The Woman in White — Page 2

I would have to agree with you completely ThankstoPhantom on that Maria being robbed statement. She deserved to be nominated for a Tony that year and we all know she would have won.

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I wondered about the changes--I know MANY were made (and thought he cast album is a "live" recording with the audience reactins edited out I believe th eending on the CD wasn't actually ever done on stage either)but it was hard to keep track

But a further question though--on Broadway, weren't there many replacements for the cast? I read somewhere they only played with the OBC a few times before they had to replace Maria Friedman, and then Michael Crawford, and eventually other roles too, right? Is this true?

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"(For instance, Blood Brothers has done terrible in the US, Rent has done terribly in the UK). "

I agree with BB but Rent ran over a year and a half here, the tour was huge, its limited engagment at the Prince of Wales was a big hit and the Cast Recording has sold amazingly well here. Whilst it didnt have the 11 year run it had on Broadway it did well

...well, except Rent Remixed, but that was horrid

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romgitsean- Maria Friedman was battling breast cancer during the run and her understudy went on many times (luckily i was able to see her twice). MIchael Ball contracted an extremely bad virus and had to call out sick many times (I only saw him once). There were no replacements made, though I'm pretty sure that when the closing was announced Michael Ball could no longer perform.

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I'm pretty sure I remember it being a virus, I could be wrong though.

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Kuhn was announced as a temporary replacement, but the show closed before she performed. Lisa Brescia went on for Freidman a lot. Brescia once said it was about half the run.

I saw Brecia and thought she was quite mediocre. Glyde was the only truly good performance.

The projections were not okay from the mezzanine. That is where I was and was nauseated.

"All for Laura" was a nice moment, tho much better sung by Maria, and there was a lovely trio for the sisters and the stud.

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^^I agree Mister Matt; perhaps my favourite in the piece actually.


Judy Kuhn was to replace Maria Friedman from February 12th-ish until the end of March or April. Kuhn went through rehersals/all that, but then last minute the show just announced it would close, on the 19th, so Kuhn didn't even get a chance to perform in the show. Brescia was good - but not as good as Friedman.

I think they said of the 109 performances, the original cast performed ALL together 31 or something?

I liked the projections - very pretty to look at it and massive!

After The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre and The Woman in White, I'd like to make it clear to readers of BWW that not everyone in the north of England lives in a mansion overrun with ghosts and lunatics.

I exorcised mine by playing them the recording of BatBoy.

Still I'm pleased that Laura has finally decided to have some renovations done - I've been telling her to do so for years. If Marion goes eavesdropping again she won't slip off the ledge this time.

Updated On: 12/15/09 at 03:45 PM

^^ lol Scripps, we must catch this in London before it closes!!!

Woman in White deserved a longer run on Broadway, than it got, testimony by how many good review there are on this thread, if we asked for thoughts on Wicked, you know, we would of had a similar mixed bag of reviews, although I am not excusing WIW, it did have its problems.

Trevor Nunn poor direction of this show, failed to translate the great Wilkie Collins book to stage very fluently.

David Zippel's lyric in some cases were woeful.

There was a total over reliance on projections, where in some cases sets should of been used, not ruling out projection but it was OTT, however the projections made a great ending, with the train, bet none of you expected that did you, no?

The show did have some magic one example is above and others such as 'A Gift for Living Well', 'If Not For Me For Her', 'You Can Get Away With Anything'.

As one contributor said Fosco was extra to the story, I believe his role was similar to The Thernadier in Les Mis, if you didn't have these three characters the show would be very melancholy.

Remember Brantley gave this a mixed review and Barnes absolutely raved about this show. As I said in my introduction WIW deserved a semi decent run, but did not help with the illness of Maria and Michael and agreed Maria should of been nominated.

Projected sets for period pieces are often critized (i.e., Lestat). I think they're cool...but for WiW, I would agree, it looks out of place.

I really do feel like they should give it another shot.

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Trying not to Notice is probably my favorite melody in the piece too.

I still wonder why Zippel was hired for this show--as it proved it really doesn't work to his strong points whatsoever--just bizarrely odd subject matter for him. However I think it was ALW and Charlotte Jones who made ALL the changes from the original novel which really just made things even more complicated (I get some of them, im theory to make them more theatrical when the novel uses different narrators in the epistolary style). Fosco, as well, plays a more interesting role in the novel (interestingly there was a BBC version of the novel in the late 90s, that I recently came across on tv here that also heavily changes the novel, in some ways similarly).

Anyway it's a much better score than Beautiful Game/Boys in the Photograph etc :p

And Dante's right--the Summer I spent in England I saw Rent twice, this was a year into its run and it definitely wasn't a flop. I was surprised it closed so soon after I left considering how well it seemed to be doing