She's Back! CARRIE - First preview !!! — Page 18

I watched a bit of the remake. The girl who played Carrie looked good, but Patricia Clarkson was so miscast (and pretty bad, actually), I had to turn it off. I lasted about 15 minutes before I stopped. I love Clarkson as an actress, but that really was a fail.

I do remember that Margaret was a "big lady" in the book, and I remember thinking Cook was good casting from a physical perspective (at the time).

Piper Laurie really set the bar, though. Sissy Spacek, too. Actually the whole movie cast, who were all virtually unknown with the exception of Laurie, who came out of retirement to play the part. It's a testament to how memorable they all were that so many of them went on to become stars.

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Updated On: 2/4/12 at 09:46 AM

Stephen King like a lot of writers isn't necessarily the greatest judge of the theatrical versions of his material. Suffice to say that Clarkson is almost nothing like the character of Margaret in the novel, so I'm not sure that his praising her performance indicates much in terms of how he envisioned the part originally.

Looking for the 1st preview audio (or any other) Will buy or trade (tons to trade) Thanks seeing it the final weekend. Can't wait!

I seem to remember during the release of DREAMCATCHER, King was praising it up as one of the best adaptations of his books. And who knows, maybe he still does think that career-ending fiasco is the penultimate, but the timing of the comment with its release was...interesting.

BTW, did you know the TV movie remake was supposed to be the pilot for a series? Where I suppose Carrie would go from town to town, get picked on, and then kill everybody week after week...? Even TV folks got the drift that it was a dumb idea but still released the TVM to get a few extra bucks. Oy, the pain! Clarkson recovered but poor Angela Bettis!

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I don't think she was going from town to town killing people lol, but yes it was the pilot for a TV series hence the change of ending which left it wide open. I thank god it never happened.

I did not mind the TV adaptation, Angela was good as Carrie and the whole thing was fun (i was glad to see more of the novel in the TV adaptation) but it all seemed a bit pointless, the original can’t be beat, why bother? Much like The Shinning TV Movie (though that was fun as well)

A friend of mine just got back from seeing Carrie last night and posted on Facebook to me after i asked what he thought.

'It's a beautiful haunting production. Very smart. Love the songs and arrangements. Fab design concept. Pitchford took notes a few seats down. Mazzie got sustained applause as did many numbers. It's really close.'

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King actually said only a few years back he did not think the TV version of Carrie was as good as he was hoping, he also slammed The Shining, did not like Thinner and had problems with a few others. He tends to be quite vocal on what he likes and what he does not. And here is a crazy concept, what if he says he likes and does not like......that he likes and does not like?

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Honestly, a lot of King's work would make interesting musicals. Because they are so rich with real human characters in fantastic situations, many of them would just require the right team working on them. The Shinning could be thrilling, The Stand could go the route of American Idiot but actually work, Creepshow if expanded could be fun, and Misery could the chilling as well. I think the piece begging mostly for musicalization is It... Pennywise might as well be singing already in the film adaptation.

People throw around that Carrie shouldn't have been musicalized... Well, if you told me you were writing a musical about a group of poor 20 somethings complaining about paying their rent for two hours and singing pop music, I probably would have rolled my eyes and said "good luck with that one". Also, if you told me you were going to interview a bunch of dancers about their lives and then have them stand onstage and talk about it to the audience, I would have done the same thing.

"Bad ideas" for musicals have turned into some rather successful musicals.

And to say that the music in Carrie is bad, yes it is your prerogative to say that, will always be refuted by the many musical theater fans (and professionals) who continue to discover otherwise. There's a reason this thing is being revived... The authors STILL get a couple calls a month from both amateur and professional level theaters wanting to stage the show. Places like Encores wouldn't have tried to do the show if the music was "bad". Producers wouldn't be calling to revive the show in NY over the years if the music was "bad". You can say that you think the music is bad, fine, but to say it in such a definite and absolute way is ludicrous.

