#1
Posted: 3/12/07 at 8:11pm
Ok where to begin! Sadly, details are leaving my mind, especially since I was SO very familiar with the Pre-broadway version! So I apologize for any lack of detail in sections.
I saw the Pirate Queen 4 times in Chicago, starting very early in it's run there and ending a day or so before it left me...
I saw the show Thursday evening (March
. The Hilton is a great theatre, the set is all the same from what I can tell.
There will totally be spoilers, I'll say it again, read at your own risk!
The Overture is the same, but now there is action happening during it. The Uilleann Pipes (I think) that are early in the overture are now "acted" out if you will by either the actual player or by one of the dancer ensemble members (I couldn't really tell), but they enter on stage mostly in shadow and "play" that part. The curtain then shows the illumination of Stephanie behind the wheel of the ship. The curtain comes up and Grania proudly looks out into the ocean in front of her. Tiernan comes out and "challenges" her to a sword fight, they fight (far more realistically than anything we saw in Chicago!)and when the play fighting is done they embrace and make-out.
In this new version it is much more obvious to the audience how much the two love each other. (in chicago, the curtain was down the entire overture, first hint of romance was during "here on this night").
Instead of "All Aboard the Coel Na Mara" we have "The Pirate Queen". Same song melodically. But not a lyric is the same! All the ensemble sings this, instead of just the male pirates. It is much stronger now! The name of the ship is now "The Pirate Queen", not the Coel Na mara.
Dubhdara (Grace's father, the chieftain of clan o'malley for those who don't know) is MUCH stricter and meaner to Grace. He thinks more along the lines of the others with "women being lesser" and such, and he tells her so. All the women are told to leave the ship to go to shore. This prompts "Woman", Steph's new song, which is a POWERHOUSE and absolutely beautiful.
The storm happens, similar to Chicago (but as you will notice not a single thing is EXACT).
"My Grace" is also similiar, very different lyrics as well.
"Here on this Night" also completely different lyrics. THere are also some changes as to who sings the higher part in the end. For example, one of the last parts has Hadley taking the part Steph usually signs, and I believe there was harmonically a slightly different ending as well. There are some of the original lyrics but the line still wouldn't be the same, either the tense has been changed or some sort of word in the sentence is different.
The first battle. The battle scenes are COMPLETELY different, and for the better. I never wanted to admit it, but in Chicago the battles were pretty laughable. NOW they are VERY good, very realistic, and very tight.
"The Waking of the Queen"--as far as I can tell, ALL of the queen's songs have been lowered (with the exception of "She Who Has All" and the part where she sings "this is your laaaaaaaaaaAAAast Chance!"). The new keys still sound great on Linda, and they are less annoying to listen to (granted I never hated the uber high singing). But the lower is great. Still very different lyrics!
"rah-rah, tip-top" they are singing this with less 'bounce' if you will, less stacatto. If that makes sense. I like it better. It still has the style of the original but less stylized. If that makes ANY sense!
The way Donal is brought into the picture is VERY different. The Clan O'Flaherty comes, and the two clans appear as if they are going to fight. But both Chieftains realize they need to come togehter during this time. The Chieftains pull aside and long story short "SO you have a daughter, I have son, if they get married and produce an heir we will have united our clans". Now "The Choice is Mine" is no longer a Stephanie only thing, it's Grace, Dubhdara, Chieftain O'Flaherty, Tiernan, Donal and Company. It's a group thing. I feel like though, this has lost some of the emotion we got near the end of the run in Chicago, where you see Grace making this difficult decision. I think that will come in later in this version, too, though!
"boys'll be Boys" different lyrics again, I really shouldn't even bother saying that anymore, it's ALL different!
Ok, I'm gonna skip ahead to details I want to share, more may come to me later!
ACT 2: They no longer have the little Irish guy and the English guy give each other dirty looks at the beginning of the Entr'Acte and then go to positions at the top of the masts. Good, that was dumb.
Grace now has her child BELOW decks, also good. The Pirates still bang their oars, which I'm still unsure of (the last thing a woman giving birth wants is some dumb guys making lots of noise!) but they no longer chant "Go Go GO Grania GO!"...thank goodness.
When the battle ensues, once again MUCH more realistically, she doesn't run out and fight. She drags her ass to the center of the stage, and Tiernan is about to be stabbed by a Englishman in the back while fighting another man, and she, from the ground, reaches up with her sword and slices his back, preventing Tiernan's death. MUCH better than her getting up and killing like, 8 people after childbirth.P.s. this is also cool becuase they added some dance technique to teh fighting, and now they do a cool pose-pose-freeze thing to the music that is happening, VERY cool.
