Riedel: PORGY AND BESS canceling Broadway run? — Page 6

I said I wouldn't quibble but I can't resist. They ought to lose the real-live baby in the first act. For one thing, it's a little distracting. And much was made of changing Summertime because, "after all" they said, "it's a lullaby." The actress sings it beautifully, but she holds the baby in the crook of her arm off to her right, and turns her head up and to her left when she sings, as though the song has nothing to do with the baby. Presumably this is so she won't sing this big song into the face of a so-far-so-good quiet baby. She looks off to the horizon as she sings looking blissful, as though she can’t believe her luck living here on Catfish Row (in a set designed to evoke a pigpen, I think.) It did not come across as a sad, mournful, ironic lullaby, or any sort of lullaby at all.

I, also, totally agree about cutting the live baby.

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Kali Ma...

Kali Ma...

Kali Ma Shakti de!

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[photoshopped image of Mola Ram with Norm Lewis' face]

(I can't photoshop from work.)

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How did this turn into a thread about cutting babies?

^This.

And every thread is really about cutting babies... way down deep.

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Clearly Jordan and Growl are not members of H.O.O.P. They are all about NOT cutting babies.

And I want that goat put back in the show.

Message to Diane Paulus: CUT BABY--BRING BACK GOAT!

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Look, if you all could stop picking on this, Diane really had her heart set on another Tony. She would thank you in advance if she were here.

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Absolutely no comparison. "Carmen Jones" couldn't be a more different case than this. It was presented as an obvious re-interpretation of "Carmen" and billed as "Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones", not like this production which is billed as "The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess". No one thought they were seeing or hearing "Carmen" when they saw Hammerstein's production. Many people who see this P&B think they're seeing the real thing - they're not. It's a pale shadow of a great work.

And BTW, the music in "Carmen Jones" was not butchered:

"Although Oscar Hammerstein II translated the libretto for Georges Bizet's opera Carmen from French into English for his Broadway production, "The music was pretty much left intact," explains Arts and Entertainment Editor Elisabeth Vincentelli."

Or like those CDs I used to see at Target all the time - "The Starlight Orchestra Presents Selections From Porgy & Bess"

If people were to judge the Broadway community by this particular page....

Anyway, I did a Google check to see if this page comes up when you search "cutting babies."

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Updated On: 9/10/11 at 10:03 PM