She's Back! CARRIE - First preview !!! - Page 36

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 7:10am

A great article here from The Stage in the UK, he stops short of reviewing it but comes pretty close
http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/shenton/2012/02/plenty-of-roads-to-try/

[missthemountains]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 1:16pm

Just saw the show yesterday, and...wow.

First off, everyone on this thread, in my opinion, has been way too harsh on this production. The production I saw today was not perfect, but boy was it moving.

As everyone else has said on here, Molly Ranson is the perfect Carrie. Her final scene with Margaret where she comes crying to her after being humiliated at the prom was so incredibly sad. Her performance as Carrie is heart-wrenching. As far as I'm concerned, she is the perfect Carrie.

Marin was out today, but her understudy, Anne Tolpegin, delivers a fine performance as well - her "Eve Was Weak" was very chilling. Again, as everyone says, Margaret is simply not scary enough. Although, when she went to kill Carrie, there were many gasps in the audience. "When There's No One" is beautifully staged, in my opinion - but a little troubled. Right before Carrie leaves, Margaret tells her that she shouldn't have had her and she should not have been born, but then goes onto sing "When There's No One", which is all about her fear of being alone without Carrie. The characterization of Margaret in this version is very complex, you can really see the struggle of her religious faith and her love for her daughter in this production. What we DON'T see, and need to see, is more of Margaret's personal struggles, that final monologue from the 70's movie has got to come back. That would be the icing on top of the cake for that final scene. We lose a lot with out it, in my opinion.

The rest of the cast is also very talented - I thought the Tommy, Sue, Chris and Billy were all great (Billy and Tommy were both incredibly strong). I also loved Ms. Gardner, albeit her (now milder) southern accent.

There have been some changes - there is no more Parent/Teacher conference scene, I heard some different vocal arrangements in "In" and there have been lyric changes in "World According to Chris" (which I think works great, actually, contrary to what everyone on here has said). I still don't like "Why Not Me?" but Ranson sings it well. One of the actors at the stage door still claimed "they're making changes!" so, we'll see what's in store.

Also, I was very opposed to a bloodless prom, but the prom scene here was better than I could've imagined it (except they do need at least one more couple, IMO). They also deal with all of the telekenisis very well I thought.

Overall, it's definitely worth a visit. I would definitely see it again. I even saw Stafford and congratulated him, I was so impressed. I think they have a pretty solid show on their hands, if I do say so myself.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 2:03pm

They dropped the parent conference scene? what a stupid decision, i loved that scene.

[Idiot]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 2:42pm

EatTheBrownie: "So to say that them choosing Stafford makes this production "their vision" is rediculous."

No, it is not ridiculous. It's true. They were perfectly content for years to not have this show done again. They released the rights to the person whose pitch they most related to. There's nothing ridiculous about that statement.

They couldn't override Hands because the show was given to Hands by RSC and the politics of that situation made their voices less important.

[Owen22]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 3:10pm

I'm curious, Miss. During the destruction, which I thought was mostly terrific, does the director now delineate what happens to Miss Gardner, Tommy, Chris and Billy? When I saw it a week ago, all my attention was on Carrie and the backs of students she was pinning against the walls. For the life of me, I don't know what happened to the four people I mentioned. I think for pathos sake, we'd like to see Tommy's death. Miss Desjardin does not die in the novel, but Miss Collins does in the film, I'd like to see what happens to Ms. Gardner. And we'd all love to see Chris and Tommy get their just deserts. But when I saw it Arima didn't isolate these moments (and if he did, it wasn't done well enough for me to notice). It was a nagging oversight to what I thought was a surprisingly well-done scene.

[Lavieboheme3090]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 3:33pm

EatTheBrownie~

“It's clear by his constant words in the press about how he doesn’t want people coming in to see a "horror" musical and how they don’t want to focus on the supernatural that it's Stafford's vision.

Thank you. I really felt as if they shied away from the supernatural elements as well. In the novel Carrie is able to make stones rain down from the sky, and the only real foreshadowing that we have that her powers can be rooted in a place of true malice and torment is a guy falling off a skateboard. If Stephen King has taught us anything through his works its that the supernatural is something that we totally willing to suspended our belief for if it is presented totally as fact, and not shied away from.