Updated On: 2/4/12 at 03:27 PM

^ Some numbers is different than goldenboy's statements the show doesn't have any good music. And he's not the only one who's made comments like that. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, that's what's so wonderful about life, but a comment like that seems to stem from a deeply routed belief that a Carrie musical wouldn't work regardless of who wrote it. If you aren't going to like it no matter how it's done, why not come out and say that? Saying "I will never enjoy a musical version of Carrie. I saw the show and still think this" is very different than saying "I saw the show. It's a musical about a period. The music is bad... etc, etc..."

It's like how people love to hate on Wicked. While I agree... it's not Sondheim, but whatever weaknesses that some may have with the way the show is written one has to realize that they ultimately set out to write a big blockbuster musical... and they succeeded. I wish people who complained about how "bad" that show is could admit the strengths that the show does have. People don't realize that there really "is" an art form in writing a show that will consistently appeal to the tourists and run for years. This formula is MASTERED by the Wicked team. Honestly, a well-written dark musical based on the novel would probably have lasted a year or two at that. And while I'm sure that would appease many of us here on these boards, Stephen Schwartz wanted to write something successful. He did.

Updated On: 2/4/12 at 04:29 PM

I really am more and more convinced that while some of the material for the mother and daughter is truly gorgeous it may very well be slightly misconceived for a musical of CARRIE. I mean you could write the most gorgeous aria imaginable for a musical version of FRIDAY THE 13th, but it wouldn't necessarily be an asset to telling the story.

^ That's so true. It remains to be seen if Carrie's going to work as a musical. But from people who saw it on Broadway and people who've "discovered" the show over the last 24 years... a lot of them not only find the Margaret/Carrie music gorgeous, but it also touched them on a deeper level. Isn't that what a good musical does? A lot of people have said that it's that material that makes a Carrie musical work.

A beautiful aria in a Friday the 13th musical may be completely out of place, but it doesn't make the song any less beautiful.

It'll be interesting to hear what exactly they've done to the Margaret/Carrie material for the revival. People have said that it shows how week it actually is. It's interesting to mention that all songwriters can copyright (and for the most part, all that they actually are responsible for) is the melody line and the lyrics. You can't even copyright chords. Some of the most famous songs ever written were arranged by someone else. Saying that the way the songs are presented in this version shows their weakness, to me, speaks that you didn't like the arrangements, but you cannot blame the authors for that.

If you didn't know Rodgers and Hart wrote Blue Moon only being exposed to the 50s pop rendition from the film version of Grease, it'd be easy to say it was a rather generic run-of-the-mill pop song. If your only exposure to Losing My Mind was Liza Minnelli's, one might think it was one of the less exciting pop songs of the 80s. On one of the videos of it on YouTube, an ignorant (in the sense he doesn't know it's a famous musical theatre piece) comment compares the lyrics to that of a 4th grader's vocabulary. It's the same melody, same lyrics as the original. Stephen Sondheim is still credited as writing it. Presentation is quite important. Some of the best songs ever written can be ruined by bad arrangements and/or bad performances.

Updated On: 2/4/12 at 06:23 PM

MB, I don't remember if I read this or if the creators told me this, but the musical was conceived under the idea that the story is actually 'operatic'. That explains half of the choices -- but I think you've accurately explained the problem with other half.

Updated On: 2/4/12 at 06:32 PM

That's where tone and structure are so important. Truth be told there are plenty of shows that have contrasting writing styles within them - SWEENEY TODD being a great example. That's a score that has musical styles all over the place, but it still feels cohesive, and I have to tell you one reason I think it all works because SWEENEY really in its own musical-theatre-operatic way pays homage to traditional horror film structure. There is a lot of humour in SWEENEY - a lot of it over the top and campy - and none of that takes away from the tragedy of the story - in fact it inhances it! SWEENEY is more like CARRIE the movie than CARRIE the musical is!

But Sondheim and Hal Prince understood good story telling - and especially good theatrical horror story telling in a way I don't think anyone involved with CARRIE on stage really does.