Triumph of love

[dididda]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 2:45pm

i just got this cd yesterday. i had seen the play a few years ago, and loved it. i must say, i also love the musical as well.
Serenity is just, wow, i've never been a huge buckley fan but still, wow.
i can see why it isn't still on broadway. but how long did it run for? to me it seems to be a tad like little women in a sense that you can see all the potential in it- you just wish it had been revised a few more times, but there's still a number of jems.
has this composer done any other works?

opel, bart, buckley, seiber, eagan are all fabulous in it. i enjoy. Not to keep eagan and foster in the same roles at all times, but this is something i could see sutton being brilliant in.

what are others thoughts on it?

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 3:34pm

Egan makes the recording difficult to get into for me, but Buckley is great, as are Bart, Opel, and the rest of the cast.

Alice Ripley does a great "Serenity" on Broadway Unplugged.

[adamized88]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 3:38pm

i love this recording - i'm so sad i never got to see it!!

i got it because i'm a huge egan fan - but what an amazing cast - so much talent and so much fun - there's only two or three songs that i skip over - pretty impressive

[Rypm25]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 4:04pm

I was just recently thinking of this show and this thread has reminded me of a question i wanted to pose to the people on this board. I remember being in NY before this opened..and remember seeing Elayne Boosler's name on the marquee. And then the show opened and Elayne was out and Nancy Opel was in. Upon searching playbill.com..it says Elayne left due to "creative differences." I was wondering if anyone had any further information as to why this never came to. Did she not get along with the cast? (not naming any names in particular-haha)...or could she just not sing the songs? any info. would be helpful! Thanks guys and gals!

[EganFan2]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 4:11pm

The play is brilliant (Marivaux) but some of the songs were so grating. I had the CD but gave it away awhile back. I wish I didn't now.

[K8eeyore]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 5:30pm

The show, unfortunately, didn't run very long -- only about 80 performances. The show had some problems, switching from high comedy to low comedy all the time, but the cast was excellent, and I think it would've run longer if they'd figured out how to market it.

Regarding Elayne's departure, according to James Magruder's journal of the rehearsals (he was the librettist), she didn't seem to want to play the part the way it was envisioned, and was resistant to the process of rehearsals, so Nancy, her understudy, was hired instead. Actually, Elayne's not a bad singer, from what I hear.

[bdwybelle]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 6:08pm

I saw it when I was 7 years old and I loved it.

[Demitri2]

Posted: 10/30/05 at 6:25pm

For me this show sucked big time. It was one of those annoying afternoons in the theater where you entered the building thinking you were attending a legit Broadway show only to feel cheated. The sets were atrocious...big ugly blocks of different sizes covered with green turf-like outdoor carpeting. The production had the look of OFF off broadway...cheap cheap cheap. It had no business playing on Broadway, and as a result it had NO BUSINESS and closed quickly. The only good thing about the show...I disliked the first act so much that since it was my last afternoon in NY, we crashed the second act of "Side Show" and I got to see the fabulous Ripley and Skinner one last time. In retrospect, I was glad it was so bad since "Side Show" has remained one of my all time favorite musicals.