Updated On: 2/20/12 at 03:33 PM

[[e-mail]]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 5:38pm

Yesterday I took my much younger brother to see CARRIE. Colin is only 17 and he liked all the scenes with the teenagers. My brother was not familiar with either the book or the movie and had no idea what was gonna happen in Act II. At the intermission Colin said, "When you said the mother was religious, I didn't know you meant this religious!"

My brother said he found the story very easy to follow and really liked CARRIE's music especially the opening number "In." I wasn't sure what show to take Colin to and ended up being very glad I chose CARRIE. My brother said he liked CARRIE as much as SPIDERMAN, the show we saw last year.

As for me, CARRIE is one of my personal favorite musicals and I was thrilled to see this excellent production for a third time...and it even worked fine with Marin Mazzie out.

I liked the part when Chris and Sue remember a childhood taunt:
Carrie/
ugly, short, and hairy/
and her friends-- they're imaginary

I like the new lyrics for the title song especially when Carrie sings, "If I am changing, will I still be Carrie?" Also, in the title song I find it interesting that the original lyric of "When did everybody decide I'm the one who's the flop?" has been changed to "Every day they mock me and push me around 'til I drop"

And I loved how the musical shows Sue becoming more and more guilty. During "The World According to Chris" Sue sings "Tommy you don't understand/
what was just a joke got out of hand" and then Tommy sings "...You can tell me to keep my mouth shut/
But/
If you want to know what I'd advise/
Apologize!"

Can anyone help me with the Sue and Tommy lyrics to this song? I'd appreciate it!

I found it touching the way Sue wants to help Carrie...in "Do Me a Favor" Sue sings, "one small act of kindness might change Carrie's life for good."

Nice lyrics! And none of these lines were in the original. Does anyone else have any lyrics that they really liked?

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 7:56pm

Wow. And to think they thought PORGY & BESS was going to be the most hotly disputed show in New York.

I don't know if this has been covered in the rest of the thread (who has time to read all of it?), but CARRIE is back in the zeitgeist again in a big way: Yet another movie remake is in the works. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Prolific, if unsuccessful playwright who took HBO's BIG LOVE to some bizarre and banal places when he replaced Dustin Lance Black as Story Editor) did the script and Kimberly Pierce of BOYS DON'T CRY is directing. A casting notice for Carrie White just went out last week.

EDIT: Oh, so it was mentioned. Imagine being late to an already too-long party.

Updated On: 2/20/12 at 07:56 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 8:38pm

Isn't Roberto at Glee now? I know him more for his comic book work primarily with Marvel(and of course he helped revise the libretto for It's a Bird, It's a Plane, a while back as well as turned down the offer to do much with Spiderman Turn off the Dark)

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 10:10pm

He DID accept a position on Spider-Man, and is now given credit. He has done countless interviews on the matter.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has done some real crap, based upon one of his plays that the Hangar Theatre produced, and his total waste of a rewrite on Spider-Man. A self-proclaimed comic book geek like him got ahold of Spider-Man, and THAT's what he did? The characters still talk like bizarre Julie Taymor half-silhouette cutouts in every scene. He didn't restore any dignity to Spider-Man's origin. Like this production of CARRIE, SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK totally misses the point of its source material and embarrasses everyone in the process.



Updated On: 2/20/12 at 10:10 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/20/12 at 10:20pm

I'm looking forward to his interpretation of "Carrie: Turn Off the Blood."

[philly03]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 9:49am

Like BWAYMagic, I took a friend who has seen only one other musical (Ragtime) in New York who was not familiar with the book or movie either and they found this version kind of dull, when watching the movie after. Their favorite scene were also the teen scenes, especially "In."

Also - what happened in the Parent-teacher conference? How did it work?

[adamgreer]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 10:12am

Also - what happened in the Parent-teacher conference? How did it work?

Margaret goes to the school and meets with Miss Gardner and the male teacher. They discuss the "incident" and the other children at the school. Margaret gives them a pamphlet about the evils of children.

It was played totally straight in this production, but still came across as funny.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 11:15am

I'm a friend of a friend of Kimberly Pierce. I'm gonna pass along a name of a prolific poster in this thread to see if I can get him/her a consultant gig.

"Kimberly, it's great but your vision is getting in the way. If you could just tear up those story boards I'll start drawing a few minor changes to make it PERFECT!"

