RAIN at the Old Globe

[Borstalboy]

RAIN at the Old Globe#1

Posted: 4/2/16 at 5:40pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsos-myKU7k

 

Any West Coasters going to try to catch it?

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

[Wicked Fanatic]

RAIN at the Old Globe#2

Posted: 4/2/16 at 6:31pm

^ I am. 

I have tickets for two shows, the first on Tuesday night, April 5th which has a talk back with the cast and creative team after the show.  Will post my thoughts after I've seen it.  Have friends that have already seen it and they all said the set which rotates is impressive and the cast is truly exceptional. 

[BakerWilliams]

RAIN at the Old Globe#3

Posted: 4/2/16 at 6:48pm

Anybody have a thousand dollars I could borrow?

[RippedMan]

RAIN at the Old Globe#4

Posted: 4/2/16 at 11:40pm

Haven't seen it, but saw the photo preview on here, and that set is gorgeous. I thought maybe it could transfer to the Public, since they have a history with him, but it looks like it would need to be restaged. 

[GreatBroadwayFan]

RAIN at the Old Globe#5

Posted: 4/3/16 at 2:45am

I saw the very first preview and I thought it was very good. The show is set in a hotel in the South Pacific in 1924. There is a missionary & his wife and a doctor & his wife all staying in a hotel run by this couple while their ship is in port. Then Sadie comes in and shakes things up! She a...bootlegger/prostitute (its very ambiguous what she IS) and like I said shakes things up. She makes immediate enemies of the missionary and he is determined to get her kicked off the island. But then Sadie, who is a fallen woman, decides to get help from the missionary and change her ways. I won't reveal any spoilers but Act 2 is of course where everything goes haywire for these characters... 

This is an ensemble show and the entire cast holds their own. Eden Espinosa is a star, Betsy Morgan melts your heart, Marie-France Arcilla is delightful (and her chemistry with Jeremy Davis is great), Elizabeth A. Davis makes you fall in love with her so easily, Tally Sessions is quite likable and Jared Zirilli is breathtaking with his voice.

I will say that the book is much stronger than the score (but it was only the first preview so maybe they changed so stuff) but overall it was a great night of theatre. And in a surprising turn it was a very spiritual experience as well. I will be buying another ticket so I can see it again.

[EricMontreal22]

RAIN at the Old Globe#6

Posted: 4/3/16 at 4:12am

" I will say that the book is much stronger than the score "

Would that be a first for a LaChiusa show?    I tease, and I'm a huge fan, but I know often his books are criticized (granted, more often when he writes them as well which isn't the case here).

I'm a huge fan of the Maugham story and this seems like a great fit for the writers involved--and the set looks gorgeous.There was a Vernon Duke flop musical based on the same material called Sadie Thompson back in 1944 starring June Havoc as Sadie.

[Wicked Fanatic]

RAIN at the Old Globe#7

Posted: 4/4/16 at 2:50am

1st review by James Hebert for the San Diego Union...Old Globes' atmospheric 'Rain' fascinates!

 

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/apr/02/old-globe-rain-theater-review/?#article-copy

[emo_geek]

RAIN at the Old Globe#8

Posted: 4/4/16 at 1:06pm

Anybody know of any discounts available for the show? 

"I never had theatre producers run after me. Some people want to make more Broadway shows out of movies. But Elliot and I aren't going to do Batman: The Musical." - Julie Taymor 1999

[Wicked Fanatic]

RAIN at the Old Globe#9

Posted: 4/4/16 at 2:37pm

emo_geek said: "Anybody know of any discounts available for the show? 

 

They do have a $20 under 30 program as well as discounts for senior citizens and military, but they NEVER offer discounts at Goldstar.

 

http://www.theoldglobe.org/20Under30/

 

"

 

[Wicked Fanatic]

RAIN at the Old Globe#10

Posted: 4/9/16 at 9:42pm

I saw the show on Tuesday night which was also a talk back with the cast and one member of the creative team, the musical director, J. Oconner Navarro.  I'll post my thoughts (VERY LONG) with ***SPOILERS*** that I sent to friends who have also seen it or were thinking about going.

 

The night before I saw this at the Old Globe I watched one of the three movie versions that have been made from this Somerset Maugham short story.  The one available for me to watch was the 1932 film version starring Joan Crawford and Walter Huston in which a prostitute finds redemption in Pago Pago thanks to a hard missionary man.

