Tales of the City: The Musical in San Fran — Page 3

This is to poster who said:

"I think the creative team is not very well-served by being in SF since the audience is primed to enjoy this and not provide feedback that help them make a better show. Many of the jokes are just lame references to SF institutions that SF audiences LOVE to congratulate themselves for getting."

I take exception to the idea that SF theater goers are not discerning enough to provide feedback on the merits of a show. Believe it or not, shows originate outside of the hallowed NY theater ground of worship (Wicked started here, Hairspray started in Seattle).

San Franciscans laugh at references to SF because we live here and we get the humor. I myself do not "LOVE to congratulate myself for getting", I just laugh at it and move on. As to the references to SF specific humor, the story takes place in SF and the original source material was written for a SF audience, so I would hope there were parochial references and humor. It makes it genuine. I believe the same thing is done with theater pieces that are written with NYC (or any other city) as a setting.

I would request that you keep the critique to the show and its content and not the local public who is supporting the effort. I can name off any number of crappy shows that originated in and relied on feedback from the more knowledgeable NYC theatergoing public.

Just my rant as I found your review of the show interesting but that small portion of your post a little insulting to the general SF theatergoing public.

BTW - I go to NYC 3 times a year for a good old theater fix (seeing shows that I find good, bad or indifferent). As a matter of fact, I will be there in a week. And I am going to see Tales on the Saturday of Tony Awards weekend after I get back.

Updated On: 5/20/11 at 04:26 PM

"I take exception to the idea that SF theater goers are not discerning enough to provide feedback on the merits of a show."

Really? Because I bought tickets for Wicked based on the ravey rave raves from the "discerning enough" SF theater goers long before it opened on Broadway. I could not BELIEVE people were soooooooo blown away by that, maaaaaaaaan. Also, are you considering Seattle a suburb of San Francisco now, or something?

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Thanks for the detailed reviews. I'm looking forward to seeing what it ends up looking like when I see it two weeks from now.

That's funny. I never thought of Judy Kaye as too refined. I always thought of Anna Madrigal as one of those old theatrical broads, which with the larger than life presence supported by rolling vowels and dramatically enunciated diction.

I do wonder how they'll be able to cram two, very episodic books worth of plotlines into a coherent narrative, but OTOH, illogical narratives have never stopped any musical from being a hit either.

Kudos to Eric for creating this thread.

I've been looking for a focus group to jump into because I really want this show to fly.... Jake, Jason, Armistead... invite me over! - I saw the 1st preview this Wednesday and agree that the house was absolutely electric with locals who've long loved Armistead, his serial, and our city! Jake was at the bar and I wished him well and shared my excitement. I've lived in SF 20 years and we hit about 20 shows a year. I have a few observations. There is so much to love about this show and I'm sure they'll make it a hit - but they've got their work cut out for them over the next few weeks.

I've discussed the show for hours with other friends there - These are our best thoughts - in random order.

First the clear and major strengths - The casting and vocals are really strong. Anna (Judy Kaye), Mary Ann (Betsy Wolfe), Connie (Julie Reiber), Mona (Mary Birdsong), Michael (Wesley Taylor) and Edgar (Richard Poe) are really authentic to the characters we've loved in the books and the series -they look the part and sound wonderful. The lead ballads touch your heart and the Mother Mucca show stoppers do just that. "Plus 1" is too well delivered and too fun to drop. They are all memorable... don't mess with those. Mona steals the show. No changes. She's hillarious - her comic timing and confidence and rocker vocals are all right on. The show needs a bridge to better justify her decline and confusion after hearing Anna's news. It's sudden and unsupported. Anna - It takes a good while to let go of Olympia Dukakis, but you finally surrender to the new Anna - especially when playing off of Edgar. Anna should be older - at least some grey in that auburn hair - and we miss 3 very important things about her.... 1) She needs lines that show off her sly dry wit. It came across with Olympia. 2) Barbary lane should be ablaze with the plants, vines and flowers she tended so lovingly over the years... She should have a pot plant hiding behind rose bushes and vines should climb the stairwells. The trees to the left and right don't cut it. Flies could drop loads of greenery - we have tall Eucalyptis here... even just greener dappled lighting and hedges and rose bushes would help so much. Stark white doen't cut it. 3) Her home was a place you wanted to explore - bohemian lamps with silk scarves draped, paintings, rugs and period drapes with swag and tassles and wall papers and antiques. You need a larger set piece to push in or drop down to steep us in her world... It would support the whole Atlantis vision.... Mouse is perfect - his energy and spunk and we all held our breath and choked through the reading of his coming out letter. Amazing. He should be bare-ass in bed with Jon - if just for a moment...
Mary Anns facination with Norman is unsupported. He needs to be taking notes, peering around and sneaking pictures throughout the first half while building an aliance with her. And you build no reason for her to follow him to the cliffs -especally if she's lost trust in him. I'd focus on his blackmail side and completely dump the unsupported creepy photos she found...

