Why did Smile fail?

[Musical Master]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 12:40pm

I'm really curious about this. Did it fail because of creative differences?

[newintown]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 12:48pm

I can't believe this question has never been asked before!

[Musical Master]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 12:57pm

???

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 1:00pm

I thought about it a lot at the time. I saw the OBCs of Smile and Les Miz about a month or two apart. I preferred Smile. Les Miz was long, bloated, and boring for the most part. Smile was clever, funny, great music with an unusual structure, solid performances (with Jodi Benson being a huge standout), and it appealed greatly to my early-20-something self.

But here are the obvious reasons why Smile failed:

"Modern" musical comedies are tricky. They don't usually work. Successful musical comedies are usually period pieces or fantasies, at least in the past several decades. Modern musical dramas have a better fighting chance.

Smile's subject matter - a beauty pageant. By the mid-'80s, we had just come off of the Vanessa Williams Miss America scandal, and beauty pageants in general were on a major decline with mass audiences. There were really two groups of people: the group that still loved pageants as a "major sporting event" each year and took them semi-seriously---who didn't want to see a musical sendup of them. Or the group who didn't take them seriously anymore (if ever) and didn't care enough about the characters or their situations to give the story any weight at all.

So you either pissed people off with the pageant-lovers not finding it all that funny. Or you had people who didn't care about the subject to begin with, even if they found the show funny and/or touching, and thought it was too light.

I still think it had some pretty genius staging by Ashman (Shine and In Our Hands still come to mind after all these years). I loved the music and lyrics, and the girls were very talented.

It was too much of a "cult" subject matter based on a "cult" movie. That can work with something like Rocky Horror or Little Shop of Horrors or even Xanadu, but you have to tap into the universal appeal to make it work. Smile landed squarely in the middle of being a tribute (aka serious and tender) and a spoof (comedy and satire). So neither group was fully satisfied.

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 1:00pm

The failure of "Smile" is based on bizarre editorial choices- the initial, pre-Broadway draft of the show is pretty solid. However, bizarre rewrites were put in place for the Broadway run, like turning a one-line joke into a song about a horny dermatologist.

The licensed version of Smile reflects the superior pre-Broadway version.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 1:08pm

I did hear that the licensed version is better.

So this show failed because of bizarre rewrites and being a show that opened at the wrong time, much like Carrie.

I really loved the music and lyrics by both the late Marvin Hamlisch and Howard Ashman for their clever, witty, heartfelt songs. We truly have lost both great talented men haven't we?

I think Smile should come back to Broadway with the licensed script. That would be amazing.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 1:43pm

In this day and age of Honey Boo Boo and Toddlers and Tiaras and "like, such as..." it might actually work.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 1:51pm

... if you made them all four years old and added a bunch of moms.

[tazber]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 2:07pm

Link

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 2:18pm

My most vivid memory of Smile was that Helen Hayes was in the audience and she signed my program.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 2:18pm

I felt the score was the only real selling point for the show. I love the film and the dark comedy was lost in the stage version. Except for Benson and some of the other girls, the show was charm-free.

I'm not sure there was too much of a pageant backlash that hurt attendance. "Pageant" was a big hit a few years later. I remember there was not good word of mouth before it's opening.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 2:19pm

Pageant was one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, if you mean the Off-Broadway production in the late 80's/early 90's.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 2:43pm

Pageant was hilarious...Smile was not...imo.

[finebydesign]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 3:03pm

The tone of the show is so weird. The shower photograph business always stuck out to me and maybe I'm not alone in thinking that adult men in these pageants is creepy.

[TrulyOutrageousJem]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 4:25pm

SMILE is just a very difficult show. Because half the time it is very funny and a total spoof on Beauty Pageants and Americana. The other half is trying to take itself very seriously and put a mirror up to society. The two never really meet in the middle.

Don't get me wrong, I love SMILE. I've been in SMILE and I've directed and choreographed SMILE. I'd do it a hundred more times because I find it to be a wonderful show. But the feedback I always get is that the show can't decide if it wants to be funny or serious.

Lastly, yes, the licensed version of the show is GENERALLY better. BUT the "Dear Moms" on Broadway were WAY better than those stupid "Postcards" Robin writes. And there were a couple musical beginnings/endings that were better on Broadway. And "We Can Have It All" needs to be in the show. Otherwise Bob becomes a nobody with no purpose.