** PROMISES, PROMISES OFFICIAL REVIEW THREAD **- Page 8

[bk]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 8:58pm

"Boq, Dr. Dillamond, and the Wizard were all replaced. While they are not the three leads they are pretty important characters.


Wicked was a mess out of town and word of mouth in New York was less than favorable. The producers were well aware of this and with this being Universal's first foray onto the stage, a considerable amount of pressure was being put on them by the studio. It would be naive for you to assume that the changes that occurred were because of Steven Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. The changes were the result of the requests of the producers to make the book less confusing and more clear for a younger audience. The changes that occurred earlier in workshops regarding the character Glinda were also at the request of the producers.


Edit: Because you are so touchy on the subject, bk - perhaps I should rephrase myself and say "requests" rather than "demands""

I'm not touchy about anything - I just know what Stephen Schwartz told me - and, you know, I'll take what he says over what you say because, you know, you're anonymous and he's not. I've seen almost every incarnation of the show - and after San Francisco he most decidedly told everyone he wanted to delay rehearsals for NY and that he and Winnie had to take another look at the show and do one more pass.

If you've got better sources than the composer/lyricist of the show and not third-hand bushwa, state them here and now. I await.

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 9:01pm

My dream leads were Neil Patrick Harris as C.C. Anne Hathaway as Fran and Mark Kudisch as J.D.

[Kalimba]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 9:06pm

Someone should have let Marquise in on the casting discussions (and I mean it).

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 9:09pm

It was really a toss between Matthew Morrison and Neil Patrick Harris for me.
Thank you for the compliment Kalimba.

[Kalimba]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 9:10pm

Neil Patrick Harris is spot on.

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 9:12pm

I also would have gotten in touch with John Breglio about recreating Bennett's musical staging and gotten Baayork Lee or Bob Avian himself to supervise it. But that's just me. What do I know? The powers that be...they know better.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 9:40pm

Marquise, that casting is spot-on. And I'm still puzzled as to why they didn't use Bennett's original choreography, especially since Ashford's really isn't anything special.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/26/10 at 10:47pm

Marquise, let me be another one to praise your casting, that would have been terrible. I'd love to see a TV movie for ABC with the two of them as leads, how adorable would that be.
I imagine Anne Hathaway was offered the role after she did the workshop and either she didn't have time to do it or she didn't like what she saw during the workshop, or there's obviously the chance they didn't offer her the part but I doubt it.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 12:44am

I am about to gently tip-toe into utterly forbidden waters here and please don't rip my head off for this because I mean no malice to anyone, but...

Looking at some photos of the original production, there are several key elements missing.

There are no Jews.

There are no men.

There are no New Yorkers.

Jerry Orbach was all three. He was, in fact, one beyond the trifecta, as he was also Catholic.

Let's face it, hetro men, who are Jewish or Catholic and from New York are not exactly the description of the male leads in this production.



Orbach looked like he had DONE THINGS with women in his life. He was a man, not a grown up man-child. Sean Hayes looks like Pee Wee Herman in the sizzle reel. He looks like a bare boob would strike him dead.

Kristin Chenoweth looks like she would eat him for lunch.

And neither Hayes or Goldwyn look like they are New Yorkers of the 1960s. The look and are dressed like Metrosexuals from the 2000s.

This knocks the whole show off-kilter. Jack Lemon in the original played Baxter like a typical New Yorker of the late 50s and Orbach, with his deep, growling voice and big, bushy features looks like he just crawled out of a bar after a five-martini lunch. Sean Hayes looks like he's just coming back from a manicure.

This show - as Wilder wrote it and as Simon wrote it - is about CC Baxter. Not Fran Kubelik. Get Baxter wrong and the show collapses. Get a weak Baxter and the spotlight turns to Fran. It's not her show. It's not her story and character arc. It's his.



To paraphrase "Spamalot", You can't do a show about New York if you don't have any Jews. The earthy ethnicness is missing. New York is missing. Mad Men, which this show seems to emulate, is about Madison Avenue advertizing, which was a white shoe bastion of Protestant snobbishness in 1962.

The Apartment is about a guy working for an insurance company, which was a much more diverse office population, especially in New York in the 60s.

This production's casting is just off by enough to knock the show off-kilter and it's just Protestant enough to make it bland and not very New York-y.

Updated On: 4/27/10 at 12:44 AM

[PReeves2]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 12:57am

"And I'm still puzzled as to why they didn't use Bennett's original choreography, especially since Ashford's really isn't anything special."

Ashfords choreography was "special" enough to get an Outer Space Critics nomination.

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 1:00am

"it's just Protestant enough to make it bland"

allofmylife, I don't know you but I love you for that line alone.

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 1:51am

Mad Men, which this show seems to emulate...

With all due respect allofmylife did you mean to write this production?... PROMISES, PROMISES and it's source material, THE APARTMENT were created way before MAD MEN hit the airwaves.

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 1:52am

Hard to believe Orbach was only 33, 34 when he starred in the original production...he looks older.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 2:10am

ABSOLUTELY Marquise. That is what I meant to say. This production was probably financed BECAUSE of Mad Men. I'll bet the producers put a sizzle reel together that had liberal helpings of Draper as well as Baxter.

And that's just another mistake.

If I (or many of the people on this board) had been the producer, I would have said, "Let's make a list of what this show has going for it. Let's keep the treasures and add great new performances. Never, ever would I have said, "Let's turf Turkey Lurkey" which is a huge crowd pleaser. Now maybe the Bennett estate wouldn't let the original choreography be reproduced, although I don't know why as there are several of the original dancers still in the business who could have meticulously helped recreate it.

