Roman Holiday Previews

We see it Thursday. Out of curiosity this weekend, I looked at the ticket site and every show between opening and closing in mid-June has excellent availability except for the two matinees this weekend which are limited. I feel HAMILTON has eclipsed everything cultural this year in SF. I wonder if because people had to spend so much on HAMILTON (in many cases) their entertainment budgets are scaled back. Though I doubt HAM and HOL have the exact same audience demographics.

I'm wondering if this is a bad time of year to open a show. I've got two weddings and four graduations in the coming weeks, none of which require much travel other than long drives. Wondering if people are just pre-occupied with other commitments this time of year, so taking a risk on a new musical is not high on many lists.

Anyway, while I'm not a jukebox fan, and I've never seen the film, I'm looking forward to it!

Are there any reports out there yet?

My friend saw a preview and he said it was really cute!

Updated On: 5/24/17 at 06:40 PM

LizzieCurry said: "PatrickDC said: "Last night was the first preview, not opening night, right?"

Yes, it was the first show. When it transitions from previews to opening night, I don't know as I have not read it anywhere. Just curious what anyone here thought about it.

My sister saw the matinee yesterday and texted me that "it was cute." There is that word again When I get more details, I will post again.

Updated On: 5/25/17 at 06:01 PM

Just got home. I didn’t look at the clock as I turn my phone off, but we were in our car at the garage a few blocks from the theater by 10:15. I read it was 2:20 long so maybe they’ve made some cuts. Frankly, I feel like this could be a one act show. There are a few extended dance scenes, and Anya’s first day out (“Experiment" ) that could be trimmed back. The ensemble dance scenes were good, with skilled energetic dancers. The choreography was basic, nothing too special or memorable. I was very engaged with the first act, the second act, not so much.

Overall, though, I’ll use a word – no, not “cute,” that’s been used twice in this thread, though it certainly is. I’ll say “charming.” It really is. For what it is. It’s not meant to be anything more, of course. It’s a really enjoyable way to spend an evening. I’m not sure there is enough there there for a long Broadway run.

The set pieces were gorgeous and very impressive. A huge “cement” arch was on stage the entire show, with a very detailed piece (Joe’s apartment) and massive Trevi Fountain tracked on. The iconic scooter scene used projections of passing buildings. It was a cute (there’s that word again!) make-you-smile scene. Costumes seemed authentic for the period, though I’m not well versed on clothing over time.

The leads – Stephanie Styles and Drew Gehling – were excellent and had good chemistry. Ms. Styles deftly moved from regal stiffness to fun-loving young lady experiencing Rome. Georgia Engel received an extended round of applause on her first entrance, and got applause on most of her exits (usually immediately preceded by one of her scatter-brained stories of her youth). She was sort of playing Mrs. Tottendale playing the Countess. Sara Chase is a belter as Francesca.

For those who want to compare the musical numbers with the previous productions: https://ibb.co/mUKcav



**SPOILER AHEAD**

Edited...as I meant to comment on the ending. Per my friend who had seen the film, it follows the film with Anya and Joe not ending up together. I feel this is a problem. We've just spent two hours watching the these two people falling in love. And they don't up as a couple. Ok, it's not likely all that likely that a commoner would end up with a princess, but it does happen, and can't we have the happy ending? Perhaps the older demographic would get this, but younger audiences I think would want the Disney-esque happily ever after ending.

Updated On: 5/26/17 at 03:01 AM

I saw the third preview of Roman Holiday last night along with a mostly full house.

If “An American in Paris the Musical” and “Nice Work if You Can Get it” Musical had a premature baby, it would probably be kinda like Roman Holiday (without the spectacular dancing). I really, really wanted to love this musical (and still enjoyed myself), given that I’m obsessed with Cole Porter (see top 100 Cole Porter songs posting on BWW), and loved Roman Holiday the movie. The movie most famously introduced Audrey Hepburn to the world, and she won the academy award for her incredible performance as the elegant princess who’s secretly a girl who wants to have fun with the common folk.

Here’s where the major challenge in pulling this show off lies….how in the heck do you replace a young Audrey Hepburn??? The answer is you can’t, and while Stephanie Styles sings well and is a solid actress in the role (liked her on tour with Newsies) she gives up the vague European accent of the unidentified country the princess is from after the first scene, and speaks in a gosh darn all American accent throughout the rest of the movie, which was very annoying. This was some of the same issues I had when I watched Robert Fairchild do the Gene Kelly role. You can’t easily replace the impact of stars of Hepburn’s and Kelly. And if a good to very good actress is playing the princess, not a star, the whole thing loses the magic that was Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday or Gene Kelly in American in Paris. The Beautiful production and creative team, much of which is re-united here for Roman Holiday, had Jessie Mueller, and she had that level of oh, wow this is a huge star in the making power to immediately light up Beautiful

I think the give up on the foreign accent is a tragic mistake, which also bursts much of the illusion of the class and background difference between the two leads, and one I would really hope director Marc Bruni (who was amazing directing Beautiful by the way) will change prior to the Broadway opening ( I spoke to a few folks connected with the show afterward that confirm this show is transferring to Broadway after this tryout no matter what). I can only think of one current Broadway actress that could definitely pull off the princess role and energy at an almost Audrey level, and that’s Laura Osnes, and they should grab her the moment Bandstand closes if it’s possible…

I liked Drew Gehling (originated Dr Pomatter in Waitress) quite a bit and his youth makes the possible romance between Joe the reporter and the princess more plausible. Drew’s also a strong singer who does wonderful treatments on Cole Porter great songs Easy to Love, Experiment, Just One of those Things and others.

