REX

[Elphaba]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 1:47pm

did anyone here seen the Hammerstein musical Rex, when it was playing?

I bought the cast recording while in New York when I was there, and ugh...I am not impressed.......sounds so "Cameloty"....the music is trite, unoriginal score.....a musical about Henry VII should be SO much better....


sorry wrong board

Updated On: 3/18/06 at 01:47 PM

[Smaxie]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 2:59pm

It's actually Richard Rodgers and Sheldon Harnick, not Hammerstein. (Hammerstein had been dead for 25 years when Rex opened).

Say what you want about it, there are some lovely songs. I do love "Away from You," "As Once I Loved You," and "No Song More Pleasing".

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 3:00pm

Away from You is one of my favorite songs

[Flahooley]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 3:04pm

AWAY FROM YOU is topnotch Rodgers.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 4:32pm

ack, I put the wrong name......sorry. I'll have to relisten to Away from You....

[Smaxie]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 4:51pm

I used to know a little bit more about musicology. (Perhaps someone on this board can help). But a Richard Rodgers melody has a very distinctive way of working up to (I believe) the seventh, before resolving itself around the tonic - very much a build-up and release. I think I remember reading that "Away from You" is almost a textbook example of a perfect, unmistakable Rodgers melody. The type of thing that if you didn't know he wrote it, you'd still be able to pick it out as the work of Richard Rodgers.

[justagirl2]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 4:52pm

I never saw it, but Christmas at Hampton Court is hysterical. It's one of those shows where I truly can't tell if I would enjoy it or not...but I do love Away from You.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 8:27pm

yes Xmas at Hampton Court was fun.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 3/18/06 at 11:57pm

I remember seeing it & enjoyed it. It was good not great

I would love to have heard the cut songs especially those by Anne Boyelyn . Away from you is the best from the score

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 3/19/06 at 12:54am

"The type of thing that if you didn't know he wrote it, you'd still be able to pick it out as the work of Richard Rodgers."

Which is more than you can say for his grandson.


Julie Jordan
New England

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/19/06 at 1:15am

I saw it too, and it was not bad, just utterly in the wrong time. In 1976, America had just pulled out of Viet Nam and what with Watergate and all, not exactly a fine time for a film about an imperious leader.

My father wouldn't take me to see it (he'd been burned too many times over the decade by Rodgersshows, I guess) so I went alone.

Also, Rodgers was quite ill during this period with cancer and, I believe I read, a drinking problem. Still, he could crank out a score, man.

There was a Canadian singer, Ed Evanko, with an amazing voice. I remember he sang a lullabye to the king's baby that began "Go to sleep E-liz-a-bet, pretties babe who ere drew breath" and it was such a lovely melody.

Christmas At Hampton Court is a beautiful comedy number, with two daughters talking lovingly about their monsterous family and all the dysfunction.

As to the uniqueness of a Rodgers song, here's a simple experiment. Do you know the title song from "No Strings"? "The sweetest sounds I ever heard are still inside my head" (Rodgers reaction to the death of Hammerstein, as if to say I can still write even if I have to do it alone, but I digress...) Anyway, just hum the FIRST EIGHT NOTES. I bet if you heard them for the first time, you'd say "That's Rodgers." Now try the first seven, then six... I could recognize his work from the first two notes. He is utterly distinctive (and yes, unlike his grandson).

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 3/19/06 at 1:26am

An ignorant and strangely off topic statement. One wonders, first of all, are you taking a potshot at Adam Guettel? I then wonder, why in a thread about some old flop show by Richard Rogers?

Richard Rodgers had a career spanning decades, wrote music for many, many shows, and while certainly a genius melodist, was not exactly always the most adventurous of melodists. His music is legendary and part of the American cultural landscape. His tunes are instantly recognizable from his shows, movies, old radio standards, commercials, spoofs--anywhere music may be featured. He was a formulaic composer. An extremely gifted one, of course, but not a particularly surprising one. He knew what worked and he did it. I believe there's a reason the guy feared, later in life, he would eventually run out of music.

In fact, there are plenty of Rogers songs that one would not instantly pinpoint as Rogersesque if a person was not already familiar with them. He was a versatile composer, just, as I said before, knew what worked, did it.

You would probably be less apt to identify a song as written by him as you would to call it Rogersesque, or more generally, "like a showtune".

On the other hand, Adam Guettel is a composer more informed by versatility. While he doesn't "piss melodies", as Rogers might say, I definitely feel he has a style. He's still feeling it out (He pastiches various styles of music, and one feels that he is toying with the possiblities), but at this point I am grateful for his youth and his willingness to explore. Really, isn't style what happens when you start quoting yourself? Rogers, too, was once a young turk. Of course the music in Piazza will resemble operetta, since that is what Piazza is, just as Floyd Collins is informed by a certain style of music. Carousel is a dramatic piece of work, so it has such a thing as "Soliloquy". The guy has a lot of classical and pop influences and ends up having, in my opinion, a pretty unique style. I have my observations about the things that happen consistently in his music, but unlike quite a few other composers, Guettel is a breath of fresh air with a unique versatility that bears more than a passing resemblance to his grandfather while at the same time breaking from the family tradition.

Both composers of merit.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/19/06 at 1:26am

And I just remembered. Princess Mary was played by Glenn Close. I read the programme again a few years ago and remembered seeing that. I saw her in Barnum, back when she was a relative unknown. What a voice. Barnum began 30 minutes before the curtain went up with acrobats and clowns in the audience. And a guy walking the balcony rail like a high wife, right in front of me. Back then, nobody would think of scaring him or giving him a shove. Nowadays, I'd be worried....

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 3/23/06 at 9:47pm

"He was a formulaic composer. An extremely gifted one, of course, but not a particularly surprising one...In fact, there are plenty of Rogers (sic) songs that one would not instantly pinpoint as Rogersesque (sic) if a person was not already familiar with them...You would probably be less apt to identify a song as written by him as you would to call it Rogersesque, or more generally, "like a showtune".

Then how in hell can you call Rodgers a 'formulaic composer?'
Along with Kern, he invented the G**damned form!! Talk about ignorant!

"...at this point I am grateful for his (Guettel's) youth and his willingness to explore."

Youth? Guettel's pushing forty!


Dorian Gray
London, England

[WOSQ]

Posted: 3/24/06 at 9:47am

Rex was the wrong type of musical show. These people were not musical play types, but rather operatic. They had nothing to sing, talk and try to dance about. Henry was a bully surrounded by some interesting women.

Nicol Williamson was dull and humorless in a dull and humorless role. Lethal to any show. Who cared about him? I was glad when Henry died and the last moment of the show (at the time anyway) belonged to Penny Fuller.

What they needed to do was sing about the grand passions that each was feeling and not have any words get in the way.

Clothes from this period do not 'dance' well. They are too stiff and what's the point if you can't see their feet? (And the choreographer was an old friend of mine. I had to tiptoe around that one.)

Granted, I saw this show early in its out-of-town tryout before Hal Prince came aboard as doctor, but I have always felt it was doomed from the conception.

There is a long chapter on Rex (Wrecks) in the new book called "Second Act Trouble" by Steve Suskin.