THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA Musical - News & Discussion Thread — Page 7

Photo of the bows. Couldn’t find anything else except this

https://twitter.com/atempagiselle/status/1549632500376506371?s=21&t=oAO8FO-8geSVFVCXxhFT4A

Those who went last night, were you told no photos? The cast members I follow on social media are all hiding their costumes and wigs lol

Marlothom said: "I actually did not hear an announcement - and there are tons of fun ways to do it given the show/characters. I did notice some audience members recording vows and ushers frantically running to them to tell them to stop. Also, not sure why they have those cherry blossoms at the end - so random."

Oh yeah, the random cherry blossom trees at the end with the falling petals all over the stage. Huh?? At least they didn't just fire off confetti cannons at the audience.

I'm sad to hear that the libretto is missing the mark. The thing about The Devil Wears Prada is that it's not a story about Andy, her boyfriend, or even fashion. It's about when your job becomes an abusive relationship. I've never worked in fashion but I have worked in the arts. You're poor, desperate and full of ambition. The people with the power to pay you got there through some combo of privilege or ruthlessness.

Miranda Priestly is an abusive narcissist. Andy and her coworkers grow submissive and desperate to please. They're so transfixed by Miranda's ego that they can't imagine breaking free and continuing their careers elsewhere. Streep could be funny but she was also terrifying. The people writing this show may be too powerful to understand the helpless situation that the Andy's of the world get trapped in.

Menken Fan said: "And if you still didn't get that we were in Paris, there were French sailors, ballerinas, and a mime. Yes, a mime"

A what. Who on earth thought that was clever in 2022?

Saw the show tonight and am pretty much going to echo what others have written thus far. This isn't First Wives Club bad, but it's definitely not good.

Book: As some have said, nearly all the key line from the film that you remember are here (why Aline Brosh McKenna doesn't get an acknowledgement in the program when so much of her script is being reused is a genuine question I have - and why not just have her do the book? It's not like she doesn't have experience working on writing scripts with musical interludes now.) There are some minor changes - Miranda has an adult daughter, Christian Thompson is involved for longer, Andy's friends/boyfriend aren't as combative toward Andy when she starts to change. The one line I was surprised they took out was Nigel's "She'll make it up to me." at the luncheon. Instead, he just storms out, which would be an interesting character choice if we got any indication that he leaves Runway as a result. What was so interesting about his line in the film was that it gave us insight into his inability to leave Miranda and Runway. Here, there's none of that. We don't really understand the staff's loyalty toward her. Are they scared of her? They sing a song meant to be funny about that, but we never really see that. Are they in awe of her? Again, we don't see any indication as to that either.

Music: On the whole, nearly completely forgettable. The opening "I Want" song from Andy is fine, it tells us who she is and what she wants. And then we spend the rest of the musical never getting any real insight into her character again. Nigel gets a nice character-driven song in Act 2, and the Miranda song at the Act 2 luncheon is the only real insight we get into the character at all in the play. At least in the film there's the moment in the hotel in Paris where we see her break down over her divorce and her worry about her young daughters. Here, we can't have that moment because her daughter is an adult and the divorce doesn't seem to phase her all that much - plus, we never see the husband, so again, no real impact there. The title song is just plain awful. You can't understand the lyrics and when you do, they are just bad. Hell is a Runway and the Devil Wears Prada or some such dreck. If you want people to spend money to come see a story they know already, you need to either have a lights out performance or songs that elevate the story beyond the source material. This show has neither.

Pacing/Character Development/Tone: Here's where I think the real, potentially unfixable, problem with the show lies. The bulk of the plot is stuffed into Act 1 - it ends with Andy telling Emily she's not going to Paris (which does make a nice stopping point - albeit the Devil Wears Prada song/sequence does not make one want to come back for Act 2). So, Act 1 needs to take Andy from naive college grad to a character who genuinely believes that her job is the most important thing in her life. We never get to see that change. We get to see her blow off her friends once. We get to see her taking orders from Miranda. We get to see her friends tell her she likes her job more than her friends - but we never see any evidence that she actually does enjoy her job or want to do it. She just goes through the motions. And all of this happens in like 10 minutes. At least the film had a montage showing us Andy getting good at her job and becoming enamored with Miranda and the lifestyle. Here, we just get told that's what happened by outside observers. We get no real character development for Andy until she sings a song in Act 2 about how much she loves her life now, which kinda comes out of nowhere based on all we've seen thus far.

We know next to nothing about Miranda or Nigel until their Act 2 songs. We know Emily's sole purpose in life is to go to Paris, and when that gets taken away from her, we get a comedic number at the top of Act 2 where she sings about how unfair it is - while it's all a joke. Also, she has a cast on her arm then, and then we learn she broke her leg (like in the film) at the end of the show - it's things like that where the tone shifts strangely and weird bits show up out of no where that make little sense. If they want this to be a fun, light comedy, make it one. If they want some heaviness with Andy's transformation, well, do that. Is the Runway staff scared of Miranda? Great. Then don't have them sing a song that's trying to be funny about her being scary. But they have to figure out the tone because it's all over the place. And don't get me started on the nearly naked dancers at the top of the show that do nothing throughout.

Is it salvageable? Maybe. The cast is uniformly strong - they just don't have the tools at their disposal to shine. It needs a host of new songs that actually advance the plot in some way. The book needs work - or just take the damn film script in full. And they need to figure out just what story they're telling, because right now, Andy never grows or changes. You know you have a problem when the big "Hell Yeah" moment of Andy quitting gets a smattering of applause and people actually groaning because Miranda just sang a song that explains why she did what she did and, frankly, the audience is kind of on her side now. Do I think they'll do what they need to do to make this something that will make people want to skip watching the film on Netflix? Probably not.

