The All-Sondheim Thread- Page 14

[Plum]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 12:21pm

Saw Sunday. Posted a review- more of a ramble, really. If you're looking for me, I'll be in heaven, floor seven.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:54pm

Besides the digitally remastered version being released in February (don't quote me on that date though) there is no other "legal" copy of SITPWG that I am aware of. I have managed to get most of the Raul Esparza version and it is very very good.

[Plum]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:56pm

*eyes you*

I'll have to find out about that some time.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:57pm

PM me darling.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 3:17pm

Margo and Yoda began to discuss a MERRILY revival a few pages back, before our Doyle SWEENEY discussion, and I thought it may be interesting to bring it back up.

I think a Roundabout engagement makes perfect sense, but if people could get over the "total failure" mindset it has a real chance to thrive. Many of us who are "Xers" and in our late twenties/ early thirties now are just cynical enough to make it a huge hit, if it were presented properly. I am not good with casting though. The "Old Friends" would need to be spectacular.

Here are their comments to limit a need for a search:

Margo:
I think MERRILY might do well in a revival. Certainly better than the 16 performances of the OBC. The book revisions have made the story much clearer and it's one of Sondheim's most mainstream, "tuneful" traditional musical comedy scores. As Prince, Furth, Sondheim etc... now realize having seen so many reworkings of the show over the years, MERRILY works much better cast with real adults rather than kids (kids can't be completely convincing with Furth's ultra cynical, sophisticated dialogue), so imagine the 30-somethings who might be available to play Charlie, Franklin and Mary. Not sure if it can survive going the commercial route or not, so perhaps Roundabout needs to take it on. Could be terrific.

yodamarie78:
After seeing an off off broadway production of Merrily this summer I completely understood why it failed and was sure that a revival would never work. Then I saw NYU's recent production and completely changed my mind. I think that with the right cast and the right director Merrily could do pretty well, not great, but well.

[Plum]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 3:51pm

Merrily has never been one of my favorites of Sondheim's oeuvre, but who am I kidding? I'd go anyway.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 3:54pm

Seeing a really well done production of MERRILY really moved it up in my estimation. The NYU show was very, very well done.
I think it is show that has major "non-fan" appeal if it were promoted, and cast, properly.

[paradox_error]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 4:21pm

My problem with Sondheim is that I can never actually make my mind up which shows I like more.

I think, Sweeney and Night Music are his strongest, most complete pieces, but my personal favourite is Sunday.

All of the rest of them constantly jump around in order in my top 15 musicals.

But I completely agree. Merrily has the oppurtunity to do brilliantly. In fact, listening to the score alone, I am surprised it didn't do well. BUT, the direction, set, costuming and plot were supposed to be quite wretched.

If these things can be improved, I can't see why the show wouldn't be spectacular...

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 4:46pm

I saw the production of MERRILY that played at the Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival with Raul Esparza, Michael Hayden, Miriam Shor and Emily Skinner back in 2002 with the final revised version of the book from Furth and I found it to be a very entertaining show. It made me really wonder just how ill-conceived the original production had to be to end up being such a huge flop. I don't know that it'll ever be a big commercial smash, but as one of Sondheim's most accessible shows it certainly should be able to be profitable with the right production.

[paradox_error]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 4:57pm

From what I can gather, hugely misconceived.

From the overly large toyset set that dwarfed the actors, to the costumes with character names, to the confusing plot, I think it sounded rather doomed from the start, despite Sondheim's brilliant score...

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 5:12pm

The plot/book is really not bad. I don't know how many changes have been made since the original production (I know Furth and Sondheim have done major work.) but in its current state the plot is very enjoyable and well concieved. Although not "typical" fare by any means.

The set, direction, and costumes, as well as the casting of "teenagers" in the original production all look awful in the pictures I have seen. I also think it is more effective not to bookend the show with "high school." It now starts with Franklin alone and ends with college.

[paradox_error]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 5:20pm

There have been MANY revisions, penguin.

Now it's finally in a digestable form...

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 5:22pm

which makes a short term Roundabout run for it smart. Roundabout only goes "wrong" when they try to over-extend their limited runs to make them more "profitable." Witness "Follies" and "Assassins."

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 5:23pm

Actually the college graduation opening and closing have been eliminated. The latest version of the show has a prologue with the whole cast singing to Frank "Who Did You Get To Be Here?" which then segues into a fancy party at Frank's mansion in which "That's Frank" is sung, interspersed with cocktail chatter.

The show now ends with Franklin, Charley and Mary on the rooftop of the tenement they live in shortly after they meet with chorus singing "Our Time" off stage.