I Dismiss You", also different lyrics...one I noticed instead of "You and all your ****..." it is "You and all your lies..." which therefore affects the following lines (rhyme-wise).
sidenote: the only reference to Grace's "balls" that is left is Bingham's "One day crush these balls of hers!" which seemed to be largely appreciated by the NYC audience :) They seem to have cleaned up some of the language in hte show, which is probably for the best.
Now that Donal is dismissed, it makes no sense that Grace and Tiernan stay apart any longer, so guess what? They don't!! "If I Said I Loved You" now brings them BACK together....
They have also added, that the Queen has a dilemma as well. She needs to produce an heir...so Bingham mentions that he'd be glad to help her out with that. SO the deal is made that if Lord Bingham can deliver Ireland to the Queen, she'll think about it. ahhh, plot thickens! lol.
"Let a Father Stand By His Son"-This is MUCH cooler! Now when they English attack with the help of Donal, they actually KILL some of the Irish. I believe about 3 of the clan members die. This makes it much more serious...
"Surrender". I was very worried that Hadley's song "Each in turn" was gone, I figured it had to be since with what has happened so far it would make NO sense to keep it. But it's still there! Just with different meaning. Instead of Tiernan singing about how he will gladly surrender his life for Grania's, and to her essentially, even though she is not physically there, he now sings it TO Bingham. He tells Bingham that he is there to save Grace's life so she can be with her child. It works wonderfully and we still get to hear Hadley sing that beautiful melody!
"She Who Has All" Almost completely different lyrics, same key (as far as I can tell, and I'm pretty good at that stuff, I have realitive pitch). Just beautiful.
"Terra Marique Potens" is the ship's motto if you will (I can't think of the correct term). Can not for the life of me remeber what it meant...I suck. But it was an insult to the Queen esentially. I believe it was something like "power on land and on the sea".
I'm not sure what else there is to say, other than the show is in EXCELLENT condition for so early in it's Broadway previews.
Congrats Pirate Queen, I think you'll do just fine :)
P.s. Sorry for the length, obsessive use of " " and I'm sure the large amounts of typos and bad grammar/spelling, etc. I tried :)
if there are any questions feel free to ask them!
I saw the Pirate Queen 4 times in Chicago, starting very early in it's run there and ending a day or so before it left me...
I saw the show Thursday evening (March
. The Hilton is a great theatre, the set is all the same from what I can tell. There will totally be spoilers, I'll say it again, read at your own risk!
The Overture is the same, but now there is action happening during it. The Uilleann Pipes (I think) that are early in the overture are now "acted" out if you will by either the actual player or by one of the dancer ensemble members (I couldn't really tell), but they enter on stage mostly in shadow and "play" that part. The curtain then shows the illumination of Stephanie behind the wheel of the ship. The curtain comes up and Grania proudly looks out into the ocean in front of her. Tiernan comes out and "challenges" her to a sword fight, they fight (far more realistically than anything we saw in Chicago!)and when the play fighting is done they embrace and make-out.
In this new version it is much more obvious to the audience how much the two love each other. (in chicago, the curtain was down the entire overture, first hint of romance was during "here on this night").
Instead of "All Aboard the Coel Na Mara" we have "The Pirate Queen". Same song melodically. But not a lyric is the same! All the ensemble sings this, instead of just the male pirates. It is much stronger now! The name of the ship is now "The Pirate Queen", not the Coel Na mara.
Dubhdara (Grace's father, the chieftain of clan o'malley for those who don't know) is MUCH stricter and meaner to Grace. He thinks more along the lines of the others with "women being lesser" and such, and he tells her so. All the women are told to leave the ship to go to shore. This prompts "Woman", Steph's new song, which is a POWERHOUSE and absolutely beautiful.
The storm happens, similar to Chicago (but as you will notice not a single thing is EXACT).
"My Grace" is also similiar, very different lyrics as well.
"Here on this Night" also completely different lyrics. THere are also some changes as to who sings the higher part in the end. For example, one of the last parts has Hadley taking the part Steph usually signs, and I believe there was harmonically a slightly different ending as well. There are some of the original lyrics but the line still wouldn't be the same, either the tense has been changed or some sort of word in the sentence is different.
The first battle. The battle scenes are COMPLETELY different, and for the better. I never wanted to admit it, but in Chicago the battles were pretty laughable. NOW they are VERY good, very realistic, and very tight.
