The Miller's Son on Tonight Show - Question- Page 3

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 6:27pm

Clarinet (maybe bass clarinet?), not oboe. But lovely.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 6:59pm

But some people evidently did, even on Broadway. I don't know.

I doubt they did. I think it's just one of those collective negative myths that the Internet fosters.

It's Easy Cynicism: Oh that wasn't so good...THE SET MADE NOISE.

[theatregeek6]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 7:13pm

Part of the issue behind the 'noisy panels' was an article on the Boston run where they actually crashed intl one another (after being fixed for noise)m I aw the show 3 times in B'way (twice in the first 5 rows) and they were not noisy

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 8:53pm

One imagines that a good deal of the folks claiming to have experienced noisy ALNM sets, also claim to have seen one of the 21 performances of Anyone Can Whistle's original run.

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/17/14 at 11:56pm

^

Nine performances. Twelve previews.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 12:03am

Horsey, I think you were thinking of Merrily's 21 performances

[After Eight]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 12:11am

^

16 performances.

Gee, it sure is difficult to get the facts straight around here.

But hey, why bother with the facts, when it's such a bother to get them right.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 12:13am

There aren't enough eyeroll .gifs in the world for After Eight's posts ...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 12:30am

Why anyone still gives that cucking funt any notice is beyond me.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 12:43am

Okay, this should be the LAST word on the panels.

From Frank Rich's masterfully written and lavishly illustrated book THE THEATRE ART OF BORIS ARONSON:

Simple as the screens looked, their execution was complex. The sliding panels, each driven by a separate motor, hung from tracks over the stage. The motorized panels had to stop at a variety of exact marks during the show. Motors were also required to drive furniture in and out on 150 different cues. This was accomplished with an elaborate system of tracks on the floor, in which different pins guided “plates” (carpeted panels one inch thick bearing the furniture) into the correct grooves, so that the furniture would end up in exactly the right position on a grass-colored carpet that covered the floor.

During Night Music’s Boston tryout, however, a hitch quickly became apparent: Aronson’s delicately painted but heavily hung birch-tree screens were emitting a coarse racket. The sound they made in their metal tracks was picked up and amplified by the production’s microphones. The solution, again proposed by Peter Feller, was to return to a practice of a generation earlier and redo the tracks in wood. The resulting diminution of the noise level was nearly as pronounced as the contrast in decibel levels between the rubber-wheeled Paris and steel-wheeled New York subway trains.







I hope never to hear those anonymous complaints about noisy panels in New York EVER again.

Updated On: 3/18/14 at 12:43 AM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 1:53am

Thanks PJ--I should have just checked my copy of that great book.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 7:42am

And I'm sure nothing ever, ever went wrong that might have caused them to be a little noisy at some performances, not even after the move to the Majestic, for which a new set was built (the original set went on the road). And, of course, Frank Rich was at every performance so he must know.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 8:16am

At least it didn't each of the five times I went back and saw it.

And it didn't when it was seen by any of the dozens of people I told "You HAVE to go see this!": friends, relatives, schoolmates.

No one ever said a word about the panels except to say how exquisite they were.

[best12bars]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 8:27am

Ever.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 1:52pm

To quote W. S. Gilbert, "Well, hardly EVER!"

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 5:15pm

As I said, I saw it three times and I don't recall noise. But I also tend to trust the person who told me this. I wasn't there when he saw the show. It does seem possible that there might have been an occasional problem later, especially given that a new set was built for the move.

I think there are times when we can definitively say something didn't happen. Ever. But things do go wrong sometimes.

IIRC, a couple of the critics complained about light shining off the panels.. I'd need to double check to be sure. I was never bothered by that, but I think not everyone loved those panels. I did.

EDIT: I do recall being able to see the lights reflected on the panels, but that didn't bother me. This might also have had something to do with where someone was sitting.

Updated On: 3/18/14 at 05:15 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 5:46pm

In the photos in the Rich book you can see some reflection, but I think it would work with the dreamlike effect. It's too bad Aronson's designs are never re-used--I was lucky enough to see the RNT production in London as a teen, with Judi Dench and while the production was mostly thrilling the set was not too memorable, and while the televised NYCO production has a lot to recommend it, the stage always looks massive and kinda empty to me (and from everything that's been said and shown, the less said about the design for Nunn's production the better.)

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/18/14 at 10:26pm

Don't have my book handy tonight, but Frank Rich explains that as well.