Is the "b-roll" the press reel?
I also saw that and was also not impressed, I don't think it does justice to the production or Bernadette.
Now that we're on the topic, what I hate about Laurents' ramblings about the Mendes revival is they apply to his own, if not worse.
He went on about the Mendes production having "no walls" - yet his recent revival also had no walls - he then specifically mentioned a scene that didn't work well with the Mendes 'no walls' concept - and his solution was just to cut it out of his production! (The hotel manager scene - strangely I thought I did recall it in the recent revival but perhaps not). He said he wanted to cut this scene since the Tyne Daly revival - So I think he is partly to blame as a failed collaborator if he knew how too improve it at the time but decided not to!
He also made a massive deal about the brief darkness after the overture while a stagehand puts a card into this thing (I'm such a n00b in that I don't know what it is actually called :P), saying it 'lost the audience'. I can't see how 15 seconds of dim light and (with some suspenseful underscoring anyway) can 'lose an Audience' and It 'did' create some kind of atmosphere, which kind of followed for the scene transitions later - I don't necessarily think the 'concept' (Which I think is kind of like a play within a play I think) was a horrible idea though I can't see it admitting much either. But still.
Another complaint was about the aesthetics of the production, which I thought seemed strange. Since to me, I thought it seemed much more co-ordinated (even if brown) than the high school looking props of the current production.
I don't know if it was the Tony snubbing or Bernadette's exaggerated missed performances (which was only at the very beginning of the run) that has influenced people's opinions, or maybe I'm just completely blind to something, but I personally can't see why it is such of a 'train wreck'.
Maybe someone can enlighten me, hehe.
Give me claws and a hunch, just away from this bunch.