"The Waking of the Queen"--as far as I can tell, ALL of the queen's songs have been lowered (with the exception of "She Who Has All" and the part where she sings "this is your laaaaaaaaaaAAAast Chance!"). The new keys still sound great on Linda, and they are less annoying to listen to (granted I never hated the uber high singing). But the lower is great. Still very different lyrics!
"rah-rah, tip-top" they are singing this with less 'bounce' if you will, less stacatto. If that makes sense. I like it better. It still has the style of the original but less stylized. If that makes ANY sense!
The way Donal is brought into the picture is VERY different. The Clan O'Flaherty comes, and the two clans appear as if they are going to fight. But both Chieftains realize they need to come togehter during this time. The Chieftains pull aside and long story short "SO you have a daughter, I have son, if they get married and produce an heir we will have united our clans". Now "The Choice is Mine" is no longer a Stephanie only thing, it's Grace, Dubhdara, Chieftain O'Flaherty, Tiernan, Donal and Company. It's a group thing. I feel like though, this has lost some of the emotion we got near the end of the run in Chicago, where you see Grace making this difficult decision. I think that will come in later in this version, too, though!
"boys'll be Boys" different lyrics again, I really shouldn't even bother saying that anymore, it's ALL different!
Ok, I'm gonna skip ahead to details I want to share, more may come to me later!
ACT 2: They no longer have the little Irish guy and the English guy give each other dirty looks at the beginning of the Entr'Acte and then go to positions at the top of the masts. Good, that was dumb.
Grace now has her child BELOW decks, also good. The Pirates still bang their oars, which I'm still unsure of (the last thing a woman giving birth wants is some dumb guys making lots of noise!) but they no longer chant "Go Go GO Grania GO!"...thank goodness.
When the battle ensues, once again MUCH more realistically, she doesn't run out and fight. She drags her ass to the center of the stage, and Tiernan is about to be stabbed by a Englishman in the back while fighting another man, and she, from the ground, reaches up with her sword and slices his back, preventing Tiernan's death. MUCH better than her getting up and killing like, 8 people after childbirth.P.s. this is also cool becuase they added some dance technique to teh fighting, and now they do a cool pose-pose-freeze thing to the music that is happening, VERY cool.
I Dismiss You", also different lyrics...one I noticed instead of "You and all your ****..." it is "You and all your lies..." which therefore affects the following lines (rhyme-wise).
sidenote: the only reference to Grace's "balls" that is left is Bingham's "One day crush these balls of hers!" which seemed to be largely appreciated by the NYC audience :) They seem to have cleaned up some of the language in hte show, which is probably for the best.
Now that Donal is dismissed, it makes no sense that Grace and Tiernan stay apart any longer, so guess what? They don't!! "If I Said I Loved You" now brings them BACK together....
They have also added, that the Queen has a dilemma as well. She needs to produce an heir...so Bingham mentions that he'd be glad to help her out with that. SO the deal is made that if Lord Bingham can deliver Ireland to the Queen, she'll think about it. ahhh, plot thickens! lol.
"Let a Father Stand By His Son"-This is MUCH cooler! Now when they English attack with the help of Donal, they actually KILL some of the Irish. I believe about 3 of the clan members die. This makes it much more serious...
"Surrender". I was very worried that Hadley's song "Each in turn" was gone, I figured it had to be since with what has happened so far it would make NO sense to keep it. But it's still there! Just with different meaning. Instead of Tiernan singing about how he will gladly surrender his life for Grania's, and to her essentially, even though she is not physically there, he now sings it TO Bingham. He tells Bingham that he is there to save Grace's life so she can be with her child. It works wonderfully and we still get to hear Hadley sing that beautiful melody!
"She Who Has All" Almost completely different lyrics, same key (as far as I can tell, and I'm pretty good at that stuff, I have realitive pitch). Just beautiful.
"Terra Marique Potens" is the ship's motto if you will (I can't think of the correct term). Can not for the life of me remeber what it meant...I suck. But it was an insult to the Queen esentially. I believe it was something like "power on land and on the sea".
I'm not sure what else there is to say, other than the show is in EXCELLENT condition for so early in it's Broadway previews.
Congrats Pirate Queen, I think you'll do just fine :)
P.s. Sorry for the length, obsessive use of " " and I'm sure the large amounts of typos and bad grammar/spelling, etc. I tried :)
if there are any questions feel free to ask them!
and all that I could do because of you was talk of love...
