She's Back! CARRIE - First preview !!! - Page 13

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 1:47pm

All at once there was a huge red splash in the air. Some of it hit the mural and ran in long drips. I knew right away, even before it hit them, that it was blood. ...

They were drenched. Carrie got it the worst. She looked exactly like she had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. She just sat there. She never moved....

I said: "My God, that's blood!"

When I said that, Tina screamed. It was very loud, and it rang out clearly in the auditorium.

People had stopped singing and everything was completely quiet. I couldn't move. I was rooted to the spot. I looked up and there were two buckets dangling high over the thrones, swinging and banging together. They were still dripping. All of a sudden they fell, with a lot of loose string paying out behind them. One of them hit Tommy Ross on the head. It made a very loud noise, like a gong.

--Stephen King, Carrie

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 1:51pm

I love that description - I love how rather than chaos the moment is dead quiet. The world stops. Now that's scary.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 1:56pm

I always thought after the blood drop it should be met with stunned silence.

[leefowler]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 1:59pm

It's a little like a production of Sunset Boulevard where the director says, "We don't want our Norma Desmond to be monster. We want her to be a REAL person, a person who has been hurt by her past, trying to find a way forward into her future. OUR Norma is not a gorgon".

Well, fine...but what's the fun in that?

I think most people who watch this production of Carrie will wonder what the fuss has been about all these years.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:00pm

"They were drenched. Carrie got it the worst. She looked exactly like she had been dipped in a bucket of red paint. She just sat there. She never moved...."

I guess the fact that Arima is using red paint is OK now? Stephen King described it that way himself!

I just downloaded the book on my iPad, as I have never read it, and now seems as good a time as any.

[newintown]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:18pm

"I guess the fact that Arima is using red paint is OK now?"

What are you talking about?

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:22pm

a few posts earlier, saying that the red stuff in the bucket looked too much like paint, and not enough like blood. Now that we see that Stephen King himself described it as red paint in the book, I'm saying that should make Arima's choice OK to use red paint in the bucket in this off broadway incarnation. Sorry for not being more specific.

Updated On: 2/2/12 at 02:22 PM

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:36pm

Leefowler but she IS a real person, shes not a panto villan, she is a woman who LOVES her daughter but is caught in her faith. I think Mazzie (from what i have heard) balances it very well

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:39pm

"I think most people who watch this production of Carrie will wonder what the fuss has been about all these years."

If anyone goes into the production of CARRIE thinking that it is going to be a replica of the campy diastrous original production, then they deserve to be disappointed.

We all had just 21 chances to see the original broadway production of this show live - nothing will ever be the same as that experience.

Updated On: 2/2/12 at 02:39 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:40pm

The clip I posted earlier in the thread from the film is this moment. There is a very long build-up to the bucket tipping over that is pretty much a silent movie with music. The sequence is just over five minutes long with absolutely no dialogue after their names are announced as king and queen of the prom. The shots are incredible, though. You can see what everyone is thinking and feeling.

When the bucket tips over, the music and sound effects stop. All you hear at that point is the bucket swaying and the sound of dripping blood. No gasps, no dialogue (even when some of them are clearly talking and yelling), nothing but the bucket and the blood.
Here's the clip again.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:41pm

Actually, that's sort of not Stephen King himself. The book is told by multiple narrators, from the POV of several different characters as well as the transcripts of the court proceedings and newspaper and magazine articles about the night of the prom. (All written by King, of course, but it's not a the typical novel with a single, omniscient narrator who is the voice of the author.)

That particular description comes from what King writes as a Reader's Digest article by one of the girls called "We Survived the Prom."

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:45pm

Not to beat a dead horse, but the difference is that in that description the first thing she says is "I knew right away it was blood" -- she doesn't say, there was something on her that looked exactly like red paint and so I assumed it must be blood.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:51pm

Even though the blood is a little too red (blood turns dark really quickly when exposed to air, and by the time Carrie reached home it would very dark, almost brown), I do find the last image from the NY Times pretty chilling.

If this moment isn't grabbing you, I think it has to be because the setup failed.

And with the bucket of blood scene, the setup is everything. The whole story (at least on stage or screen) has been building up to this moment at the prom where the blood is dumped on Carrie.

The rest is aftermath.

Updated On: 2/2/12 at 02:51 PM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:52pm

I love those pictures. As photographs they are wonderful

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:54pm

The last picture looks a little over the top and melodramatic as a static image. It looks like a bad silent movie pose.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 2:56pm

^ Which is exactly why I love it.

It's actually perfect Stephen King.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 3:01pm

Again just from the audio i adore the whole prom scene, it spends a lot of time showing you that Carrie is having the perfect night, unlike the original 88 show in this i was really rooting for the blood not to happen and she runs a brush through her hair and becomes a cheerleader lol.
The build to the drop i thought worked, the music moves from romantic and hopeful as the night goes on to sinister and suspensful as the moment draws closer. I do think though that the blood should drop and then silence before the laughter begins. On the other hand though i thought Carrie replaying all the songs at the moment is very effective, just blurting out lines from the show.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 3:03pm

That moment actually just lasts a split second. The stabbing is done almost identically as to how it is done in the movie, but in the moment after (this moment) when Margaret raises the knife, Carrie causes her heart to stop and Marin falls back into the chair.

It happens very quickly..

[PalJoey]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 3:45pm

The section in the novel in which Carrie makes Margaret's heart beat slower and slower and slower and slower until it comes to a full stop is among the most memorable pieces of writing I've read in my life.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 3:52pm

I agree PalJoey with Margaret almost disappearing into a vortex towards hell. Its amazing.

[DidYouReallyHearMe]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 3:58pm

Just clarifying for EVERYONE.


First preview was just that. A preview.


It is CONFIRMED by tech/actors/box office that blood WILL fall from the ceiling.


They said it should happen in the show tonight.

[a-mad]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 4:05pm

^ that seems to go against what Arima said (quite definitively) in the article...

it will be interesting to see if it really happens.

[LegallyBroadway2]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 4:05pm

Same here, I'd love to hear if it actually pours tonight.

Anyone going to be there?

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 4:07pm

Yes, I'll be there tonight and I will let you all know.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/2/12 at 4:08pm

I dont think the blood falling from the roof tonight is true at all