 

Cast (in credits order):
Fred Howard     Hodgson
Ben Hendricks Jr    Griggs
William Gargan    Sergeant O’Hara
Mary Shaw     Ameena
Guy Kibbee     Joe Horn
Kendall Lee     Mrs. MacPhail
Beulah Bondi     Mrs. Davidson
Matt Moore     Dr. MacPhail
Walter Huston     Alfred Davidson
Walter Catlett     Quartermaster Bates
Joan Crawford     Sadie Thompson

 

In the Old Globe musical production only five of these characters are included:

Dr. MacPhail and his wife, Louisa; the evil missionary Alfred Davidson and his equally evil wife, Anna and the classic screen character, Sadie Thompson, a prostitute looking for redemption.  In the three screen adaptations Sadie has been played by Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson and Rita Hayworth.  At the Old Globe she is played superbly by Broadway “Wicked” star, Eden Espinosa.

 

The Old Globe cast includes:
Noi Noi (Wife of the Hotel owner)   Marie-France Arcilla (Excellent)
Anna Davidson (Wife of the Minister)   Elizabeth A. Davis
Jo (Scottish Hotel owner & Noi Noi’s husband)  Jeremy Davis (Very Good)
Sadie Thompson     Eden Espinosa (Superb)
Louisa MacPhail (Wife of the doctor)   Betsy Morgan (Very Good)
Kiwi (Ship sailor)     Rusty Ross
Quartermaster Hopper     Mike Sears
Alec MacPhail      Tally Sessions (Excellent)
Alfred Davidson (Pentecostal Minister)   Jared Zirilli  (Boo!  Hiss!)

 

All the cast were GR8 but the Minister and his wife were just EVIL and anyone that rapes someone on stage in the play ain’t gonna get any love from me.  At the Talk Back after the show it was interesting to hear the actor’s takes on their roles.  Elizabeth A Davis talked about how the wife in the movie (Buleau Bondi) was so disgusting (she was!) that she wanted to make her not be so evil.  She did but she was still someone I detested as a character in the play!  Jared Zirilli who played the minister talked about how he researched the role since they added things to his character that were not in the movie or book.  The book writer, Sybille Pearson changed him from just being a missionary to a Pentecostal minister and also revealed that like Sadie he was also a sinner who spent time in prison.  He even researched life in prison and being a Pentecostal minister in 1924 to play the role.  He felt that he had given the character some humanity.  That statement elicited a heated discussion with one of the men in the audience who disagreed with him.  Sorry Jared your character was despicable and as one woman in the audience said she could hardly wait for him to get it and he did!

 

I’ve never read the short story based on a true experience by Somerset Maugham which is short on details, but one of the best things about this production over the movie is that the characterizations have been expanded especially with the doctor and his wife.  She said barely nothing in the movie.  She was just there but Betsy Morgan who played it at the Old Globe was fantastic and made her a really sympathetic character,

 

When you come into the Old Globe for this play the first thing you see is the astounding set which fills the stage all the way to the top of the theatre.  It revolves and on all levels during the play the actors in their rooms are doing things even if the scene’s emphasis is only on what is happening in one room.  Betsy Morgan talked about it when she told us what she was doing--she was in her room writing in her journal or letters.

 

Photos of the set can be seen here if you haven't seen it.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Photo-Flash-First-Look-at-Eden-Espinosa-and-More-in-Michael-John-LaChiusas-RAIN-at-The-Old-Globe-20160330

 

As I already mentioned the musical director, J. Oconer Navarro was present at the Talk Back.  He has been with this production since it was first done as a workshop at Vassar College in New York during the summer in 2015 when they were getting the musical ready for it to debut at the Old Globe.  The 8 pc orchestra underneath the stage had many playing multiple instruments: Keyboards, Cello, Flute, Clarinet, Alto Saxophone, Oboe, Tenor Saxophone, Bassoon, French Horn, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Acoustic Bass, Drums and Percussion.

 

Music and lyrics for this production was done by Michael John Lachiusa, a five-time Tony Award-nominated composer, lyricist, and librettist for his Broadway productions of "The Wild Party", "Marie Christine", and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold".   Many of his productions have been seen Off Broadway especially at the Public Theatre which I have a feeling just might be housing this musical in the near future.  (As mentioned by RippedMan maybe not, because of the size of the set.)

 

According to John LaChiusa “Rain is one of the most unusual scores I’ve written in that in addition to character-driven music--the interior monologues or external duets, even group choruses--there is tremendous use of diegetic music; a Samoan chant, a Scottish folk song, tribal drums, gramophone music from the 1920s. The result should be a very diverse and hopefully, rich tapestry.” 

(It was in my opinion, but for others that I heard at intermission and after the show it was not very appealing!  One person even said they thought it would have been better without any songs; I disagree!)

