Shogun-the Musical

[kissynose]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 6:00pm

Just wondering if anyone got to see this show when it was on broadway. Was it good? Any info appreciated.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 6:03pm

The shipwreck scene that opened it was great.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 6:20pm

The show's formal title (believe it or not) was

James Clavell's Shogun: The Musical

Putting into the Js in absolutely no one's lists, but that's how it was billed.

And the sets were quite the talk of the town (didn't see it myself), nearly killing the leading man during a preview performance, if I remember correctly.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 6:44pm

It was such a cold production. I have never sat in a theatre with less atmosphere. The audience, what there was (apprx 200) the night I saw it, were totally unresponsive to what was put in front of them.
The opening 15 mins were pretty thrilling but it went steadily down hill for the rest of the night.
A classic flop in the same vein as 'The Pirate Queen'.

Updated On: 11/4/08 at 06:44 PM

[howardbf]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 9:39pm

As Mr. Roxy said, the shipwreck scene was the best part of the show. Unfortunately, it came at the beginning of the show. After that, there was a scene with horses, but I was drifting in and out of sleep, so it could have been a dream.

[canmark]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 9:54pm

I never knew there was a Shogun musical (I love the book), but I just found Frank Rich's review in the NY Times:

Had the actor Philip Casnoff not been beaned by a falling slab of scenery at a press preview last week, "Shogun: The Musical" might have been best remembered as the first Broadway musical extravaganza to beguile an audience with a song about a dildo. But Mr. Casnoff's accident and his speedy recovery upstaged all else in the show -- and justly so. Mr. Casnoff is something. "Shogun," with or without sexual toys, is something else...

http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?_r=1&res=9C0CE5D61F3CF932A15752C1A966958260&oref=slogin

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 10:43pm

The composer was apparently pissed as he intended it to be an opera but it was cut down drastically in previews.

I remember there being an explanation in front of the Playbill giving a synopsis of the story. It did not help. There was a song about fireflies I believe. There was also a lot of running back & forth by shogun warriors.. I think it was in the same theater as DOTV - Bad karma?

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 10:54pm

"I think it was in the same theater as DOTV - Bad karma?"

SHOGUN was at the Marquis. DOTV was at the Minskoff.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 11:26pm

To me those theaters are interchangeable - Both big ugly barns

The only one uglier is the Gershwin.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 3:42am

Yeah, but the Marquis is newer, and you can leave it and get your car without going into the weather. Can't say that about the other two!

Oh, wait--who drives to Broadway theaters?

[bob8rich]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 8:48am

June Angela (the female star of the show) recorded five songs from "Shogun" on her debut album. One of them - "One Candle" - is an especially beautiful duet (with the fantastic Davis Gaines). I don't know if the CD is still available but it was originally released by "Original Cast Records".

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 11:59am

June Angela was wonderful, as was Francis Ruivivar. Casnoff was terrible, imo.

The sets and costumes were astounding, especially the stampede howard slept through.

It was totally confusing, however, and the synopsis in the playbill was SO LONG that noone could read it before the show started...therefore, totally pointless.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 12:20pm

I saw the show in its out of town tryout at the Kennedy Center. It was over 3 and 1/2 hours long, if I remember right. I actually didn't think it was that bad but apparently when they cut the show, they also made it hard to follow.
The funniest thing about ther show , other than the dildo song, was the headress they gave the Shogun for the final tableau. One of the reviewers correctly stated that the designers had managed to turn the "Shogun" into "Showgirl".

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 1:18pm

Does anyone have the lyrics to this dildo song?

[WOSQ]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 1:53pm

"Does anyone have the lyrics to this dildo song?"

A question one does not read every day....

Shogun was a pageant and whatever plot there was seemed obscured by a lavish-for-naught physical production.

The dancers' costumes for the last scene (which hid their legs completely the entire time) made them look like Infants of Prague on wheels.

There are no adjectives for this mess that was written by someone with no feel for the structure of a musical.