[MSmith2]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 1:48pm

This thread is cracking me up: all this carrying on about how Carrie should be or that this production is embarrassing. It's clearly not embarrassing or even "wrong". It's just inspiring different reactions and opinions. The reaction it got when I saw it was not evidence that anyone needs to be embarrassed at all, but quite the opposite: the house -- on the whole -- responded favorably to the show.

There is no objective "right" way that this or anything "should" be done. I love the debate on opinions, but it seems like several posts are taking an authoritive position on what something "should" be and they have an air of trying to kill the show.

I hear what some people have said about wanting Margaret to be more dangerous or scary. I get it. Totally. But I don't agree that it needs to be the case. For me and the people I saw it with, she really does track. Her scariness that leads to her final act is there in her lines and song lyrics and it's pretty clear that she twists her religious views into some weird perspective and it's also clear that she is abusive of Carrie in that context - and that seems enough here the way its presented. I would welcome seeing a scarier Margaret in another production (I've seen BB on You Tube and she is as chilling as people say), but for this production with its sustained tone and, yes, vision, I bought it completely and found Margaret's arc totally and tonally satisfying, and Marin Mazzie's performance totally convincing, as it seems others have also and probably will continue to do so. Her Margaret may not be a gorgon but she is not a nice mother. She is clearly abusive. For me, it worked and worked beautifully.

I even get the desire to want to see the blood on some level, but am totally perplexed by the reluctance of those unwilling to go with what is clearly a choice. So much carping here about how they couldn't figure out how to do the blood drop or couldn't afford is totally off base. There have been some articles in which the director said he alwasy wanted to convey this without any liquid blood. People here have said he makes no bold directorial choices while writing quite a lot about this incredibly BOLD DIRECTORIAL CHOICE! You might not like it, but given the chatter the choice seems to be the definition of a bold one! What would really be gained by literalizing this moment other than having a mess of blood on stage? Her entrance after the prom is now so much more poignant than I can imagine it being if we saw her get doused with liquid. There were some gasps in the house at this moment when she comes home. I don't see how that would be possible if we saw a bucket of blood drop (which probably would have resulted in laughs anyway).

But what cracks me up most in this thread are the intense and harsh criticisms from people who admit to not having seen the show yet! And the thrilling irony of those who call the composer and lyricist untalented after lamenting the loss of or confessing to love a song that's been cut! Glorious fun!

I have wanted to see Carrie on stage for years and I applaud the audacity it took to do it after all this time. I also applaud what they have done and are doing with it. I found it to be a thoroughly rewarding time in the theater from start to finish.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 1:54pm

How was the show curtain?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 2:47pm

There is no objective "right" way that this or anything "should" be done.

Say that in a Follies thread! I triple-dog dare you!!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/21/12 at 3:14pm

Or Baayork Lee.

[missthemountains]

Posted: 2/22/12 at 3:00am

By the way, has Marin been out for three performances straight? I saw her understudy Sunday and a friend of mine saw her understudy today, was she out Monday as well? Wonder why this is - is Marin sick, or are they changing the character?

[binau]

Posted: 2/22/12 at 3:35pm

She is apparently out tonight as well. She must be quite sick. I hope it's just a cold and not something very serious.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/22/12 at 6:35pm

"Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Prolific, if unsuccessful playwright who took HBO's BIG LOVE to some bizarre and banal places when he replaced Dustin Lance Black as Story Editor) did the script and Kimberly Pierce of BOYS DON'T CRY is directing. A casting notice for Carrie White just went out last week. "

And I see he just wrote this week's gay bullying episode of Glee--was that his Carrie prep work? :P

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 2/22/12 at 6:54pm

Came across a recording of the 1988 Stratford production last night. And oh, my, word, I sat there for three hours with my mouth hanging open. I think Dream On was the most cringe-inducing part, but I understand it's gone now. Interested to see how this production's coming along.

[missthemountains]

Posted: 2/22/12 at 11:51pm

Also, did everyone know that the Emerson production is back on Youtube?


Emerson Carrie

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/23/12 at 9:05am

Got the DVD of that Emerson one and the Stagedoor manor one, both made my eyes bleed.

[binau]

Posted: 2/23/12 at 4:55pm

Mazzie is still out

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/160012-Still-Battling-the-Flu-Marin-Mazzie-Will-Miss-Feb-23-Performance-of-Carrie-#.T0aLDorsfPo.twitter