And the really big deal..... Where's the famous city in the title? You never see a painted lady, victorian, a bay view, a golden gate as the poster would suggest. You never locate us in the city..... unbelievable. We know this isn't Beach Blanket Babylon but around the world people will need and want to see some peeks at the city. Look up the amazing line drawings in the "Over Coffee" illustrations in the Chronicle by Paul Madonna.

The home on Russian Hill would have gorgious bay and panoramic views. No skyline? No slowly moving scrim evoking fog? Shouldn't Mary ann be stepping off a cable car upon arrival or something?

The city is joy filled. You need to pull in a few of best sight gags the city has to offer. Armistead filled his books with brand names and perid touches that popped us back into 1975. Just look at the creativity you'll find on the t-shirt slogans you'll find in shops in the Castro. You need the Lady's of perpetual Indulgence to do gay nun's makeup. They should be on skates.

You need more color, and a disco beat should be more evident. The disco should fill the house like a scissor scissors concert.... dangle a huge mirrored ball from the rafters like the chandalier in Phantom and fill the house with a 70's light show they will never forget... There are a few times where the audience is tapping and clapping but it never takes off.. Jake needs to give us a disco blitz. And play the closing music on until the house has emptied out.

The opening party scenes were filled with hippy attire that read more Hair and woodstock than 70's clones.. tight 501's, white t's and mustaches.

Drop the references to Marin when you leave SF. No one will get that.

We have other thoughts about the story.... but those were covered well by others already.

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Updated On: 5/22/11 at 03:26 AM

I actually think the Norman plot should be cut--but I felt that was the least interesting part of the first book as well. The issue there is then Mary Ann is even more boring, and I'm not sure how that can be worked around.

Now that I've heard the demo, I have no clue why the disco song Don't You Break My Boogie was cut--it's a fantastic tune number that I think would bring the show down... I agree with basically everything else you said, good and bad.

I didn't see magnets or rolling papers, but there definitely were condoms...

i saw condoms and rolling papers, i thought i saw magnets too but i could be wrong. and there is no show curtain. btw when i saw the show friday it was 3 hours long, so maybe they have trimmed off 20 minutes from the show already compared the very first preview.

Maila - Yes on the magnets. I bought one - looks like the poster, and smoking papers, codoms, posters, t shirts, making-of book etc....

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Sounds pretty tacky to be selling rolling paper and condoms....

"Sounds pretty tacky to be selling rolling paper and condoms...."

You should probably go see another show based on different books.

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I don't really see why selling novelty condoms at a show that has a lot of sexual references is something to worry about--I mean I could be called dumb, but the show has a warning... I've seen weirder merchandise at shows and concerts...

The official webpage has about 20 photos from the show now. Click the photo tag at http://www.act-sf.org/1011/talesofthecity/index.html

Updated On: 5/30/11 at 03:24 AM

You look oddly familiar too, but maybe just from here. I've never been on any Tales of the City forums, even though I've always been a fan, never even thought to look for one, and while I like Les Miz and Miss Saigon--and will keep quiet on my thoughts on Jane Eyre--this and the Sondheim forum are the only two theatre sites I post on or read.

I'm actually already back home in Vancouver, so won't be seeing any more shows sadly--was just in San Fran three days, much to my regret. Unless you were at the Kylie concert too?

I was thinking a bit more about the musical, and what keeps coming back as the hardest part to fix, and my biggest problem, is the Norman subplot. The thing is--I thought the Norman subplot was the weakest part of the miniseries too, and don't even remember it from when I read the books way way back--it may have been more interesting keeping him a mystery while reading a serialized story in the newspaper, but if that's hard to pull off in a miniseries, it's even harder to pull off in a show. He's never a particularly interesting character, and as someone else mentioned the way his final scene was handled with Mary Ann left with his tie, I really wasn't sure if we were meant to laugh or not (I *did* laugh, and then felt bad for laughing, which I noticed a few people doing). But if you cut the Norman subplot, there's virtually nothing left for Mary Ann to do after the whole Beauchamp storyline, and for the musical you really need her to remain in focus and not just disappear.

In the program, they said that scripts were available for sale, but I couldn't find any (I did get the Words on Theatre book/magazine). Has anyone seen them, maybe they just weren't ready yet, although I did find that odd as the only time I've encountered scripts for sale in a theatre are either with old classics, or in London where a number of shows did that.

Updated On: 5/26/11 at 05:30 PM

Very impressive. I saw this in previews last night and went in with a very high bar (after reading the books and seeing all the miniseries). It was great! I had a couple of problems (the set should have been more lush, the second floor platform should be Lucite because some action was missed such as the characters doing Tia Chi, almost all the males had characters, the Norman character wasn't quite as sleazy and was a bit good looking - a Tony nominee...), but don't we all. I certainly hope this is Broadway bound because it deserves a healthy Broadway run. It has been stated before but I am so happy with this first time positive portrayal of the Transgender. Brava!