Revivals: Good Production or Good Play?

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 10:17am

When a revival, regardless of the production, gets good notices from critics and audience members, I wonder how much of it is the writing of the play? I know there can be a bad production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (ie. the Rob Marshall revival) but the play/story still stands out as a good piece of work. I was thinking about this with "A Raisin in the Sun" and its reviews last night, and thinking about other productions.

I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are.

[jnb9872]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 10:30am

Each revival is its own case. I am of the opinion that every work, no matter its relative quality, can be gifted with the maximal possible production at some point. I, for example, don't think PIPPIN is anything more than an average, flawed musical as written. But the current revival is an extraordinarily successful revival. Same for the revival of BOEING-BOEING a few years ago.

Sometimes, of course, the revival is as extraordinary as the material. Recent revivals like VIRGINIA WOOLF? and the original mounting of this CABARET capture that lightning in a bottle.

I think if a work is better than it's production, it's generally more disappointing. There are few works that can overcome a lifeless revival, and if I were to see one I would usually feel greater appreciation for the material but lament the missed opportunity of the revival.

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 10:43am

Take something like the last revival of Guys and Dolls... Disastrous production, horrific casting, atrocious direction and design... This marred the wonderful score and perfect book, so the show didn't really stand out as much as it would in a stunning version like the 1992 revival.

[dreaming]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 10:46am

I thought the revival of The Glass Menagerie this season was the best production of the play that I've ever seen. It was revelatory. (And I think it's going to do nicely at the awards this season.) I thought Twelfth Night was fantastic as a trip back in time. I'd have a hard time voting between these two productions for best revival (I think Menagerie).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 1:06pm

But Fashion, to go by what you say--the Marshall Cat got pretty lousy notices from what I remember--so wouldn't that answer your question? At around the same time Roundabout's Picnic also got, at the least, underwhelming press, and I think Picnic is a fantastic play that unfortunately has been badly served (in most major productions) for a while now which seems to just re-affirm the opinion of those who find it a middling work (while Inge is starting to get a bit of a re-appraisal, he's not at the level of Williams where, at least with his four or five biggest shows, anyway, critics are careful not to fault the play itself.)

I can't really think of too many examples of a play/musical being praised despite a less than average or downright bad production. However, as mentioned, I can think of a number of examples of both where an inspired production elevates the play/musical.

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 2:33pm

"I know there can be a bad production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (ie. the Rob Marshall revival) but the play/story still stands out as a good piece of work."

Rob Ashford directed that production, not Marshall!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 4/4/14 at 3:01pm

There are all kinds of combinations of the degrees of merit of a script and a production.

Shakespeare's and Chekhov's greatest plays are ****ed up every single day.

On the flip side, there are even those rare cases of bad plays that can come to vibrant theatrical life in the right hands; there are productions of shows that overcome even severe flaws in their scripts.

Personally, I think Lion in Winter is a hollow, pretentious piece of crap (yes, of course many people disagree; that's the nature of the beast). But in the right hands Lion can be so deftly entertaining that it transcends the script and provides great pleasure. By some miracle, with no revision of its textual problems, it even became a great movie.

Other works are so tricky that it takes many viewings of many different takes by many different companies to even feel that one can begin to objectively evaluate whether there is any there there. I am constantly revising how I feel about certain Sondheim shows because their merits seem particularly dependent on the skill of the director and cast in finding the truth of the material, truth which in lesser hands long remained latent.

Updated On: 4/4/14 at 03:01 PM