I believe the graduation version of the book can no longer even be licensed, having been replaced by this Furth revision over a decade ago.

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 5:38pm

Doesn't the new version actually begin with Frank at his piano, drinking, alone? I've seen two productions of the show where that was the case.

If Roundabout revived Merrily, I would go every day. I would sell all my belongings and eat dog food for every meal so I see Merrily for as long as it played. (hyperbole) It is a dream of dreams. *prays*

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 6:59pm

I know the high school bookends are no longer in the show, that is why I said I feel it is better without them. They are on the rooftop as a trio during college.

I also know there have been MANY revisions. What I was saying is that the plot was not the problem, much more so the execution.

Infinite Theatre Frenzy: I saw one production where Franklin was alone at his piano, I liked that. I saw another where he was on the rooftop about to jump, I hated that one. It seems that the requirement is for him to be alone, contemplating.

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 11/28/05 at 8:51pm

penguin- on the rooftop and about to jump??? ugh! i agree with you!

by the way, i believe tomorrow is the anniversary of the closing performance of Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. *mourns*

[TheatreSlave]

Posted: 11/29/05 at 1:08am

*bump* we're baaack.. ;-P

Another self-admitted Sondheim fanatic here...I've even forgiven him for West Side (although I still loathe the show, but we all make mistakes when we are young).

I can't say that I have seen any of the Sondheim productions mentioned here (unless they are on DVD), but I still have my opinions on things I _have_ seen..
(as the horse said to Catherine- "This could be a long one, so brace yourself"...)

Sweeney is my very favorite Sonheim show (save one, I'll get to that in a bit). The community theatre I now work for did a production of it about 9 years ago years ago. I brought my mother and a friend to the show (neither of whom knew ANYTHING about it). They both loved it, but when the asylum inmates leaped off the stage and ran screeching up the aisles at the end of City on Fire, my friend very nearly jumped in my lap (we were on the third row)! It sounds silly, but the timing was good and it was quite effective. And I agree, that whistle chills me every time. I'm trying to get the theatre to do the show again, but in our small black-cox theatre this time (rather than the 756-seat venue used for the last one). I read an article in a back issue of TheatreWorld (from 1989) about how Sweeney was supposedly originally intended to be done in a small space so that the audience was more involved in the show (by force, if not by inclination). If it is true or not, I like the idea, so wish me luck!

I also love Passion. Granted, it sometimes seems somewhat like a trashy novel set to music, but Fosca has always moved me...and her song "I Read" is one of my all-time favorites.

Angela Lansbury is the best Mrs. Lovett I have seen yet. And If you are looking for another good (but early) film of hers- try "The Court Jester". Angela, Basil Rathbone and Danny Kaye in one film- delicious!

My new favorite Sondheim production- "Putting it Together"- the Carol Burnette one (sorry, Julie). I saw it on TV a while ago and I love it! The re-arranged songs, the staging, the cast. All fabulous. And having a woman sing "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid" is so fun!

Earlier, someone asked "Sweeney Mrs Lovett or Toby?" My answer is- all of them! Mrs. Lovett, for the role I would most love to play; Sweeney, for the best songs in the show (esp. Epiphany), and Toby for the role that I think would be the hardest to play (without making it a clownish caricature).

My adoration of Sweeney established, I cannot stand Green Finch and Linnet Bird. 1- Really high soprano songs grate on my ears, and 2- "green finch and linnet bird, nighingale, blackbird, teach me how to sing..." Dingbat, you ARE SINGING!

OK, now on to Company- Bobby is a hard role, I have yet to see it acted as well as I think it could be. ACted OK, Yes; sung beautifully, yes. But that's it. I think this show is a bit under-rated in some ways. With the right cast it could be phenomenal..with the wrong cast is it a nice showcase for pretty voices. Favorite songs- "The Ladies Who Lunch" and "I'm Not Getting Married..."

Priest- You are wise and have taste that is beyond your years. As someone who works with high school students, we need more like you out there who are willing to step beyond the teenage comfort zones (in a good way) and actually have an opinon of their own. Bravo, mon ami.

OK, I guess that is all I have to say today. It is 1:00 am and I need to be up to go be the Theatre Slave that I am in the morning..so I guess I need to sleep at some point.... Blessings from the Supreme Diety of Your Choice for all my fellow Sondheim lovers.

