Pirate Queen, few thoughts Part II

I could not stop thinking of George Mitchell, the former Senator, who brokered the Good Friday peace deal that in essence wiped the IRA/British conflict off the radar screen. Would The Pirate Queen be viable if the IRA’s tactics were still drawing press?

I am not an historian and have no basis to judge the accuracy of the depiction of Elizabeth I and this character called Grania, but I did believe the finality of these two characters. I am an optimist - the world could use a “Woman to Woman” meeting as depicted in PQ.

This show is big! My god, how many more actors, costumes, sets and layers of music can you put together in 2:45?

This show is too long!

This show has NO HUMOR!

Stephanie Block is a powerhouse. She controls this story and stage. From her first entrance to the very trite tableau as the show ends, Stephanie is in charge.

Linda Balgord will win all awards for Best Costume. This alone is worth the ticket price.

Fraser, Chair, McCarthy and Youmans give outstanding performances.

The insertion of the Irish Dancers as a social commentary on Irish culture is well played.

I saw the show during the first week.

I was at the bar 312 after the performance and one of the production assistants on her phone said that Frank was coming in for the “re-writes.”

Mr. Galati, listen carefully, I take my family and clients to the theater and I am your market:

This show needs a Thenardier or an Engineer. That will take a lot of re-writes. There must be some comic relief. The show is TOO LONG – whether in time or plot – you decide.

But, I love it and I cannot wait to come back in late October!

Updated On: 11/26/06 at 10:39 PM

Not for a few weeks, I will have better seats and will have clients with me and will include their comments! And, my wife also!

MP, there is so much talent on that stage with gorgeous music and a ton of money with the set and cotumes - I loved it!

I didn't miss having no humour...I was too involved with the story, and hte amazing performances...


I don't understand how people are saying its too long...I believe it is shorter than Wicked or Hairspray..and I didn't get bored once...as a matter o fact I was dying for more at teh end....

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Hi - long-time lurker, first time poster...

I saw the opening night of this show - travelled a *very* long way to see it.

I'm sorry to report that I thought it was truly awful. Most of the individual performances were as good as the horrible libretto allowed, though Tiernan forgot a few words and ER was a tad pitchy, those are just opening night glitches that are easily fixed. Grania was excellent, so was her father. But often the cast had so many syllables to cram into a line they were flat out finding a place to breathe, and the lack of metre robbed a lot of the potential emotion from the words.

Mind you, the words themselves were often pedestrian in a way rarely experienced outside of schoolgirl poetry - there was a lot of stuff like "We shall succeed we shall not fail/As on the briny sea we do sail" sort of crap. I cannot get OVER how bad the libretto was. Seriously, it would not pass muster in a high school play and I can't believe anyone thinks it's fit for Broadway.

The music is not despicable, but it's boring. I've been known to buy a cast album on the strength of a single gorgeous or witty phrase of music, and I couldn't find one here. Dull, dull, dull; nothing to lift the spirits or even just to make you wander out humming.

For a show about pirates, I'd have thought the producers would appreciate the need for a hook or two...

The story is badly crammed up at first, with a quick song for every stage of Grania's development, until it slows down to an absolute crawl. There's no chance to get to know or love Grania or Tiernan or really understand what drives any of the characters. And as has already been said, there's not an amusing line let alone a joke in the whole sorry effort.

Costumes and sets are OK, but not inspired, though I liked the Elizabethan stuff. The lighting, however, was brilliant, some of the best I've ever seen. That's pretty faint praise though for something that was supposed to be as extravagant as this.

And that's without starting on the horrible post-post-feminist message. There's even a song where ER mourns that although she's an empress she really has nothing compared to Grania, who has a child and a man. And the whole theme that Grania could fight just as well as one of those men (bad men! untrustworthy and not supportive of wimmin!), but wasn't a real woman until advent of said man and child. Sickening.

This needs really serious re-writing before it can begin to hope to dream about competing with staying home and reading the book on which it's based.

I agree, if what you mean is that we should expect a lot more from Schonberg & Boublil than this dour offering. If I didn't admire their work, I wouldn't have travelled from another continent to come and see "the Pirate Queen". But "Martin Guerre" showed that they are at least as capable of flops as any other team, and this is one of them.

Hell, even Cole Porter had flops; a string of them. The work is not the artist.

Really, I thought the actor received the award!

"But look at how long Les Miz ran!"

Les Miz had the Thenardiers.

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Ex-US Senator Mitchell certainly did chair the all party talks that led to the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement), and his personal involvement was important (as was the involvement of people like President Clinton). But I do take exception to the idea that he (or any foreign intervention) somehow solved the problem. The people of Northern Ireland (who initially pressured their representatives into making concessions and eventually voted for the agreement), the British Government (Tony Blair and Mo Mowlam in particular), the Irish Government (Bertie Ahern in particular) and indeed the NI politicians themselves came to the agreement.

I can also tell you that the Northern Irish situation has not been wiped off the radar screens here in the UK, it is still an important issue (indeed it was reported this week that the provisional IRA has officially become a non terrorist organisation, but others remain). There are still plenty of problems ahead, be they renegade republican terrorists (who planted the Omagh bomb which killed 29 people) or Unionist who are objecting to devolved government being restored, or indeed the people who have voted for both extremes of the political spectrum.

Sorry for the rant, but I do feel some people don’t really understand the depth of the situation (especially considering that it was Americans who significantly bankrolled the IRA)

kaycee - I agree.

I expected the show to just be a "milestone" in theatre that I'd be glad to have been there, but completely disappointed in what the show offered. It was not so at all.

Yes there were a few moments that bothered me (pretty much all the Queen Elizabeth stuff until the last couple of scenes), and I can see where the second act needs more movement and development but I enjoyed it very much for what it was. I was left with a few of the songs in my head, and thoroughly impressed with the leads (especially Block, whom I was not a huuuuge fan of, but the role of Grania suits her well and, in my opinion, shows off her voice SOOOOOO much better!). The visual appeals were really stunning as well. They did some ingenious things in creating a boat with just men holding oars, and the movement on the ship was fantastic as well. There were some developmental issues in relationships and so forth but it was nowhere near as bad as I had prepared myself for.

Think back to what Wicked looked like in San Fransisco - compare it to now. There's so much evolution that can happen! It's quite exciting really, to think what they can come up with to fix some things. Of course, theres also the possibilty that they mess with the wrong things - but you never know what will happen!

It's theatre!!!

I expect the show on Broadway will be fixed and a block buster. I also cannot wait to see it again here!

P.s. My stage door pics...

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Updated On: 10/11/06 at 01:24 AM

All the discussion and dissent on this show (which I've been reading with a lot of interest since the first preview) has prompted me to get off the fence and buy a ticket for the Saturday matinee so I can see it for myself (that, and how could I pass up the front row ticket that came up on Ticketmaster?). I hope it's worth the ruin you're all causing to my bank account I'm looking forward to it.

(edited because I lack grammatical skills at 2am.)

Updated On: 10/11/06 at 02:47 AM