This just screams Jerry Mitchell to me. And Stephen Oremaus (I know I spelled it wrong ) orchestrating.


Why did they go with a straight play director for such a fun campy musical?

Anna Shapiro is one of our great directors, but her work has been almost exclusively in new plays. But the same could be said of her colleague and friend David Cromer, who absolutely hit it out of the park on his first major musical. Cromer brought a fresh voice to the table and pushed the piece to play in a style that was unusual and fresh for the musical theatre. Right now, Shapiro's work lacks the specificity you expect from her and belies a lack of understanding of the musical theatre craft. But Cromer was surrounded by skilled Broadway regulars, whereas Shapiro has a first-time book writer, a first-time musical theatre choreographer, and a composer reachable only by phone as he finishes his farewell tour.

Near the end of the first act, Andy's friends sing a (not very good) trio about missing their old friend. All three stand on a basically bare stage. Then a big red curtain comes down and we're on the red carpet awaiting Miranda's arrival. Andy and Emily deliver filler dialogue as guests arrive and pose for pictures. The whole scene goes on way too long until Miranda finally shows up, strikes a pose, and the curtain lifts to reveal a giant red staircase and you realize that scene must have been written to cover the set change. Why didn't the previous song take place downstage of the curtain? Then you wouldn't need the filler dialogue and could lift the curtain to reveal the new set, putting us on the red carpet. There are so many frustrating little things like this that should be no-brainers, but a director who does one-room realistic dramas doesn't normally have to think about.

But I don't think Anna Shapiro needs to be replaced--I think she has a strong point of view on the piece, and she's shepherded new work through a rocky preview period to great success before. Anyone remember the complete turnaround she pulled off on Motherf****er with the Hat? We all thought that was dead in the water and then it transformed into a complete knockout during a four week preview period. She's a good enough director to understand what's not working about the story and the central relationships, and that's what the focus needs to be focusing on right now. A Susan Stroman or a Jerry Zaks or a Kathleen Marshall could come in and give attention to the pieces of craft that are eluding the team right now.

The same thing goes for the book. Weatherhead is a talented writer, she clearly understands the characters well and writes some good lines--many of her jokes stand up well next to the bits that are verbatim from the screenplay. She transitions in and out of songs smoothly, and she conveys the beats of the story and character motivations clearly. Most first-time book writers of musicals don't accomplish all of that very well. But, as others have pointed out, many major crises and moments of transformation happen offstage or are rushed through, and we spend far too much time with the friends and too little time is devoted to Miranda and the demands she puts on Andy. What should be a story about a woman who hardens herself in order to survive a cold and unfeeling world and in doing so realizes she is making herself cold and unfeeling instead is just a simple story about a smart girl who learns not to look down upon the world of fashion. But this can be fixed and re-tooled so that the focus is in the right place, so that we invest in the right relationships and the stakes are made clear.

What's going to be harder to fix is the score. It's the weakest score of the five musicals Elton John has written (even Lestat had a couple good tunes!), and the lyrics don't salvage much it. The songs all sound like, well, second-rate Elton John. There's little effort to differentiate the sounds of the different characters (other than the harpsichord sounds underneath Miranda's songs). As another poster mentioned, the lyrics rarely delve beneath the surface of a character bluntly stating what they're feeling and then repeating that idea for three minutes. I don't know that these problems can be fixed, short of throwing out all the songs and starting over.

That was all a little rambly, and I hope no one takes this as my unsolicited show-doctoring, but rather a personal take on what I saw last night, and where I hope the show will go from here. Others may interpret these moments and the problems with the show differently than I do, and I look forward to hearing what others think and how the show evolves. There are a lot of smart, talented people working on this show, and I do believe there is potential to turn it around, if the team really takes the opportunity to learn from this tryout.

And to those who are saying "bring in Jerry Mitchell," while I think he's very talented, much of what is wrong with this show right now is what was wrong with Pretty Woman, and that show sure didn't get fixed in time for Broadway.

Updated On: 7/21/22 at 04:02 AM

To the Chicago posters dutifully seeing the show multiple times during previews, could you let us know if you notice any changes they start to make?

Apologies for the incomplete picture. At the Wednesday, July 20 intermission, the expected projection of the many white skeletons on a red background was missing. The projection was added halfway thru the intermission.

Updated On: 7/21/22 at 11:26 AM

Three's Company said: "To the Chicago posters dutifully seeing the show multiple times during previews, could you let us know if you notice any changes they start to make?"

I will be happy to - but wonder if they're even going to bother to do that during this run or in between Chicago and New York, because the changes need to be drastic. I was planning on going this weekend but hesitating because I doubt any significant changes will be made by then.

I saw Kinky Boots, The Cher Show, Pretty Woman, and Tootsie half a dozen times each and saw a different show every time - it was exciting. With Elton far away, what sounds like a super exclusive deal with fashion brands for the costumes, and the need to stick very close to the movie dialogue, I wonder how much they can add/change/cut make an impact.

Updated On: 7/21/22 at 12:46 PM

I can’t vouch for this accuracy, but there’s an online estimate that Miranda is in 26% of the movie. And because it’s told through Andie’s eyes, she hardly appears onscreen without Andie there. So it’s very much an Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lecter situation — she’s omnipresent but physically not always there, yet she makes a huge impact.

And that might be a problem with the musical based on these reports. Miranda should be a seasoning, not the main dish. Some characters SHOULD be supporting roles because they can become overwhelming or one-note in large doses (a major criticism of the Jaoquin Phoenix Joker movie, and also of the Beetlejuice musical, and the Silence of the Lambs sequels). We saw this to an extent with Helen St. Clair in Bullets Over Broadway, too.

If they’re trying to make Miranda a star vehicle here, it feels like they’re kiiiind of missing the point.