Have to mention the next star of the show which is Cole Porter and his catalog. His songs fit into the story very well, as if they were written for the book (much tighter than Nice Work for example), and the only song selection I questioned was Begin the Beguine, by Francesca the lounge singer. Would much rather she sang “Looking at You” "My Heart Belongs to Daddy” or “Find me a Primitive Man” which are much better songs (what the heck is a beguine anyway? Turns out it’s a dance from the 30s).

Actual song list as of now is: Why Shouldn’t I, You Do something to Me, Take Me Back to Manhattan, Lets Step Out, Experiment, Look what I Found, Night and Day, Ridin High, Most Gentlemen Don’t like Love, Use your imagination, Begin the Beguine, Easy to Love, Goodbye, Little Dream, Just One of Those Things. From an interview with the producers gave onstage to SHN, the Cole Porter estate gave them free reign to use pretty much any Porter song that wasn’t used in Anything Goes or Kiss Me Kate ( Beautiful orchestrations and arrangements, the songs sound fresh and relevant.

Georgia Engel (at 68 bless her heart) does a lovely job and shows she still has the comedic timing from her mary tyler moore days as the princess’s aunt. The book doctors (Kathy Speer and Terry Grossman) wrote for the first 4 seasons of the golden girls, and most of their best lines were given to Georgia for some solid laughs.

I also enjoyed Jarrod Spector (he was such a good Frankie Valli and was great in Beautiful) He plays Joe's sidekick the photographer, and does a strong turn on Night and Day (the tempo on the intro felt way too fast though) and has the secondary romantic plot with new character Francesca, a lounge singer played by Sara Chase- note again here on the accents-its really hard to sing with an accent and would be much better if Sara sang her songs without the not great italian accent.

Rome is also a feature in this story, and I think the creative folks did a good job bringing the feel of rome to the sets ( a large Italianate building set piece, the trevi fountain, the fountain you put your hand in, even some multi media screens and having a background motion screen when they are on the scooter rides Some of the sets and scenes were reminiscent of American in Paris, just Rome now. The market scene when the princess is wandering around was mainly different carts for vendors. Lighting and costumes worked overall for me, and the choreography featured several strong ensemble dance numbers that seemed to go over well with the crowd,

The chemistry between the leads was good. The show lacks both a strong first act finale and second act finale, which was very noticeable to me. They keep the original ending from the movie, which is too bad (most people root for love to win)

I had a good time because I love Porter and the film, and enjoy seeing shows pre-broadway. I'll go again while it's here and see how they change it. The audience overall reaction was lukewarm (no standing ovation for the two stars or Georgia Engel, which is almost normal nowadays).

I saw early pre broadway previews of Beautiful and Legally Blonde, and this show is nowhere near either of them at this point. This felt a lot more like the Amelie out of town tryout ( a notch above it) and may be destined for a similar fate unless they make some big changes and find a dazzling star for the princess role.

Even then I'm just not sure this story was ever meant to be, or could be, a great musical. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Updated On: 5/26/17 at 10:54 AM

Saw this last night as well.

Thought Jarrod Spector and Sara Chase were the strongest things in this show BY FAR.

The book could be way funnier and the sets sometimes looked not so great.

If they could make this better it could have a 6 month life on broadway and do well regionally but as it is right now it is just ok and completely inoffensive.

As with all stage incarnations of beloved films, the more you revere the original, the more you will be disappointed in the adaptation. Two things struck me all through the watching of Thursday night's preview: First, how vital it is that the Princess never appear American. It dispels the entire enterprise, like a magician working in daylight. And it goes beyond the loss of the mid-Atlantic accent so imperative to Audrey's success in the film; it extends to how she carries herself, how she laughs, how she is choreographed, and the use of belting. Princess Ann should not sing in anything beyond a mix. The moment she belts, it's American coarse to the core. So for me, Styles only scored when she mimicked Hepburn's line readings from the film, particularly her "Thank you"s. For the rest, she was untried ingenue all the way. (Not helping matters, the librettists inexplicably robbed Ann of her signature phrase "So happy," which are essentially the first and final words she says to Joe in the film, the ones that leave a lump in your throat).

The librettists also added a loving aunt to the mix. What is so haunting about the first section of the film is how alone Ann is, treated like a machine, with advisors in place of family, an utterly loveless existence. A loving aunt fatally removed the pressure from her situation, made you wonder why she needed to leave, beyond girlish dreams of romance. Hepburn's breakdown in the film is disturbing. You actually wish for her escape before she does. What's on stage now is musical comedy for the midwestern masses, simple-minded and lacking any substance, stitched together with the arrogance of creators who assume there's no one out there who remembers either the film or Cole Porter, who will not be jarred to hear songs from RED, HOT AND BLUE extrapolated to another vehicle. And, sadly, they are right.

