WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN begins previews TONIGHT! — Page 18

Can we call BP and have this thread sealed?

For anyone that got a window card: did they give you a bag for it? I've never bought one at a theatre, only from playbill.

Thoughts from tonight's performance??

For anyone who has the show... I know the sets are busy from what everyone has said, but what does it look like exactly? I know there are a lot of locations in the show. How do they include all of these locations and gracefully switch scene locations?

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I was there tonight, and while I really wanted to love it (I am a huge fan of the film) I found it to be mostly a disaster. Not a disaster in the sense that it needs tightnening because it is in previews. A disaster because they have stripped away what made the source material so entertaining.

My biggest issue is with the way they have re-written Pepa. First of all, must every song she sings be a ballad? They really need to give Sherie at least a moderately uptempo song because right now her character is dull, and through no fault of hers.
Possible spoiler: By changing the airport scene, and having Patti's character shoot the terrorist, and just having Pepa as someone present in the scene, you take away the heroine aspect of the part, and really remove the last strain of likability for the character. Pepa of the film was a strong, if crazy woman while Pepa here just seems lifeless.

Finally, the ending song of the show is once again too slow, and everything seems to end with a wimper. I love a good ballad as much as the next person, but if you stack a show with them, and don't make them very memorable, it can make for a dull evening.


Laura Benanti is still stealing the show, and found her number to easily be the best song of the night. I also actually like On the Verge, and at least the idea of Madrid, even if it seems to be from a different musical.


I did stagedoor tonight for everyone who keeps asking. It is the black gate next to the theater, and there was only a very small crowd. Everyone came out and was very nice though Sherie Rene Scott did not come out.

Do you think i can get a refund because Bebe didn't atagedoor?

^

"It seems that a lot of the people who have serious reservations about WotV are big fans of the movie and feel the show doesn't represent the tone of the movie very well. I know that some of Billy Elliot's biggest detractors are also people who love the movie and feel the stage version is not a good representation of what they loved about the movie -- maybe the same thing is happening here."


I think you're probably right in your observation. But really, can one-- and should one-- expect a stage adaptation to be a replica of a film, or achieve what a film does? I feel the stage adaptation should be judged on its own terms, regardless of the film. In all likelihood, a great film will not be able to have its special qualities duplicated on stage, and one shouldn't expect as much. "La Cage aux Folles" wasn't nearly as funny as the movie, but it was still a good show in its own right. "Sugar" was nowhere near as good as "Some Like It Hot," but it was still fun. For my money, the stage version of "42nd Street," for all its glitz and showmanship, wasn't as good as the film. But I certainly still enjoyed the show version. And it's the same here. "Women" is not as good as the movie. I still found it entertaining, and, I believe, a commendable effort in transferring difficult material like this to the stage.

Now, if people feel that the show fails as a stage entity in its own right, well, that's a different matter. That's how I felt about "Light in the Piazza," a beautiful movie, but a dud on stage.

After Eight- I agree with you that a stage adaptation does not have to be an exact replica of a film, or play or novel for that matter. It is a new entity. I do feel an adaptation should maintain the general plot and tone of the source material though.

La Cage may not have been as funny as a stage musical, but they certainly tried to make it humorous. I'm not familiar with the book to Sugar, but enjoy the score, and think it is an appropriate, if not completely successful, adaptation of the movie. The second act of Grey Gardens is a wonderful adaptation of the documentary. It is a work unto itself, but displays affection toward and carries the themes and tone of the source material.

My biggest problem with the adaptation of Women on the Verge was that they completely missed the frantic, zany, comedic tone of the movie and turned it into a serious character drama. To take one of your examples, it would be as if someone watched the movie of La Cage aux Folles and then decided to make a stage version that focused on the children rather than Renato and Albin. The main theme would be changed to discovering the psychological effects on children who had two fathers. Perhaps this would make an interesting play or musical, but it's not La Cage aux Folles. If one needs to change/skew ones source material that much, maybe one should find new material to adapt, or create an original piece.

Adaptations will also be compared to their source material, and don't they scream out for it? If we saw a musical of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or August: Osage County, wouldn't we be comparing those musicals to their predecessors?

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"To take one of your examples, it would be as if someone watched the movie of La Cage aux Folles and then decided to make a stage version that focused on the children rather than Renato and Albin."

Whizzer-

As one of the best and brightest posters on this board, you make some very good points, as always. And I have no objection to you- or anyone else, for that matter- not liking "Women on the Verge." But the refocusing you allude does not necessarily have to have deleterious results. To cite one example, because "Take Me Along" had Jackie Gleason as the star, Uncle Sid became the major focus of the show, and not Richard. This changed the balance of "Ah, Wilderness!" And yet, the uncle's story proved interesting and touching in its own right, and the show was a good one.

So your point is well taken, but one can't really generalize in sweeping, categorical fashion.

Sher knows (at least some of it), per The Time:

"Listening to audience laughter, applause and silences last weekend gave him a sense of what needed work, Mr. Sher said: a couple of songs, some choreography, a few scene transitions and the emotional bond between the audience and the main character, Pepa."


Musicals Born on Broadway Cause Jitters

Has anyone tried rush lately? details?

Relax...