The Band’s Visit National Tour 2021-22 — Page 2

RippedMan said: "There's some new movie coming out that involves gay stuff, and the two leads are 2 straight guys, so, of course, people are outraged. And I get it. But I just sort of come from the "let actors be actors." Like that ScarJo movie where she was going to play a trans women, and then all that outrage and now that movie isn't being made. I think there's good and bad. As a gay man, i don't want to ONLY play that. So it's interesting/frustrating for sure.

How is a black woman playing a muslim woman any different than a white girl playing Maria in WSS?"

Because Islam (being muslim) is a religion not an ethnicity. Senegal is a muslim country with the majority black population. You can't be serious with those questions and comparisons, can you?

gibsons2 said: "RippedMan said: "There's some new movie coming out that involves gay stuff, and the two leads are 2 straight guys, so, of course, people are outraged. And I get it. But I just sort of come from the "let actors be actors." Like that ScarJo movie where she was going to play a trans women, and then all that outrage and now that movie isn't being made. I think there's good and bad. As a gay man, i don't want to ONLY play that. So it's interesting/frustrating for sure.

How is a black woman playing a muslim woman any different than a white girl playing Maria in WSS?"

Because Islam (being muslim) is a religion not an ethnicity. Senegal is a muslim country with the majority black population. You can't be serious with those questions and comparisons, can you?"

But Alysha isn't Senegalese, isn't an immigrant. She's an African American woman stepping into that role. This bothers me not ONE bit, but seems to run afoul of some of the recent demands for more "authentic" casting. And you're not addressing the original point: is there something wrong with Katrina Lenk or Janet Dacal play Dina, the Israeli Jew? Or Sasson Gabay playing the Egyptian Muslim?

MattieIce2018 said: "Just got an email - the stop in Worcester this week was cancelled due to "unforseen circumstances" and pushed back to next June. It's so last minute (it would have started performances on Thursday) that I can't help but wonder if something happened. Has anyone heard anything?"

For some reason, I can’t drop a link here, but if you go to the theater’s website, the latest blog entry talks about this. Basically, it was due to the perception that sales will be better in June than they are now.

bear88 said: "I feel like I’ve been waiting to seeThe Band’s Visitfor a long time. I planned to see it on Broadway in 2019 but it closed earlier than I expected. I was going to see it on tour but that was postponed due to Covid. Then I delayed seeing it at its San Francisco tour stop due to Omicron.

I finally saw the musical on Thursday and, alas, didn’t love it. That may say more about me, and the difficulty of staging such a small-scale show in the Golden Gate Theatre, than about the musical. The pluses were the terrific score, which was even better than I expected. Several of the cast members were standouts, though a few struggled with accents, which surprised me in a national tour. The story - in the end - felt too slight to me. While I was grateful that the story’s lesson wasn’t hammered home too hard, I also found myself disengaged once I realized that nothing that happened during the visit really was going to matter in the end. I realize that was sort of the point, and I didn’t mind hanging out with these characters for an hour and a half, but the show succeeds a little too well in reminding the audience - in words before the show and Dina’s spoken recitation at the end - that the events weren’t very important.

But David Yazbek did compose some lovely songs."

It’s a gorgeous score and I fell in love with it on Broadway and saw it multiple times. Saw it multiple times on tour with both actresses. I was always close within a few rows of stage. The energy and vibe never matched Broadway. The houses were always too big, the sound always seemed really low and the audience had trouble understanding the actors. Most of the people around me didn’t care for it. I’m not surprised it’s not selling well. Also, for the first time ever many touring houses are offering refunds if someone isn’t able to go. I think many people have said they “couldn’t go” to shows they didn’t want to see in order to get a refund or a credit.

bear88 said: "Count me as an audience member who frequently had trouble understanding the actors. That wasn’t true with every actor, and sometimes missing a few words here and there isn’t all that important, especially in a story like this one. One actor clearly struggled with her accent. Some others were hard to follow at times. It didn’t ruin the show for me, because I always knew what was happening even if I couldn’t always follow every word, and again, I really liked the score.

But while my show was well-attended, I could feel the energy go out of the audience as the musical progressed. Golden Gate Theatre audiences tend to give standing ovations to everything. Most people stayed seated during the bows, and only stood after the band’s final song.

Was difficulty understanding the actors a problem on Broadway, or is this a tour problem that’s aggravated by the larger size of the venues?"

I found it difficult to hear dialogue and some lyrics.

I was sitting in the first row of Mezz when it was

on Broadway.. The irony is that it was awarded the Tony for best sound design.. go figure.

jkcohen626 said: " My Mom and I were also disappointed by that closing line from Dina that discounts the importance of what just happened. Even some typical Israeli humor there, something like her stopping herself and saying something like "ok, maybe it was a LITTLE bit important" would've gone a long way to acknowledge the way that the events changed the characters. Speaking of,I do think understanding Israelis and Israeli humor could be a big barrier to entry and enjoyment for a lot of people.”

I’m not sure I understand what you mean about “Israeli humor.” Dina’s final line is meant to be ironic, and the irony of it really doesn’t hinge on whether you understand what you perceive to be specific cultural humor.

Updated On: 2/6/22 at 01:11 PM

ShowBro said: "jkcohen626 said: "My Mom and I were also disappointed by that closing line from Dina that discounts the importance of what just happened. Even some typical Israeli humor there, something like her stopping herself and saying something like "ok, maybe it was a LITTLE bit important" would've gone a long way to acknowledge the way that the events changed the characters. Speaking of,I do think understanding Israelis and Israeli humor could be a big barrier to entry and enjoyment for a lot of people.”

I’m not sure I understand what you mean about “Israeli humor.” Dina’s final line is meant to be ironic, and the irony of it really doesn’t hinge on whether you understand what you perceive to be specific cultural humor.

