlueEyes, I saw a concert version staged, as I mentioned, just over ten years back, so I can't fully remember, but yes, the book is sillier than the film, and certainly the novel. This isn't in reference to the trope of chorus showing up to dance, etc, which I'm fuzzy on now, but just in how softer Hammerstein (partly apparently under Rodgers' guidance) treats the subject material. Steinbeck wrote both books essentially as comedy, but, for their time, they are fairly bawdy. I mean Hammerstein's version of bawdy is in the party song using the word "Damn" (I can't quote the lyrics by heart but don't they even say how "nice" the girls are--these being prostitutes).

I mean Suzy is a homeless girl who has no alternative but to prostitute herself. While even in the novel and especially the movie this is played more for romantic comedy, it is addressed. It really isn't in Pipe Dream.

Still I love the show and score.

Wiki has some quotes but here's Steinbeck:

After rehearsals began, Steinbeck wrote to Hammerstein to express his delight at the adaptation. He became more dismayed as the play was slowly revised in rehearsal and during the tryouts. According to Traubel, the play was being "cleaned up ... as scene after scene became emasculated".[24] The revisions made Suzy's profession less clear, and also fudged the nature of Fauna's house. One revision removed Suzy's police record for "vagrancy".[24] These changes were sparked by the fact that audience members at the tryouts in New Haven and Boston were uncomfortable with the setting and Suzy's role;[25] by the times the revisions were completed, the script could be read to say that Suzy was merely boarding at Fauna's.[24]

Steinbeck noted this tendency on a page of dialogue changes:


One of the most serious criticisms is the uncertainty of Suzy's position in the Bear Flag. It's either a whore house, or it isn't. Suzy either took a job there, or she didn't. The play doesn't give satisfaction here and it leaves an audience wondering. My position is that she took the job all right but she wasn't any good at it. In the book, Fauna explains that Suzy's no good as a hustler because she's got a streak of lady in her. I wish we could keep this thought because it explains a lot in a short time.[26]

In another memo, Steinbeck noted that the pathos of Suzy being a prostitute had given much of the dramatic tension to the scene in which Doc rejects Suzy, and later, her rejection of him. "I think if you will finally bring the theme of this play into the open, but wide open, you will have solved its great weakness and have raised it to a high level ... If this is not done, I can neither believe nor take Pipe Dream seriously."[27]

In the end, Suzy's activities at the Bear Flag were glossed over, as Hammerstein concentrated on her relationship with Doc. Alluding to Hammerstein's emphasis on the scene in which Suzy makes Doc soup after Hazel breaks his arm, Steinbeck stated, "You've turned my prostitute into a visiting nurse!"

[tazber]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 6:13am

I am thrilled to get a new and fresh recording of this score. It is a gem.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 10:19am

Feuer and Martin were the successful producers of WHERE'S CHARLEY with Ray Bolger, GUYS AND DOLLS, HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, and CAN CAN among others. In producer Cy Feuer's biography, Feuer talks about his and his partner's initial involvement with what came to be known as PIPE DREAM. They had the title SWEET THURSDAY and went to see Oscar Hammerstein. "He was a guy with a social conscience and we thought that he and Dick Rodgers should write the score." Feuer's partner Ernest Martin told Oscar that he should take on the project."You know, you guys are always doing shows with little girls running around with bows on their behind. It's time you did something a little more lusty."

Rodgers & Hammerstein took on the project but insisted that they produce, rather than Feuer and Martin. "They turned it into another show with girls with bows on their behinds. They changed the name to PIPE DREAM, and instead of this gutsy cast of characters out of Steinbeck, they had 'LI'L ABNER characters out of Dogpatch. They even cast Helen Trauble, an opera singer, as the madame of a whorehouse. It was ridiculous. When it opened, it was a disaster."
Hammerstein later said to Feuer, "You talked us into that show...It made us lose judgment and try something we weren't equipped to do." Thus Rodgers and Hammerstein apparently buried PIPE DREAM, although the score will live on, especially with Encores producing a recording. It DOES have some great songs.

Updated On: 3/29/12 at 10:19 AM

[OlBlueEyes]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 3:30pm

Thanks for all the info, Eric. It sounds as if Steinbeck's biggest objections could be satisfied with a relative few changes to the script: making it clear that the Bear Flag was a whorehouse and that Suzy had been hired as a hooker (albeit as a naive novice to that profession). But I guess that ship has sailed.

Those who see the Encores show and don't detest the story might want to invest three bucks to stream the film from Amazon. Nolte and Winger are charming and the score and Huston narration are superb. But it is a sentimental romance so be warned.

The Times review is up. Does an Encores production ever get a bad review, not that this one deserves one.






Isherwood Review Up Updated On: 3/29/12 at 03:30 PM

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 3:41pm

Maybe a little off-topic, but IMO, Pipe Dream has a much better score than Me and Juliet -- as far as I'm concerned, the worst thing R&H ever did. I saw it in summer stock back in the 1950s and it was awful. When I got the CD, I couldn't even get through the whole thing in one sitting. Yes, it has No Other Love, but even that had already been used in Victory at Sea.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/29/12 at 4:04pm

I am so thrilled about this recording! I read the script many years ago and I only remember thinking, "That's it?" What little story was told was just sort of sweet, but not interesting. It was sort of the same fate as Allegro, but at least Allegro was experimenting with staging and narration. There was no experimentation or innovation in Pipe Dream. Musicalizing the story was a good idea. Removing everything that made the story interesting in the first place was not.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/30/12 at 11:59pm

Tonight's show was videotaped. I saw two cameras set up at the very front of the left and right aisles on the Grand Tier. Asked an usher whose they were, and he said "Lincoln Center."

I assumed he meant the New York Public Library, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, located at Lincoln Center. But now as I think about it, aren't there also a few TV series -- "Live from Lincoln Center," "Great Performances," etc., that could be planning to air it on public TV?

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 3/31/12 at 12:10am

It is for the Lincoln Center archive library.

[Vagabond Anarchist]

Posted: 3/31/12 at 12:50am

Saw the show tonight and absolutely loved it. And, as an added bonus, Jeremy Jordan happened to be sitting in the row right in front of me in the mezzanine. So it was fun getting to chat with him for a bit. He came out at the stage door with Laura Osnes and they were both super sweet and took photos together with fans. Will Chase and Tom Wopat were both also very nice at the stage door.