Instead, we have melange - and the sizzle reel footage shows that the number is done so slowly. Up tempo anyone?

My next item on the list would be "How did they cast the original show?" and if it worked then, it will work now. Jerry Orbach replaced by Tony Roberts would not lead me to Sean Hayes. Jill O'Hara replaced by Lorna Luft doesn't lead to Kristin Chenoweth. When they sold the show based on Sean and Kristin in the leads, the problems with this show were there from day one and, barring a broken ankle, they could never be fixed.

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 2:35am

I'm just so disappointed with the final product of this production. This was the chance to do it right. It hadn't been revived in 40+ years and it was a massive hit clocking in over 1,000 performances.

It was the show that introduced a pop radio sound to the Broadway stage with background pit singers to emulate that sound. It was the show to put the genius of Michael Bennett and his associate Bob Avian on the map. It was the show to put Jonathan Tunick and Harold Wheeler on the map as top tier orchestrator and arranger, respectively. It's the first show to showcase the magnificent Donna McKechnie in a show stopping spotlight dance...it's no coincidence that Bennett, Tunick, McKechnie and Avian all followed this up with COMPANY. It was their work on PROMISES that got them noticed and put them in the big leagues.

The legend of this show loomed large...it was extremely well received and just by reading Clive Barnes opening night review, which wasn't just a review but a letter of congratulations to all involved, you just knew it was something special.

That original production will never be equaled, this new production is proof enough of that.

Updated On: 4/27/10 at 02:35 AM

[Elphaba3]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 3:30am

Kristin Chenoweth looks like she would eat him for lunch.

I wish she would. Girl needs to eat something.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 4:07am

Like I said before here, girl needs to be interventionally-cheeseburgered.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 6:58am

I have to admit that Promises, Promises is one show I am not at all familiar with. Marquise, AllofMyLife, and others, your well written posts on why this production doesn't work has me all the more intrigued.

[raker]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 8:37am

It sounds like Promises, Promises was recrafted to resemble Mad Men, making it an imitation of an imitation of 1960s style. And they tried to make it a star vehicle for a woman although the show was written to feature the male star. I sense that the show I've always seen in my head when I listen to the cast album is better directed than this revival.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 9:25am

My dream leads were Neil Patrick Harris as C.C. Anne Hathaway as Fran and Mark Kudisch as J.D

Harris is a great idea! So is Kudisch, though that almost seems like too obvious a choice, since he already played a variation on this character in 9 to 5.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 9:53am

allofmylife makes a very good point. Broadway today does seem to have a lack of what we might call "real men." Many of the guys today seem more like big boys than adult men. What is that ephemeral difference between and adult and an adolescent?

It seems that marketing has led the nation's outlook on life for the past 100 years or so, and marketing places a distinct accent on youth, the result being we try to stay "young" as long as possible. But we lose a sense of maturity, along with all the interesting positives and negatives that go with it.

[Brick]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 12:20pm

What's all this talk of "real men"? The show is based on the film "The Apartment", starring none other than Jack Lemmon. And Lemmon was certainly not, at this age, a man's man. In fact, in the film, he's much more of the "man-child" variety you are denouncing.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 1:14pm

It's not an argument about "butch" vs "nelly," I could have probably been more clear about that, it's about adult versus adolescent. Jack Lemmon, although definitely wacky, was an adult. It's, as I said, an ephemeral quality, and hard to describe. But I perceive that earlier generations had to "grow up" sooner and more than we did - generations born after 1950, with all our material comforts, and with parents from the "greatest generation," were able to extend our Me First adolescent thinking well into our later years.

An adult male, if I can try to describe something almost indescribable, conveys an attitude of responsibility, an awareness that he has to/wants to take care of others, that he has to operate from within society (rather than as a rebel, which seems to be the ideal for which many men strive today). it's the idea of a "Good Man" as opposed to a "Bad Boy." It's the image you convey - do you look right or at home in a suit? Or are a you a fish out of water in anything but t-shirt and jeans?

Does that make sense?

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 1:28pm

That makes perfect sense. We live in an age where our male stars are boys who haven't grown up. Brad Pitt. Pretty boy. Leonardo di Caprio - no matter how he tries, he's just a big kid in men's clothes. Zack Effron. You see any of them in a "drama" and the first thought that goes through your head is "underage smoker."

That's why George Clooney was a breath of fresh air. He was a MAN. The first night he was on the opening episode of "ER" I told my girlfriend "Now finally there's a MAN on TV. He looks like he's DONE THINGS to women, not like he's just "gotten lucky" a few times."

There is a huge difference between a MAN and a grown up boy. Jerry Orbach was a man. Jack Lemon may have been slight of stature, but he was a man, not a grown up boy. Tony Curtis was very pretty but he was a man by the time he and Lemon made "Some Like It Hot" around the same time period as "The Apartment."

Sean Hayes is a Peter Pan character. Look at him in the sizzle reel. He looks like he's utterly uncomfortable in his skin. That scene with the guitar? He looks like he wants to sit there and watch old movies with Kristin. (I am strenuously avoiding any comment that could be considered politically incorrect but really....)

Now look at Jerry Orbach in the photo of Baxter and Fran.

Tell me what he's thinking.

And therein lies the problem with this production.

Broadway really needs men if it's going to revive shows from periods where men - not boys - were the leads.

Updated On: 5/9/10 at 01:28 PM

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 2:06pm

Oooh... Sean Hayes in a revival of PETER PAN!

Talk about adding layers of subtext.