(Oh, and this is totally off-topic, but I had to tell someone- I got a personal letter from Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell today! Sorry, they are fantasy artists I have adored for years and I am a little giddy)

Carpe Noctem, fellow theatre folk.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 12:50pm

Here's a rave review of the London "Sunday in the Park with George" that Plum saw:

http://www.whatsonstage.com/dl/page.php?page=greenroom&story=E8821133303757

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 1:17pm

Could that make the jump to the West End and then across the pond?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/30/05 at 1:22pm

If it did, I wish that it would come to an intimate Off-Broadway venue rather than a big Broadway house. I think that it and the current Sweeney (which also began in a small venue) would be much more effective in a 300-400 seat house.

Never happen, of course, because of the economics involved, but I wish it would.

[fiatlux]

Posted: 12/1/05 at 11:56am

The London revival of SITPWG has been getting some great reviews - The Times, The Guardian, The Standard and Variety have given it a thumbs up.

It arrived too late for the Evening Standard Awards, the venue won an award, but has had about five nominations for Whatsonstage.com.

SJS is expected to see it soon.
The Times - Sunday in the Park with George

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/28/05 at 2:22am

Brantley raves for the London revival of Sunday in the Park With George at the Menier Chocolate Factory:

"LONDON - The instructions boil down to one simple-sounding, endlessly complicated command: Connect. That's what a questing artist exhorts himself to do in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 musical "Sunday in the Park With George." And though it is one of those tricky words from a Sondheim show that always mean more than one thing, "connect" takes on even greater resonance when spoken in the stirring revival that has theatergoers lining up to jam into a cramped industrial space just south of London Bridge.

The place is called the Menier Chocolate Factory, a reference to the original use of the 1870 building. The theater, created less than two years ago, seats a not entirely comfortable 200. But this air of enforced intimacy makes you listen to the show as if it were an irresistible storyteller seated next to you at a bar. When George, played by Daniel Evans, tells himself to connect, he might be whispering the same advice in your ear.

What George is saying, it is clear, is not just an artist's mantra; it's an injunction to find the bridge between thought and feeling, between the mind and the heart. The conventional wisdom used to be that this was a bridge too far for Mr. Sondheim, who was perceived by some as having "no life in his art," to borrow a convenient lyric from "Sunday."

But intense, intimate productions like this one - and they have become gratifyingly frequent - are dissolving such objections into mists of tears. Try suggesting to someone that Mr. Sondheim is a cold fish at the end of this revival, staged by Sam Buntrock, and you might well get a punch in the nose. (The critical acclaim for this "Sunday," capped by the Chocolate Factory's recent Evening Standard Award for outstanding newcomer, has led to several extensions, with a transfer to the West End scheduled for spring.)
______________________________________________________________

"We lose things, and then we choose things," sings George's model and lover, Dot. And through Mr. Evans's and Ms. Casey's ardent and precise commitment to their roles, you are always aware of two people longing, in their different ways, to reach each other. More palpably than ever, George comes across as a prisoner of his talent, and his subliminal awareness of his limitations singes even his artistic triumphs. The celebrated first-act finale - in which Seurat's masterpiece, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" comes to three-dimensional life - is all the more affecting for the implicit emphasis on the ache within the aesthetic order.

Mr. Evans's and Ms. Casey's emotional concentration carries you through the sometimes facile satire of the second act, set in the art world of the 1980's, where another George, an American Conceptual artist, has lost his bearings. Ms. Casey, reincarnated as Dot's now elderly daughter (and the new George's grandmother), Marie, movingly projects the wistfulness of an old woman stretching back to a vibrant, elusive past. "Connect" remains the watchword for her, as it does for George.

Connecting is a delicate business in "Sunday," a process exquisitely embodied in a small, eloquent gesture that occurs with the impact of a cinematic close-up. In the first act, George Seurat slips a stray lock of hair behind Dot's ear. Ms. Casey's expression conveys the hope and hopelessness of Dot's response. Is this the touch of a lover or of a controlling artist?

Actually, it's both. This double-sidedness is thrillingly echoed when the 20th-century George, visited by Dot's ghost, replicates the movement. In that tender, ambivalent moment of physical contact, two people and two generations connect in a fusion of heart and head that mirrors the love affair that has developed between this show and its audience."



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/theater/newsandfeatures/28bran.html

[Plum]

Posted: 12/28/05 at 12:10pm

Bumpity bump.

Okay, a question in the spirit of Brantley's review: What Sondheim song gets you the most emotional? Or show, or moment, or whatever.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 12/28/05 at 12:25pm

I never fail to cry at the Finale of Passion. Never. And if I'm really sad, I'll sob for a few minutes after it's over.