Why did the Patti LuPone "Oliver" flop?

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 9:18pm

To those who were around then...what made this production a 17 performance flop? It just seems like such a great idea on paper. Why was it such a failure?

[Piper3500]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 9:28pm

maybe it just wasn't the right time. i don't think it was due to her, if that's what you are asking? was she panned?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 10:03pm

She was great. Lusty, bawdy, funny and vulnerable. I guess the production was a little stale. I loved it, though.


Here she is, singing "As Long As He Needs Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-B9zl0SFz8


And here is "It's a Fine Life"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV2byATUTQc

[Piper3500]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 10:07pm

^ thanks for posting those.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 10:13pm

Stale or not, there had to be something that caused it to flop like it did. It's not like it limped along for a few months...it barely played two weeks.

Thanks for posting the videos, though. She looks great.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 10:31pm

One of the Urchins told me she beat them,
and Child services closed it down.
Just a story of course but it's a good one.
Wasn't Sarah Litzinger, future Belle, Bet?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 10:38pm

Didn't flops just flop back in the day, instead of running for a year? Couldn't it have just bombed, without any real esoteric meaning behind it?

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 10:58pm

It came in right at the end of the season without a lot of advance publicity. Even so, it is such a well loved title and Patti was still hot from EVITA so everyone expected it to run. An then it abruptly closed. Around the same time there was a short-lived revival of THE WIZ. These two plus the failure of the MAME revival a few months earlier and the 1-performance flop of a revival of TAKE ME ALONG the following season more or less put an temporary end to big musical revivals.

To add perspective EVERYTHING was failing. Broadway was not a tourist friendly area. Half the theaters were dark. THE RINK and BABY barely lasted 6 month each. There were not a lot of big box office hits, (LA CAGE was one of the few) and it did not turn around until LES MISERABLES arrived in 1987 followed by PHANTOM in 1988 and MISS SAIGON in 1991.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 11:04pm

Weren't the reviews pretty terrible, as well? And hadn't it toured heavily (like The Wiz and Mame)?

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 11:06pm

Thanks, frontrowcentre2!! Very interesting.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 11:39pm

To add perspective EVERYTHING was failing. Broadway was not a tourist friendly area. Half the theaters were dark. THE RINK and BABY barely lasted 6 month each. There were not a lot of big box office hits, (LA CAGE was one of the few) and it did not turn around until LES MISERABLES arrived in 1987 followed by PHANTOM in 1988 and MISS SAIGON in 1991.

And people were dying. Getting sick and dying. Beautiful people. Talented people. Wonderful people. Friends. Colleagues. Lovers. Tricks. Crushes. Mentors. Teachers. Stars. Stars-to-be. Supporting players. Audience members. And nobody knew why. And nobody knew how to stop it or what to do when it hit you or when it would end or IF it would end. And the government and the media ignored us. What? Oliver closed? Oh, too bad. No, she was good. Did you hear who died last week? Yeah--it was quick. I know you didn't know--he didn't want anyone to know he was sick.

[FunnyGirl617]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 11:47pm

according to wikipedia: "The show only received one negative review; unfortunately it was from Frank Rich of the New York Times, and it prompted one of the main backers to pull out."

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 4/23/10 at 11:57pm

That may be a fact, but never start any thing with "According to Wikipedia" without taking a grain of salt first. Who knows who actually wrote that and put it on there.
Pal Joey makes the best point for pretty much all of Broadway for most of the 80s.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/24/10 at 1:25am

I have to say that clip of "It's a Fine Life" is pretty awful. She's sleepwalking through the number, and the conductor is racing the tempo so fast she doesn't have much choice.

Did they forget to actually do the music? Or did they just "mark" all the songs really fast, like this?

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 4/24/10 at 6:43am

PalJoey: Your description of the difficult times of the 1980's is very poignant and of course true. Broadway was devastated by AIDS. I attended the very moving memorial service for Larry Kert at the Winter Garden. Very sad.

It really took Disney and the overhaul of the New Amsterdam to turn things around, along with the BIG musicals from London which Front Row Center points out.

Updated On: 4/24/10 at 06:43 AM

[MusicalLover6]

Posted: 4/24/10 at 11:59am

Apparently, on an old Patti LuPone site, there was a bit she wrote up about it. The director was always changing things like mad, and he wasn't happy with the lead so he fired the kid the week of rehearsals. It sent everyone in a tizzy (because with how the show was going, everyone was afraid who was going to be sacked next).

Otherwise, that's all I really know.

[twinbelters]

Posted: 4/24/10 at 12:08pm

Well put, Pal Joey. The story of the end of Michael Bennett's shuttered musical-in-progress, Scandal, is such a fascinating story that resonates so deeply with the AIDS crises of the 80s and how it tore through Broadway.

[Marquise]

Posted: 4/24/10 at 12:44pm

Not to turn this thread around but I was 14 years old at the time and in the closet. It scared me to think that if I ever acted upon my feelings that I could die. Back then in it was (wrongfully) known as a "gay disease".