Which brings us to the songs. They've been trying to apply Cole Porter songs to disparate shows and films for decades and it has always failed. The prevailing logic is that Porter rarely wrote for plot which should make his songs easy to interpolate, but after years of wondering why it never works, it took watching ROMAN HOLIDAY to finally figure it out: As much as I adore his songs, the fact is that he seldom wrote for character as much as mood. His lyrics, while brilliant, are generic to situation, and thus relatively unemotional in their impact. So creative teams come upon titles like "Just One of Those Things" for a breakup spot or "Why Shouldn't I?" for a 'maybe I could' song and jump on them without thinking through the choice. Porter's lyrics are sophisticated and arch, which, when applied to Joe and Ann's plight emerges as creatively insensitive. This day in Rome is the one each will cling to in memory with the understanding that it's all they will ever have. It is definitely not "just one of those crazy flings, one of those bells that now and then rings." This bell rings but once. Similarly, Ann needs an 'I want' song that justifies her escape from the palace, a song of yearning, not a brassy, unmistakably American up-tempo of busting out. And her follow-up, "Let's Step Out" is vulgar to its core. If no one will be reviving FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN any time soon, the song is best suited for a moll like Bonnie in ANYTHING GOES, where last it was heard. It could not be more ill-suited to a Princess. The fact that many of her character's songs were written for Ethel Merman tells you everything that's wrong with mating Cole Porter to Dalton Trumbo.

Then there's the distribution of the material. You don't give "Night and Day" to your comic relief leads (one of whom has been doing Frankie Valli way too long because that's how he's singing here... P.S. Try "I Concentrate on You" ). You don't assign "Use Your Imagination" to a character who has been taught nothing but the opposite in her life. Again, the creators fell in love with the song title for the spot without studying the lyric itself. We never truly know the character of Joe here because the writers did not assign him an 'I want' song at his most pivotal plot point: the recognition that "The Story of My Life" is sleeping in his bed. Not that a trunk song of Porter's would have been found in any case (best you can hope for is "I've Got My Eyes on You" once he starts to trail her). In the end, unless we're talking KISS ME KATE or SILK STOCKINGS, Cole Porter's lyrics will take you out of the emotional diving section and plop you in the kiddie pool. Lyrics as flip and clever as his will not define character, which is why not even the stage version of HIGH SOCIETY could sustain the interpolations; the handful of songs he wrote for the film work perfectly, with the addition of the one interpolation he okayed. But inserting half the score of OUT OF THIS WORLD to that show, or this one, only serves to frustrate those who would care for these characters more if they were singing songs elemental to their plights. Even more damaging is the fact that now one of the few film properties that actually begs to be musicalized has been robbed of being done with an original score. That opportunity is lost, at least for the time being, and that's the true crime here. Moreover, it is gut-wrenching to realize how much the art of construction has been lost in musical theater. With vehicles like ROMAN HOLIDAY, seasoned, in-the-know theatergoers, already an endangered species, are thrown under the bus. When an Academy Award-winning story needs a dramaturg for adaptation, we're all in trouble out of town.

Updated On: 5/27/17 at 01:19 PM

Dodge3, if there's ever an opening for a dramaturg at ''Roman Holiday,'' you sound perfectly qualified. Even without having seen the show, one can appreciate your thoughtful and well-written analysis. You really have a grasp of the original movie and Cole Porter's catalog. ... There are clips of the 2012 incarnation of ''Roman Holiday'' at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis on YouTube.

Based on BroadwaySFguy's song list and those YouTube snippets, it appears they've changed a number of Cole Porter songs. In Guthrie, Princess and Joe sing ''Everytime We Say Goodbye,'' even tho' I assume it's the first time they've said goodbye. Anyway, it'll be interesting to track the evolution of its S.F. tryout en route to N.Y.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gki_QBhDEkw

Updated On: 5/26/17 at 03:12 PM

Dodge3, thanks for your insights! I'm so disappointed to hear this, as Roman Holiday has long been one of my favorite movies and I was so eager to see it as a musical. The movie is exquisite and just a little bit dark here and there, and from what you say, it seems they took away that bittersweet edge of desperation that made it so much more than a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy.

I too have to say I really appreciate Dodge3's insights into the film and current show.

broadwaysfguy, as you may know, Laura Osnes has been involved with this show in the past, so who knows what the future may bring in that regard. https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Exclusive-Laura-Osnes-John-Belhmann-Lead-ROMAN-HOLIDAY-Guthrie-Reading-20120129.

For those who are interested, there are a few songs from the Sherman Brothers' unproduced film musical adaptation of 'Roman Holiday' on the 'Unsung Sherman Brothers' CD: https://www.kritzerland.com/unsung_sherman.htm. However, although I like the film, I'm not invested enough to have bought this CD, so I can't confirm whether or not those songs have successfully captured the tone of the film.