Princess Diana Musical, DIANA, Set for World Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse — Page 3

This production has now been extended to run February 19 - April 7, 2019. I am a true Anglophile and have spent many happy hours on the other side of the Atlantic. However, for whatever reason, I had very little interest in seeing "Diana: A New Musical," even though I can practically walk from my home to the La Jolla Playhouse. But now I have seen the recent ads for the show on local TV, and WOW, I'm ready! Bought my ticket this morning before they're all gobbled up. Anyone else going?

Updated On: 12/17/18 at 07:21 PM

n2nbaby said: "LOL what do you for the production?"

Busted!

I will be really interested to see the reviews on this one. As fascinating as her life was, I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around this one.

The queen breaks into song? Now, I can see a musical with an imaginary queen in an imaginary kingdom doing this. But QE is still alive, she's very real to all of us, we've seen her image, and we know too much about her to ever envision her breaking out into song. It almost sounds comedic. But I don't think that's the direction this musical is taking.

Diana? We know how progressive she was. How modern. We know she loved Elton John, and MJ was on record as saying she was fine with him keeping in his song "Dirty Diana" when he was playing London. But the Idea of even her breaking into song, and even more so, dance, again, seems bizarre. As "cool" as she was, I don't even see the real Diana letting down that much. That's not even how she came off before she was married to the future king.

A very odd concept, overall. And again, will be interesting to see how it plays on stage.

TONY AWARD

This makes me think of LaChiusa's First Daughter Suite at the Public a few years ago. Who would imagine figures like Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan breaking into song, but still it worked so well. The composer is challenged with finding a style of music that fits with the rest of the piece, but doesn't betray the true nature of the various figures represented.

bwayboy22 said: "This makes me think of LaChiusa's First Daughter Suite at the Public a few years ago. Who would imagine figures like Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan breaking into song, but still it worked so well. The composer is challenged with finding a style of music that fits with the rest of the piece, but doesn't betray the true nature of the various figures represented."



Interesting. I guess you could argue that Nancy was an actress before anything else, so song isn’t totally out of the question. And Barbara? Nothing would surprise me. She was at once direct and opinionated, but also grandma-like in many ways. So I could see it. More than the queen anyway.

All opinion though. In the meantime, I have friends who have asked me to go, so maybe I end up seeing it after all.

I do agree with the previous poster. If they can tap into something that actually humanizes the royals without it appearing corny, it will be an interesting concept as well.

If Memphis an get the Tony so will this

Anyone familiar with La Jolla know if they offer standing room or rush? I waited too long and the run is practically sold out and can't find anything on secondary markets.

I purchased "Diana" tickets soon after they went on sale. Later, the run was extended by one week. Today, I received an e-mail from the "Playhouse" announcing that the play is being extended for another week, April 9-14, eight performances. I was offered the opportunity to purchase tickets for the April 9-14 dates before they go on sale to the general public, but the message didn't say when that option would be open to the general public. So.......I'm guessing that tickets will soon be available for that one week.

Saw this tonight, absolutely LOVED it. I was not sure what to expect, even as a Lady Di fan, but I was thoroughly impressed. The way they chose to portray her death/how quickly everything came to a close/the amount of storyline they tried to squeeze into the last number was a bit off-putting, but altogether it was so well done. Quite the jerker. And honestly much better than a lot of things I've seen on Broadway as of late. I agree that it could transfer immediately, which makes me excited to see what they end up doing with it.

The "This Is How Your People Dance" number was SO enjoyable. I keep replaying it in my head wishing I could watch it over and over. This thing is pretty brilliant.

Having seen this at yesterday's matinee, I find myself somewhere between broadwayblondes and Dobson.

While I didn't love it, I also didn't consider it a complete mess either. I found the music way more enjoyable than I thought I would, and I personally connected more with the lyrics than Dobson did. I even found them rather clever in places.

