Riedel: Riedel Determined to Kill "Country"

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 10:27am

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04232008/entertainment/theater/cobras_and_country_107684.htm?page=2

[harvester7]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 10:44am

"And believe me when I say that I've got "The Country Girl" in my sights."

Wow... that's a threat...

[Steve2]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 10:47am

Does he have that kind of power? He's not even a critic.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 10:57am

I'm sorry, I know it's not wise to mess with Riedel, but his outburst this morning was unpardonable.

As I said on another thread, I went to last Saturday's matinee, fully expecting the worst. While the play itself is by no stretch of the imagination one of my favorites, I felt they all did a creditable job. Frances McDormand especially was radiant, giving a controlled performance with all the right shadings -- FAR more effective than Grace Kelly was in the movie. Peter Gallagher was fine -- used a Bronx/Brooklyn action and coveyed the character's ultimate need for Georgie. Freeman did not go up in any of the lines and was creditable throughout. I'm not so sure that he's ideal casting for this particular role, but he in no ways was incompetent. There were no appreciable cuts that I could notice and the Second Act was powerful stuff. I did find the use of the second curtain going back and forth distracting.

I'm assuming that Riedel has some vendetta (personal? professional?) against someone involved in the show. No, he is NOT a critic; he's a glorified gossip columnist with more background that some of his confreres. But a gossip columnist is a gossip columnist is a gossip columnist.

[acrocksyo]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:09am

LOL! That was amusing.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:12am

I think he was just added to the metaphor in the quote before him. I didn't read it as a threat.

They threw out a whole scene? Did they have to get written permission from the author to do that?

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:13am

I like Riedel but I really think that if he is going to go after this show, then he needs to attend more performances to see if, as Ed has reported, the show has gotten better. And if he has been attending shows, he should let that be known. Abd vice versa. Just my thoughts.

[MotorTink]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:18am

From broadways Q&A with Peter Gallagher


There's been talk about the fact that an entire scene in the first act was cut.

Oh, we were just playing with that. That's been back in for a while. This is what you do in previews, and if you have the freedom to do it out of town you don't get killed for it. The first act is largely expository, and Mike was thinking there was no new information imparted in that scene. It's essentially a domestic scene, and he was curious to see if the play would suffer by losing it. But when he took it out, we realized it would mean rejiggering the rest of the play and at the end of the day, we put it back in. He had also moved up the act break. We thought for about five seconds, "Wow, we'll get all of this information in and then we'll just burn through the second act and it will be great and exciting!" It didn't quite work out like that, but you can't know until you try.

The idea was that the scene was removed because Morgan Freeman can't learn his lines.

That's complete and utter bullsh*t. We could all be tarred with that brush, but that's not true. What people don't understand is that we do a tremendous amount of work on the show every day. Up until half an hour before curtain, we're changing the opening, we might cut a word here or shift a word there or change the entire blocking of a scene, and when you have nothing but changes day-in and day-out, the once-familiar landscape can become frighteningly foreign. For a while I likened it to putting on a pair of pants and finding three other people in there and being asked to win a dance contest. But, in fact, I think the show has really turned a corner.

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=563997

[WaltSummersPI]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:22am

Phillys, Odets is dead so, um, I don't think they had his permission.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:25am

So in other words, they have been doing what you do in previews, and getting killed for it by an overzealous reporter, looking for an easy target.

No one complains when scenes are dropped from Shakespeare, and that is done with regularity. Certainly, it is not wrong for Nichols to try things out to try to animate Odets.

Updated On: 4/23/08 at 11:25 AM

[keen on kean]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:45am

I also attended the Saturday matinee, and I thought the performance was solid (the play is not my favorite, either) and McDormand gave one of the most beautifully nuanced performances I have ever seen. Someone please tell Reidel to stuff a sock in it.

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 11:53am

Well, his e-mail address is at the end of the article....

[tazber]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 12:10pm

"Odets is dead so, um, I don't think they had his permission."

He has an estate to deal with sort of thing.

sidenote - that Mabel Mercer screwup was hilarious.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 1:41pm

Well, Baitz is the member from the Odets' state that is supposedly authorizing (and helping with) Nichol's changes to the script.
I just don't get why Riedel is so vicious when it comes to certain shows and people. His coverage of the Peters' GYPSY revival and Donna Murphy's absences in WONDERFUL TOWN are other examples of his poisonous persona. Why can't he stick to reporting gossip? Instead of manipulating the press and people.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 2:44pm

Or, as Lloyd says in All About Eve, "Addison deWitt--that venomous fishwife!"

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 6:12pm

I think they are doing a good job all by themselves.

[flaemmchen]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 12:24pm

One of my friends likes to say that Riedel was one of those kids who was bullied a lot in school and is now getting his petty revenge

I didn't love the show, and it's true that Riedel has the luxury of freedom of the press, but his attacks just seem unnecessarily malicious.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 1:22pm

Riedel has the luxury of working for a tabloid run by Rupert Merdoch, so he can write virtually anything he wants. As long as it's skewed republican.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 3:01pm

He should be going after Cry Baby.

[matty159]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 3:08pm

Frankly, I am shocked he hasn't taken aim at Cry Baby either. Perhaps too easy of a target? His work is being done for him on the boards! (Not criticism...just an observation!)

[nonplussed]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 3:42pm

His attack on Buntrock re the direction of Sunday in the Park was all lies. Riedel claimed that the success of the show was due to Lapine, the "saviour" of the show, who "sorted out the chaos". The production opened at the Chocolate Factory in November 2005 to rave reviews from the British critics. Lapine and Sondheim heard of the sucess and flew to London to see the show at the end of December, more than a month after it had been established as a huge triumph. How can Riedel publish something that is so factually wrong - and get away with it?

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 3:51pm

I need to buy All About Eve. It's on sale at Virgin for 10 bucks on DVD.