She's Back! CARRIE - First preview !!! - Page 40

[Idiot]

Posted: 2/29/12 at 7:02pm

Just watched the clips from the show here on BWW. Okay.

This show looks DREADFUL to me. Granted, it's far far from the show I wanted it to be, but... how obvious and collegiate are some of the directorial choices like having Margaret hold the bible so often while she sings? Though Mazzie is working the heck out of the part, her lapses in to spoken word during strong numbers is off-putting to me.

Kids climbing scaffold stairs upstage in exactly the same physical spot where that staging was used in SPRING AWAKENING? Come on.

And you can make so much fanfare of raising the bucket of blood, then not actually dump it?

I can't stand these choices. They obviously work for some people, so enjoy.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 2/29/12 at 8:21pm

wow they picked the worst time to film the clips with Mazzie, that must have been filmed when she was ill as her voice does not sound like that in the show, she is in her head voice all the time here through Eve Was Weak etc and is not normally. They should have waited till she was better.

An Idiot they are climbing up because they putting the blood up, what did you want them to do....backflip up?

The recording i have seen she does not do the spoken word thing, this has to be because she is ill.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/29/12 at 9:19pm

This thread is all kinds of... something.

Brownie said: "Maybe "Merrily" on paper wasn't as broken as the ill-directed Broadway production made it out to be. Maybe Stephen Sondheim and George Furth should have trusted initial instincts instead of allowing themselves to be influneced by a greedy director who not only wanted to interpret the material his own way, but also change the story he was telling. Honestly, the revision of "Merrily" would probably work better if Lapine had just written a completely new book himself. But back to "Carrie". "

I can't resist replying to this--you do know that Hal Prince was in some ways more of the creator (not writer, but instigator) than Furth. Sondheim and Prince chose the concept first--in fact essentially Prince wanted to do a youthful, and more simple show, Sondheim agreed with him, and they both picked to adapt Merrily and brought in Furth. Not that that means the rest of your comments on how the show ended up don't hold weight (I agree with most of them), but it's not quite the same thing as Carrie where the writers worked on the material heavily and then took it to a director who had a vastly different vision.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 2/29/12 at 9:37pm

And not to spread any more hate to this thread, but I can't help commenting on the clips shown here. I kinda agree that, while maybe not dreadful, they are sooo underwhelming to me. It honestly made me long for the white space ship/crazy leotards original. I know it's not fair to judge by clips, but they are posted to promote the piece, and I assume the show felt these scenes best would sell the show to audiences (earlier in this thread many said it's not fair to judge a production by DVD which I think is only partly true--live theatre works best live, but I think one can gather some opinion from a DVD)... There eems to be absolutely NO vision.

Is the current production set "now"?> I assume so, but the teenagers look like they're dressed for a show set in the 90s. I get that it's low budget, but in the clips anyway the set looks like absolutely no thought was put into it. It just all feels so bland and flat. (And this is petty and superficial, but are the head microphones, particularly on Carrie, so obvious in the theatre? I've never seen ones that were so distracting in any other filmed productions of stage shows). As for the material--I've never loved the Carrie/Margaret material as much as most people do, but I admit the little bit of World According to Chris just struck me as... not great. Carrie has its share of iffy lyrics, but I don't buy that a character like Chris would even SAY something as cutesy as "The world according to Chris" when talking to her peers.

[jansalrose2]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 1:03am

MSmith-Nowhere in my post did I call Carrie the novel great literature. And though it's quite mature of you to suggest that everyone who doesn't agree with you is irrational, I'll point out that I was actually quite kind in my post (kinder than I should've been, considering what I watched last night) and gave plenty of credit where it's due to the performers.

[whatacharacter]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 8:51am

Mazzie sounds horrible! She did not sound like that at the start of the run. If she's going to use her head voice, maybe they could at least kick it back up to the original key.

[THDavis]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 11:04am

Mazzie did not use her head voice at the first preview. She did, however, do the annoying shouting thing with the words. The whole "He will burn YOU" just throws the song off.

And the liberties she takes during "Evening Prayers" don't let the song show off it's hypnotic beauty. That song is SO crucial to the show and she breezes through certain phrases. Not only is it the prime example of how Margaret manipulates Carrie into feeling guilty for the situation they're in, but the truth lies in the lyrics "You're the reason I'm alive. You're the ONLY reason I survive!" and Mazzie just sped right through them. It's unfortunate.

[MSmith2]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 2:55pm

Jansalrose: I don't recall saying that you think Carrie is great literature. That's not the phrase I used at all. And what makes you think my post was about you? It was about what I thought was a general treatment of the source material as soemthing more than it is. I've been pretty careful to couch my posts as my OPINIONS that one doesn't need to agree with, given that the dynamic of opionions being shared as absolute truth or fact is what drives me crazy, as I believe I've expressed here. That and intolerance or dismissal of differently expressed visions or points of view (including that of a creative team on any show). I happen to believe -- and it's fine if you don't share my opinion -- that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to represent or interpret a work; I feel that it's all open to interpretation - and by extension a fair debate and discussion. So I got a little snarky... From what I've seen that's nothing compared to the tone of many posts on this thread -- a large number of which are pretty aggressive in shooting down opposing view points. Regardless, I stick to my opionion that a lot of the chatter about what Carrie "should" or "should not" be seems -- to me! -- to be giving the source material more credit than it deserves. And I happen to love the story! (Hence my interest in the show, which I've also been upfront about thinking its not perfect and indeed has flaws; I just happen to think there is a lot of good stuff there too, which I enjoyed tremendously twice.) But I'll also cop to expressing some intolerance when it comes to people trashing a show in one breath and revealing in the next that they hadn't sat in the theater and seen it for themselves. I find that patently unfair.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 3:03pm

No matter what one may think of the novel and film, they both have buckets more entertainment value than the witless boring dishrag currently on stage at the Lortel.

I do think the performers are valiantly giving it their all, but that it's a losing battle against such poor material.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 6:19pm

A show you went to see twice?

[[e-mail]]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 10:00pm

As a big fan of CARRIE the musical I was just unable to understand one of the lyrics and was hoping someone could help me out. "The World According to Chris" starts with Chris singing, "Ever since the world began/----- everyone's been dumping on their fellow man." The word I'm trying to hear sounds like Shameblot. Does anyone know?

Also, in the title song Carrie sings "I might take a chance/And try not to laugh more than I do know." Does this lyric bother anyone else? Why would Carrie want to try to laugh less? Can someone explain this line and what it means. Thanks!

[[e-mail]]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 10:05pm

Oops! I'm sorry what I meant, of course, is that Carrie's lyric is "And try not to laugh more than I do NOW!"

But what I wonder is why this character would want to try that? Thanks!

[[e-mail]]

Posted: 3/1/12 at 11:31pm

Okay, someone told me Chris sings, "Ever since the world began/Same plot, everyone's been dumping on their fellow man"

and Carrie's line is "Maybe I'll dance/and try hard to laugh more than I do now!"

Nice...and I really like both songs.

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 1/30/21 at 5:10pm

Not trying to pull a "stop trying to make fetch a thing" with Carrie, but since the Out For Blood podcast launched, my interest in the show has resurfaced again.  Found this thread because what I have read so far is so interesting! Plus, reading posts from users who were able to see the original production was great, too. It's the closest thing to what a thread would have looked like in 1988. Enjoy the revisit! Haha.

[Famebroadway2]

Posted: 2/2/21 at 9:34am

I’m LOVING the podcast. They have done a great job so far.