Train Wrecks You Wish You'd Seen — Page 3

I wish I could have seen The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Pubic.

Just reading the reviews and reading about scenes of "middle aged men with their pants at their ankles singing about call girls who were spread eagled in lucite boxes representing computers..." wasn't enough!

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In My Life, Carrie and Thou Shall Not- mostly because I wish I could have seen Norbert's performence

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Definitely In My Life.

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Merlin
The Wind in the Willows
Rue in Wicked
Once Upon A Mattress revival
Breakfest at Tiffany's
High Fidelity
Suzzane Somer's show

I'm sure there are more I can't think of...

EDIT: Macbeth w/Kelsey Grammer. I forgot that one.

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Updated On: 1/3/07 at 10:54 PM

High Fidelty was far from a train wreck.

In My Life... I'm not sure why (besides one the leads being a very nice guy who graduated from my high school).

I loved Dracula...but my God it was terrible.

I love the concept of a musical about Carrie, but I heard it was dreadful.

Carrie
Dance of the Vampires
Dracula
Once Upon a Mattress revival

HERE'S WHERE I BELONG was, if you can believe this, a musical of Steinbeck's "East of Eden". The material had possibilities, but it was in completely the wrong hands and never stood a chance.

IMHO, ANYONE CAN WHISTLE is hardly a trainwreck. It had a solid concept, great direction, and impeccable performances and design. What it *didnt* have was that "audience friendly" quota that a show has to have to succeed. It was in three acts, and the first act ended with the cast pretty well insulting most of the audience by mocking their applause... not the best way to send folks out for a drink, but not a trainwreck element.

I've seen more than my share of them, actually, but the one I wish I'd seen was MATA HARI, which was apparently so bad the audience stayed to see how much worse it could get. The script is at the Lincoln Centre library, and I spent a hysterical three hours reading it. According to legend, it surpassed the audience's wildest hopes of so-bad-you-cant-take-your-eyes-off-it theatre, with scenic changes that left the crew visible, error-filled choreography, and a final scene that had everyone leaving in gales of laughter: the actress playing Mata rising from the dead and standing because she thought the curtain had come down (which, natch, it hadnt). Like CARRIE, this was one of those utterly WTF evenings.

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Interesting--I didn't realize it was a musical of East of Eden--like you said not necesarily a bad idea but the fact itself that they named it Here's WHere I Belong makes you think they probably started off on the wrong note... Was it Terrance McNally's first musical? And Alfred Uhry did the lyrics? I don't recognize the composer's name though I know he did Robber Bridegroom with Uhry a show I always intended to find out more about--but with those names you'd think it would at least be slightly more sucessful...

I agree about ANyone Can WHistle--while I don't think the book (which I've read but never seen performed) was truly ahead of its time as some fans claim it's definetly solid (if unconventional for the time) and it sounds liek the direction and choreography--and of course performances--were more than solid. I guess some people realized too--you didn't see most "infamous flops" of the 60s being recorded by major producers.

(having seen the video of Merrily We ROll Along that Lincoln Center hosts of the original production--far from a great documentation but--even the ugly physical production they ended up with likewise doesn't make the show a true trainwreck IMHO--much of it still works very well)

Would Illya Darling fit into this category? Wasn't there a RUssian themed show that closed outa town which I believe both Loesser and Fosse were involved with in the 60s?

SOme shows I guess are trainwrecks partly or even only just because of such high expectations because of who's involved (ie Fosse's Big Deal).

ALso the majority of these I think are musicals partly because a bad play (unless truly insane sounding like Moose Murders) is usually just boring--but a bad musical is often spectacularly bad.

E

Kelsey Grammer in MACBETH, which was scheduled for Broadway but closed out of town (I think in Boston).

Kelsey Grammer's "Macbeth" did open on Broadway and lasted a week and a half.

Trainwreck or not, I wish I'd seen the original "Anyone Can Whistle." It was regarded as a train wreck at the time, although it has gained in reputation ever since.

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Holy Cow! I can't believe the MACBETH made it to New York.

Similarly, having seen it in Boston, I was shocked when WAIT UNTIL DARK actually opened on Broadway with Marisa Tomei and Quentin Tarentino. What a mess! To quote John Guare, "It was an all-time low in a lifetime of theatre-going."