"

I guess. It didn't seem ironic to me, but I guess that's just me. It's most likely just that the intricacies of the performance were lost on me in that moment.

However, I still think, overall, understanding Israeli humor and the ways Israelis act furthers someone's understanding and potential for appreciation of this show.

I had seen the original film when it came out 15 years ago and fell in love with it. I knew I would love the musical and the 2 times I saw it on Broadway, it was just magical. I saw it a third time in March seeing the tour in Costa Mesa, CA at the Segerstrom Center. Segerstrom is a 3,000 seat airplane hangar. It's like watching a show being done on 43rd street while standing on 46th street. It completely lost all of its magic, its intimacy, its emotion. The subtle looks and gestures that made this show what it is were impossible to see from 2/3 of the theater. I suspect this was true in most of the 2,000-3,000 seat theaters it played on tour. The producers should be taken out and flogged for running this through the 2500 seat theater circuit. Now many who attended the tour and were simply too far away to see what makes this show so special will have come away not being to have felt the raw emotion and longing that made this show what it is. The producers should be ashamed of themselves.

Updated On: 8/2/22 at 09:49 PM

UncleCharlie said: "The producers should be ashamed of themselves."

Yes, the producers of a 10 time Tony Award winning musical should be ashamed of themselves for taking their show on the road to share with audiences across the country who otherwise would never have had the chance to experience the show...

Agreed, fashionguru... I saw the show on tour in a large venue and thought it worked remarkably well. I also saw the show on Broadway twice. I didn't think anything was lost in a larger venue.

bwayphreak234 said: "UncleCharlie said: "The producers should be ashamed of themselves."

Yes, the producers of a 10 time Tony Award winning musical should be ashamed of themselves for taking their show on the road to share with audiences across the country who otherwise would never have had the chance to experience the show...

Agreed, fashionguru... I saw the show on tour in a large venue and thought it worked remarkably well. I also saw the show on Broadway twice. I didn't think anything was lost in a larger venue."

Thanks for deliberately misrepresenting what I said just so you could make your point. Very cool of you. I'm happy the producers took it on tour. No criticism there. My only issue was having it play in 2,500-3,000 seat theaters instead of trying for something smaller if that was possible.

And while a few people here who were probably already familiar with the play and range from very knowledgeable theater attendees to theater diehards didn't think it lost anything, if you read reviews and comments from people who are not diehards and don't see 20 or 30+ shows a year, they had a lot of trouble understanding the accents from a distance and just didn't get what made this show so special. It's those people I'm speaking for whose willingness to see more theater is dependent on experiences they have with shows like this.

Here are one set of customer reviews from a local theater guide for the show's stop in Costa Mesa which was where I saw it. Once you get past the first 10 or so which are all very good, the next 30+ reviews are terrible. I have to believe at least some of these would have been better if they sat closer to better understand the dialogue and feel the emotion. The reviews on Goldstar which sold tickets for the entire run were similarly largely negative and I'm sad about reviews like that for a show I love. So several of you may have thought it was just fine but a lot of other people didn't. If it has to play in these barns, perhaps only selling tickets for 1500 seats instead of all 2200-3000 might be an option. This may be unrealistic given their profit motive but as i said, not doing so is a disservice to this lovely show.

https://www.costamesatheater.com/theaters/segerstrom-hall/the-bands-visit-customer-reviews.php?r=a&page=all

Updated On: 8/4/22 at 01:01 AM

I agree with the posters who feel that the large tour venues do a disservice to this beautiful production. Several of the many things I love about this musical (it's in my top 10 of all time) are the little moments, the subtle interactions between characters, the sudden shift in facial expressions that tell an important story, etc. Too many of these gifts were lost on the large stage and from further back. I brought a group of typically like-minded theater lovers to the Houston tour after singing its praises for months, and while everyone enjoyed it, only one or a qualified two appreciated it to the extent I believe it deserved, and none remembered those small yet vital moments I had cherished in the Broadway production.

Also, and I apologize to anyone who finds this offensive, but I believe that Sasson Gabai has aged out of the role he played so well for many years. The relationship between Dina and Tewfiq is meant to be murky and difficult to define, but there needs to be some pretense that the connection that grew over the course of one day could have developed into something more had time and circumstance allowed for it. Janet Decal is 33 today, Gabai is 74, and nothing in their performances suggested that their characters' ages were appreciably different. I believe that the large gap between the two both changed and diminished an important element of the story.

I had the same experience. Had to cup my ears the hear. I was in Mezz A3. I also laughed at it winning best sound design. Folks around me felt the same way.

tourboi said: "If it has to play in these barns, perhaps only selling tickets for 1500 seats instead of all 2200-3000 might be an option. This may be unrealistic given their profit motive but as i said, not doing so is a disservice to this lovely show.

https://www.costamesatheater.com/theaters/segerstrom-hall/the-bands-visit-customer-reviews.php?r=a&page=all"



That comment shows a lack of understanding of touring economics. With the guarantees, IA costs (which vary by market), ad costs (again, varying by market), and other costs beyond just the basic show costs, most presenters on the road need to come close to selling out their houses to break even, let alone make a profit.

Suggesting they sell fewer seats would mean fewer (and much smaller) tours."

Give me a break dude. I specifically said it may be unrealistic financially and profits wise but it was a wish from a purely artistic point of view. And it's a very small minority of quiet intimate shows that would even need to worry about it. Musicals touring now like The Prom, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge etc. wouldn't even have to consider it.

And how many current touring shows are consistently selling out these large 2,500-3,000 seat theaters anyway? We keep hearing anecdotal reports of half filled houses, so I would venture to say, not that many.