 

The night that I saw it the song list was inserted into the Performances playbill and consisted of 18 musical numbers 9 each in Act One and in Act Two.  Whether that changes during the run at the Old Globe remains to be seen.

 

There is no choreography in this show and it’s done in an opera/chamber musical style.

 

For me the best numbers were given to Sadie Thompson and Eden Espinosa delivered them with gusto.  Her vocal chops are still a powerhouse!  Her three standouts were “Sunshine” which I had heard before I saw it online.  I wasn’t particularly impressed with it then, but in the show it was much better when I saw it in respect to how it played in the storyline.  I loved her “Thirteen Dollars”!  The best was her heart breaking showstopper in Act 2, “Alone”.  It gave me goosebumps!

 

I also enjoyed the two songs with Jo (Jeremy Davis) and Noi Noi (Marie-France Arcilla) especially “Malo (Hello)”.  They were the only source of comic relief in what was a powerful but very depressing play!

 

One of the most heartbreaking rendered songs was by the Doctor (Tally Sessions) and his wife (Betsy Morgan) --”The Noise/Let Love Do What It Does”.

 

The Act 1 finale number “Prayer” was superb and towards the end of the number the hotel set pulled apart moving to the far left and right of the stage.  During the 20 minute intermission the Old Globe technicians redesigned it to span across the entire stage.  It was an amazing transformation when we came back inside for Act 2.

 

Since the musical is entitled "Rain" it did just that on the stage for the entire show.  Most of the rain although light fell on the far right and left sides of the stage. After the show during Talkback there were OG employees using Shop Vacs to clean it up.

 

Here’s a link to the Old Globe’s video with highlights from the musical.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/STAGE-TUBE-Watch-Highlights-from-LaChiusas-RAIN-at-The-Old-Globe-Starring-Eden-Espinosa-20160407

 

Now that I have seen it I can pick out scenes that are intertwined with Eden Espinosa singing “Sunshine”.  During the credits there is another song “Malo (Hello)” which I said earlier is a really good song and one of the few joyful songs/scenes in the musical.  They even showed the ending in the video which just like the movie and the book is abrupt.  My friend turned to me and said “Is that it?” and I said, “Yup!”  See if you can pick out the ending; I bet you can.

 

The show is really adult fare and not for children especially with that rape scene in the middle of the stage.  The acting is first rate and it’s worth seeing to see this talented Broadway ensemble cast and the amazing set.

 

Updated On: 4/10/16 at 09:42 PM

[Wicked Fanatic]

RAIN at the Old Globe#11

Posted: 4/14/16 at 1:46pm

Technical Director Ben Thoron on the Scenic Challenges of Rain

The set design for Rain began with research into the boarding house and hotel that is the central location of Somerset Maugham's short story. Designer Mark Wendland found images of colonial buildings in the Pago Pago harbor, one of which was the one Maugham used in his story. He took the original architecture, removed the walls, and simplified the structure to make a compellingly complete building that could highlight each room in the house as the action moves around, up and down and through the house.

I've been describing the set as a 3.5 ton, steel-framed, three-story house with no walls and spiral stairs to the trap room, that revolves, splits apart, gets reconfigured at the intermission, and finally pivots apart, all in the rain. This leads to the inevitable question, "is that all?!" The answer is, remarkably, "no." The details make it even more complex.

The single biggest engineering challenge was the various movements of the house. Much of the first act is spent rotating the house to show us various rooms. At the end of the act, the house splits apart, signifying the emotional divisions within it. In the intermission shift, both halves are reconfigured to give us yet another view of the house, only to be further deconstructed when the two units rotate apart, leaving a void center stage. Each of these moves required careful discussion and engineering. Rotating the entire house could be done in several ways; the first most obvious idea is to build a turntable underneath the house. It was a great solution for The Comedy of Errors in 2015. A turntable has advantages in rotational accuracy, lower power requirements, and an easier construction. On the other hand, creating a turntable added significant load-in time, required installation of a deck around it, and necessitated taking the huge point loads created by the casters of the house. The structural design of this turntable alone drove us to decide to drive the house on its own wheels.

Making a self-driving house is no easy task either. If you think of a car as an analogous machine, you can see that the four wheels more or less support the load of the car and maintain contact with the ground. That even loading and constant ground contact make possible the transmission of torque through the driving wheels. However, you’ll also notice that when you get into a car with several of your friends that the car lowers closer to the ground as it gets loaded. This is because cars have suspensions to compensate for road variations, rider comfort, and load balancing. A three story house on a suspension would wiggle, shift, and wave in the air as actors moved around it.

