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

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 10/12/10 at 4:36pm

Does this mean we have to cancel the stage door protest? I made brownies!

[Baileyboo]

Posted: 10/12/10 at 5:16pm

Can we call BP and have this thread sealed?

[kyle4]

Posted: 10/12/10 at 5:25pm

i'm new to the board... will yazbeck, lane and sher be contacting me directly? please advise!

[aasjb4ever]

Posted: 10/12/10 at 8:53pm

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.

[heo1128]

Posted: 10/12/10 at 8:55pm

^Yes, they have clear window card sized bags with handles.

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/12/10 at 11:55pm

Thoughts from tonight's performance??

[bundy5000]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 12:13am

Just saw it tonight, I'm typing on my phone so excuse any misspellings and grammar errors. I am actually pretty suprised how well it went tonight. Didn't have many messups from what I saw, I know some things did not go as plan such as some type of glass.shattering and I could hear them sweep it up. I did not know if there was flubbed lines or that was how the script went. The score may not be memorable but it was upbeat and enjoyable. I thought Brian was underused. I thought the set design was very busy and somewhat distracting but it was very abstract in a good way. There seemed to be very minimal choreography but at the stage door some of the actors said they are trying to implement more into the show. I thought Laura was great but I don't think she carried the show. Her character reminded me of Kelly Bundy on married with children. Each time Patti had a song I expected her to belt a long note at the end but the song did not have one. Sherri did not appeal to me as much. Her acting was just ok and her singing, I kept hearing moments from Aida.

That said I still thought it was good despite my criticisms and I would see it again even in previews still. I sat in the balcony the view wasent terrible but I definitely could not see patti's face with those mammoth hats. If anyone wanted to know about stage dooring, it was not busy and its not one of those situations where u have to leave during curtain call to get a good spot at the barricade. I feel as if Broadway was the movie industry, women on the verge would be in the independent film catagory

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 12:17am

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?

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 12:17am

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?

[dave1606]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 12:21am

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.

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 12:24am

Was there an Overture tonight?

[chewy5000]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 12:45am

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

[mikem]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 3:01am

I was also there tonight and enjoyed the show, although it feels like a work in progress in some ways. 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 agree the show and the last song kind of petered out at the end rather than ending with a bang. Everyone kind of wandered off stage, and then the curtain call started.

I couldn't tell whether something actually shattered offstage or whether that was a misfired sound cue.

Questions for those who saw the show over the weekend (may be considered to be small spoilers):

Did the Pepa listening to her phone messages bit split Laura Benanti's big number into two parts? It was that way tonight and it really killed the momentum for her number (which is a fantastic number -- probably the best in the show), especially when she actually left the stage during the Pepa part.

Do they actually say where Patti LuPone's character has been for 19 years? It didn't seem clear to me until almost the end, and it seemed like it was supposed to have been clear all along. I was wondering if I missed something. I spent most of Act I thinking, with all the lawyer talk, that she had been in jail and was on parole or something. There was some reference to a hospital, but then I thought she had some kind of chronic debilitating illness.

Updated On: 10/13/10 at 03:01 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 5:10am

^

"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.

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 8:46am

"I was also there tonight and enjoyed the show, although it feels like a work in progress in some ways."

No kidding? Of course it's a work in progress! It's a previewing musical that has never had a full production before, out of town or in New York. Unlike some shows which already arrive fully formed, this is obviously going to be a work in progress. And judging by some comments on this board, it needs to progress quite a bit.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 9:43am

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?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 10:12am

The farcical aspects seemed plenty zany to me.

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 10:12am

"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.

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 10:17am

"The farcical aspects seemed plenty zany to me."

To me, too.

[Brick]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 11:58am

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

[Steve2]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 3:57pm

^
|
|

"bad buzz anywhere can reach New York theatergoers instantly, as was true last weekend when some bloggers picked apart the first preview of “Women on the Verge” only hours after it ended."

Any thoughts on what the New York Times author is referring to?
Updated On: 10/13/10 at 03:57 PM

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 7:15pm

Has anyone tried rush lately? details?

[kyle4]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 7:21pm

dave1606 --

i think i sorta have a crush on you! you saw the same show i did!

mikem --

that is a great question... and brings up a good point... the ONLY good number in the show "appears" to be split in half... i really had no idea what was going on... i was so happy to see a good number... i just ASSUMED that the momentum-killing benanti break was a tech issue...

is that break ALWAYS there?

these people are nuts!!!!

and i really have to laugh at some of these posters... the ones that come on and say... you have to view it as a "work in progress"... why?!!!!!!

it is a preview of a BROADWAY show that they are SELLING tickets for... i should view it as a SHOW!!!! because it is SUPPOSED to be one!

also, the guy that said... it is kinda like the way people felt about the billy elliot movie and the show... ARE YOU SERIOUS??????!!!

it is NOT like that at all... billy elliot the movie is excellent and artful... as is the broadway show....

the analogy the poster tried to make is a POLLYANNA "reach"..... lord.... it is not like that at all!!! it is a SERIOUSLY odd/bad/failure of a show... i feel terrible for the people involved and i hope they are all released from it soon!!!

i wish someone (who has seen the show!!) would (could?) make an ARGUMENT for it. i keep hearing excuses and defensiveness!! VALIDATE it! SUPPORT it! no more excuses and "its a work in progress".. tell me, sell it...

MAN UP!!!!

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 8:02pm

Relax...

[aasjb4ever]

Posted: 10/13/10 at 8:05pm

kyle4 needs his midol