The Wild Party Battle...

[Larcen26]

Posted: 7/10/09 at 2:31pm

Here is a converstation that I have had/heard more than once:

Person #1: I love "The Wild Party"
Person #2: Which one?
Person #1: The good one...
Person #2: Oh. Lippa.
Person #1: No. LaChiusa...

I, personally am in the LaChiusa camp. I feel that it has more interesting music overall, focuses more on the "party" instead of just the love triangle and each song has so much character just built into it. Whereas the Lippa is more of a disjointed collection of songs that could be sung by just about any character at any time without affecting anything.
Lippa's has some great songs, admittedly, and I think that "Make me Happy" is a much better final scene than in the LaChiusa, but overall I am in the LaChiusa camp.

Thought I would start this debate up and see what came of it.

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/10/09 at 2:37pm

Well, here's my side of the argument. LaChiusa writes better material and a smarter show, maybe, but Lippa's show is more memorable and works better onstage. Why?

In the original poem, the focus is quite strongly on Burrs, Queenie, Kate and Black. The other characters are even less drawn than they are onstage, appearing either just in brief mentions (Max in Lippa/Gold and Goldberg in LaChiusa appear only in one quatrain describing two "loud Jews" who are producers of some kind), or as caricatures (the Brothers D'Armano are more stereotypical, one-note characters in the poem than onstage). Lippa fleshes out the supporting characters to an extent, but keeps them as supports, never truly entering into the story in any complete way.

Whereas, LaChiusa's songs are rather unrelated character sketches, taking us into the lives of his more complex, but less necessary supporting characters. Each character is deeper and more fleshed-out, at the expense of the inherent and constant drama of the psychotic love triangle.

[Larcen26]

Posted: 7/17/09 at 9:21pm

Bump...just to get more opinions

[ljay889]

Posted: 7/17/09 at 9:23pm

Why must we do this once a week?

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 7/18/09 at 12:06am

Having seen both productions, my thought is that neither one of them really worked, despite good elements in both (I have both recordings). I made a point of re-reading the novel before I saw either one and neither seemed to be s smooth transition to a theatre piece. Maybe it's just one of those properties that defies transition to musical theatre.

[ashley0139]

Posted: 7/18/09 at 12:27am

Blah... blah... blah.

Please do a search.

It is not a contest. They are two different shows. Just because they have the same name and source material does not mean we have to have this debate once a week. Each composer/writer focused on very different aspects of the poem.

[TimesSquareRegular]

Posted: 7/18/09 at 8:51am

Re-read the NOVEL??????

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 7/18/09 at 9:32am

This debate happens all the time. You'll find the general consensus is Lippa's because it starred EYEDINA and JUUUUUUUUULIA and TAYEBABY. And also because the score itself is catchier and more accessible and thus lives on forever in the annals of college audition song history. LaChiusa's disjointed, period-appropriate, plot-driven score is a hard pill to swallow if you're not used to the style and that turns most people off.

At the end of the day, neither worked very well onstage, neither got very good reviews, and both had very short-lived runs. Granted, the off-Broadway production was an MTC show, so it was a short run. But still. Neither lasted long.

All that being said, I'm on the LaChiusa bandwagon. But let's not have this debate anymore.