Why did "RAGS" fail on B'way?

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:14pm

Just wondering why?

The score is gorgeous.

[nmartin]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:26pm

Basically the book was a mess. There were far too many characters and they could not be developed properly.

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 2:30pm

Exactly. Great score, horrible book. I've seen two different versions of it and neither worked well. It basically came off as Fiddler on the Roof goes to America and loses every thing that made you care about the characters in the first place.

It's really too bad, because I have nothing but love for the idea of this show. The execution just left something severly wanting.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 3:07pm

Shows in rehearsal often need a guiding hand. Most times that hand to guide rewrites before the show even opens out of town belongs to the director.

Rags hired as a director a person who had never directed anything larger than an off-broadway show and here she was handed a huge musical and one that needed work.

The creators, all name writers and at least one who thinks of himself also as a director, had large egos that were not ready to follow a first-timer.

Nobody edited and when they opened in Boston, the show was a shambles. The director was fired and no replacement director had been lined up to immediately take over. With Stephen Schwartz pinch hitting until a new director signed on (I think it eventually was Gene Saks), more time was lost.

Then they ran out of money and had to open in August with no advance. DOA.

That, as they say, was that.

The basic error was the producers hiring the wrong director at the outset. Everything came from that decision.

[Jon]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 4:27pm

I saw a preview Wednesday matinee. You should have heard the little old Jewish ladies ripping the show apart at intermission. These were women who'd been going to Broadway shows for over 50 years, and they knew their stuff. "That Brand New World song sounds just like Join the Circus from Barnum." "All the characters are like imitations of the characters in Fiddler." "Why is the script so condescending - like a history lesson for seventh graders?" "How many more cliches can they fit into one show?"

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 6:33pm

Very interesting. Thank you for all the information. What a shame that it was such a mess. The score is fantastic.

[Chip1012]

Posted: 12/4/06 at 9:08pm

Agree, great score. Howard Kissel addresses the changes that were made from Boston to Broadway that resulted in the original production's downfall in his revision of Engel's Words with Musics: Creating the Broadway Musical Libretto.