The choreography was highly engaging at times, especially the numbers when the paparazzi made their appearances. The show held my interest throughout, even though I knew the story of Diana pretty well. Nothing surprising really came out of this storyline.

Overall, I'm glad I saw it, and I actually did enjoy myself. The performances were quite good. I though de Waal, Davie, Hartrampf and, of course, Kaye were all in good vocal form. I really liked Roe's and Jenna's voices, in fact.

The LJ Playhouse is fairly intimate, but I was sitting toward the back, and even from the rather short distance they both really looked the part.

Is it Broadway-caliber? Will it get to the Great White Way as it is?

Who knows? But let's just say I've seen less entertaining on Broadway and leave it at that.

Now, as for the issues I had with hit. I was a little skeptical going in as I just could not shake that feeling of 'How do you buy into the Queen of England, Prince Charles and Lady Diana breaking into song and dance?' For the most part though, this wasn't terribly bothersome to me.

I do have to admit that the musical hung somewhere between the serious and the campy. It was hard to sink your teeth into what they were trying to do with it at times. Seeing as she was such an icon, I guess I was looking for something more concrete in its delivery.

In her real life (as it was portrayed to the world), we saw very little of Diana before she became the princess. We know she was more progressive and less square than Charles. But did she ever cut loose, or did we ever really see her as that type of personality to let down her hair? I guess we'll never know because she never made it beyond her teens to experience that open and freewheeling life that she may have had had she not married a prince. What you did learn about her though, prior to marrying the prince, she didn't exactly come off as a wild and crazy girl. I was still able to suspend some disbelief to let that go a bit.

Many will say she was edgy in the sense that she shook up the monarchy. Indeed she did.

But while shaking hands with AIDS patients, walking through minefields and entering the inner city to meet the people is admirable (and yes, out of the range of what the royals were known for), it was hardly an indicator of her being a rock star in any sort of wild and crazy, cut loose manner.

So seeing her in the scene where Charles is enjoying his classical music while she breaks into this rock and roll number, only to return to her seat so prim and proper again, wasn't really all that convincing. It seemed momentarily kind of silly.

And again, I think that's another issue I had with it. It seemed to "be bop" back and forth between the serious and campy. And again, a little difficult to wrap your head around when thinking about the royals. Artistically and musically creative, yes, but not always convincing within the context of the play.

One thing I was telling my friends driving home from the theater is, on occasion, I almost got a little bit of an "Evita" feel with the show. And as I thought more on that, I couldn't help but think that maybe this show would work better as a rock opera, or something more akin to Evita. Tell the entire story through music.

Princess Diana was an icon and had a bigger than life persona. She was bigger than life. Trying to wrap up her life in a two hour show seemed limiting to me. Again, it was entertaining, but I think more could have been done with it. Perhaps a different approach.

Very true. And it's very possible that setting it to the Evita concept might not work.

I do feel that with someone the caliber of Diana in both her fame and influence though it has to be more than what this musical is presenting at present. The music does have an upbeat, rock(ish) edge to it, but it definitely has its distinct differences from Evita.

Diana was huge, and I think a more contemporary opera with that pop/rock edge would work if a musical is going to do justice to her life.

I concur that Charles (and even Camila) take on pretty significant roles in this musical. But they almost have to though since they were behind Diana coming into the picture, and then leaving the relationship as she did.

Is Diana painted as a sympathetic figure in the musical? In a way, yes. But she is also portrayed as the woman scorned who confronts Camila, contacts Andrew Morton, and then ultimately shows up in "The Dress" (a pretty funny song, by the way). Her own extramarital escapades are also brought into the fray as are references to Harry's ginger hair.

As much as she did for the disenfranchised and those in need, I agree that she was less than angelic. And I don't think they necessarily tried to hide this impression of her in the musical. In fact, I think you leave the musical with much the same impression of the trio as you probably had going into the theater. They even address her relationship with the paparazzi, clearly showing that she liked the attention at the same time she didn't. That conflict was pretty well addressed as well.