The end of Act I is marked by a physical separation of the house into two parts, one half remaining attached to the center staircase, the other traveling diagonally offstage. This required us to build the house wagon in halves, each with independent control. In the half that travels offstage, we have two more motor drives, essentially identical to the rotation drives, aimed carefully to shift the wagon in the correct direction. It is connected by an umbilical cord of flexible industrial conduit called e-chain.

One of the key elements of the set in Act II is that it is presented in a fixed tableau with the house units spanning the entire width of the stage but split apart once again on pivots, essentially creating a gulf between the units, completely eradicating any sense of naturalism. This pivot action requires a strong point to pivot around. Unfortunately, due to the geometry of the set and the stage area, the pivots end up under the platforms, hard to find or see. The job of the stage crew during intermission is to relocate the two-ton scenic wagons into a one-inch hole. The crew employs a collection of electric chain motors, hand-cranked chain "come-alongs," and a certain amount of brute force to precisely locate the wagons. The first time we tried it, it took the crew 29 minutes to complete the shift. Over the course of several previews, the shift time slowly diminished, then climbed to a frustrating 33 minutes, and with practice, has fallen to a blistering 15 minutes. Watching the coordinated action of the nine stagehands is definitely worth skipping the beverage line at the pub!

Once we determined how the house was to be rotated and driven, the next step was to address construction, both in the shop facility and then on the stage. Stage time is our most restricted resource; in this case, we had nine days between the prior production and technical rehearsals. One day is lost to striking the prior set, one day to rigging soft goods and hanging of lights over the stage. In the remaining seven days, we try to provide the majority of the crew a day off, leaving six days to go from bare stage to completed set. This constraint led us to make the house in large modules.

We can't end this discussion without talking about rain. It was crazy to think that we would have water onstage, indoors — terrifying even — but that's what we do. There are six rain elements in the current show. There are three "rain" systems across the front of the set: these are drip hoses set in split pipes to both support the hose and focus the drops into a specific line. Left and right of the house unit is a row of fogger emitters. Upstage of the house we have one long strip of fog/mist emitters to provide atmosphere upstage of the house in the second act. The final rain moment is a focused shower downstage center, using hot water, which douses two actors in Act II. The downstage rain systems drain into catchment basins under the front of the stage and then into the closest drain in the basement. Upstage, the rain merely falls on the deck, where the water puddles until the crew vacuums it up after the show.

The project took seven weeks to build in the shop. The first two weeks were spent constructing an entirely separate two story rehearsal set. The main house came together in the remaining five weeks.

 

[TFMH18]

RAIN at the Old Globe#12

Posted: 4/15/16 at 4:03pm

This is somewhat off topic, but I need to share. 

Since seeing Bright Star, I have been captivated by how similar Carmen Cusack looks to Eden Espinosa (to the extent that when I see photos of one or the other, I have trouble differentiating). Sure enough, in reading about Rain, I found out that Carmen originally played Eden's role in a previous workshop of the piece. I know this is not groundbreaking-- they are two actresses of similar age and vocal range-- but I still thought it was a funny coincidence. 

Anyways, carry on!

[broadwayboy223]

RAIN at the Old Globe#13

Posted: 4/15/16 at 5:17pm

I didn't know Carmen did this in a workshop! I bet that was great. I really like the one song "Sunshine" in the highlights video Eden slayed. Didn't Audra do a reading or workshop of this in the last couple of years? I could have sworn that I read that and that I read this was being developed for Audra? I could be wrong. Audra would be sensational!

[Call_me_jorge]

RAIN at the Old Globe#14

Posted: 9/27/17 at 7:05am

A video of this show popped up on my YouTube feed this morning and fell head over heels for it. Eden was absolutely incredible, but it’s kind disappointing this show didn’t take off. Any idea why they didn’t pursue a transfer?

My father (AIDS) My sister (AIDS) My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS) The gays and the straights And the white and the spades

[whatacharacter]

RAIN at the Old Globe#15

Posted: 9/27/17 at 10:37am

can you share the link?  I couldnt find it

[Call_me_jorge]

RAIN at the Old Globe#16

Posted: 9/27/17 at 11:25am

https://youtu.be/wsos-myKU7k

My father (AIDS) My sister (AIDS) My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS) The gays and the straights And the white and the spades

[whatacharacter]

RAIN at the Old Globe#17

Posted: 9/27/17 at 12:14pm

That's been around a while.  I thought you had found the entire show.  Thanks though.

[Scarywarhol]

RAIN at the Old Globe#18

Posted: 9/27/17 at 1:53pm

I've passed over this thread so many times thinking it was about that freaking Beatles thing.