YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN Preview 2

[bjivie2]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 3:05am

Hey guys. Little mini SPOILERS so watch out...

The show is in great shape. It's 3 hours long, but you actually don't notice it. There's obviously things that need changing, mostly cutting. It just needs trimming.

There's quite a lot of Tony-worthy material in the show. Roger Bart, Christopher Fitzgerald and Megan Mullaly are both serious competition to win the Tony. Shuler Hensley, Sutton Foster and Andrea Martin are all possibilities for nominations. Fred Applegate is wonderful, but I don't feel that the role is written well enough for him to really get the recognition he deserves. Stroman's choreography is top-notch as usual. The set design is pretty massive. There are some great effects including tons of fantastic projection work.

Megan has a song in the first act that completely stops the action that should be cut. It's actually a great song, but it will make her return in the second act all the better. I'm wondering where they'll put her for Tony's. She's very much a supporting character, but she might be given a push for the leading category. Also needs cutting is a Frankenstein dream number. Also Frau Blucher's "He Vas My Boyfriend" should be funnier. Andrea knocks it out of the park, but it's simply not as funny as it should be.

The show got a standing ovation in the middle of the second act after "Puttin' On The Ritz." I loved the show. Can't wait to see what it's like when it tightens up even more.

Too tired to write more right now. Maybe later.

[center or back]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 3:34am

how are the costumes?
I see it on Sunday..cant wait

[bjivie2]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 3:39am

Costumes are great. William Ivey Long doing his great work as usual. There's not much for AMAZING costumes in the show. It's just not a big costume show. They all look great. Megan and Sutton have some fun costumes.

[sondhead]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 3:43am

Costumes are great.

I thought it was OK. Entertaining. The movie is as entertaining if a little better and a LOT cheaper.

I agree. All Alone needs to be gooooooone as does her little "step-out" joke right before Puttin' on the Ritz. They just seemed like shameless "We have Megan Mullally and we're gonna use her" moments. In reality, she was easily the best part of the show and ought to be put in it more but in less random ways.

I thought Sutton Foster was terrible and seriously doubt she'll be getting a nomination. Her accent is half-way there which wreaked of amateurness. She also can't dance to save her life.. looked freaking TERRIFIED every time Stro had her doing even a single pirouette and then she very noticeably messed up the dance break in the act 1 closer.

The show is entertaining, but the audience response to it made me weep for the human race. People would start laughing, clapping and screaming out "Ya!" in EXPECTATION of jokes from the movie. Several not-being-played-by-famous-people characters even got applause in a sickening Wicked-esque way. Every time they did it it almost felt like the response to Family Guy parodying something.. like it was this great surprise that they did the blind guy pouring soup on the monster from that movie Young Frankenstein. FYI audience, it's Young Frankenstein the musical.

It just seems bizarre to me that people will pay 100+ dollars to see jokes they love from a movie live on stage. It surprised me that they didn't come up with more original material or might I say that they didn't use less of the original jokes. If I wanted to see the movie, I'd watch it!

However, it is still an OK adaptation and worth seeing.

Updated On: 8/9/07 at 03:43 AM

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 3:50am

What were your feelings on the score? Better than The Producers?

[sondhead]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 3:52am

No. There were some great songs, some OK songs.. nothing that was awful or anything, though. Producers is definitely better. I mean.. watch the two movies. Producers was just riper material to musicalize to begin with.

[bjivie2]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 4:09am

Sutton Foster can't dance? Kidding. The woman was fantastic in her dance numbers. I don't know if we saw the same show...

One also has to keep in mind that this is the second preview of their OUT-OF-TOWN TRYOUT. Performances are bound to change.

And I think that this is the response that the show is going to get. Almost every major character got entrance applause. The movie is VERY famous, so of course there are going to be anticipations and reactions unlike a completely original show.

The show was some of the most fun I've had at the theatre in a while. It's fluff, yes. They're not trying to reinvent Young Frankenstein and not use any of the brilliant jokes from the original movie. They're just translating it to a different medium. Sounds like you got exactly what you expected.

Tons of fun. I loved it.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 4:29am

Okay, I haven't seen YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN so my opinion is uninformed, but to say that Sutton Foster can't dance to save her life is preposterous. She's no Donna McKechnie but anyone who has seen her performance of "Show Off" can pretty much say that she definitely has more than average dancing chops. She's very flexible and dances with confidence...again, not sure about how she is in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

[scooter38432]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 7:57am

Ummm...

Sutton Foster can't dance to save her life? Hellooooo! Did you see MILLIE (you know, the one for which she won the Tony for her acting, singing and dancing skills) and/or DROWSY (you know, the one for which she was nominated for the Tony)? Do you honestly think that director/choreographer extraordinaire Susan Stroman would have given her dance moves of which she was incapable of performing up to her standards?

Makes me question the rest of the review after reading that comment.

Updated On: 8/9/07 at 07:57 AM

[Princeton78]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 8:02am

Perhaps Sutton's direction in Millie and Drowsy was just better?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 11:26am

Sondhead's take speaks volumes about the entire enterprise -- people paying 100 bucks or more to anticipate jokes they know. Step back from the show itself, as Sondhead astutely did, and look at what these reactions suggest about our need for familiarity. It's the equivalent of what I hear on the Tkts line always -- "well, at least with (fill in the blank -- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, PHANTOM, etc) -- I know what I'm getting." What makes YF the event is just that -- we know going in what "we're getting." I suppose that's the ultimate consumer demand, but it's depressing to me, and clearly linked to the price.

[mikem]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 11:39am

Are any of the actors billed above the title?

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 12:29pm

Unfortunately this sounds just dreadful. Auggie is so right. Why people would want to spend $100 + on tickets for this is beyond me. It seems like at most it should be a late night off-off Broadway trifle. But throw the huge bucks at it and put the name Brooks and Strohman (along with their egos) up on the marquee and some people will eat it up.
I think I'll just watch the film again.

By the way, when do the critics come to the out of town run?

[bjivie2]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 12:30pm

I think it's "previewing" for most of the run. It might only be "open" for the last week or so, which would be end of August/early September.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 1:45pm

Does Stro work her showgirl magic? One of the best parts of Producers were those giant, old-fashioned numbers ("I Wanna Be a Producer", "Little Old Lady Land")

It sounds like "Puttin' on the Ritz" is in that vein, any others?

[sondhead]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 2:22pm

OK well maybe Sutton is amazing in everything else she did.. but I'm telling you she looked like she was about to cry during several dance numbers and noticeably messed up the act 1 closer.. unless she was choreographed to look like she was messing up compared to the chorus girls around her.

[DAME]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 2:25pm

Sorry. It sounds dreadful.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 2:27pm

Well, could it be that the dance was newly added and she is still working on perfecting it? I know sometimes they change thing that day and expect them to be in the show that night. What I have seen of her she seems pretty competent in the dance department. Just giving her the BoD.

[sondhead]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 2:36pm

That still doesn't excuse her lack of accent or humor..

[DAME]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 2:38pm

My experience working indirectly on her talk show has left a real bad taste with me. Can't stand Megan.

Updated On: 8/9/07 at 02:38 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/9/07 at 7:56pm

She's gifted, always fun to watch, yet a bit of an oddity, Ms. Megan, no? Karen Walker is forever emblazened on our consciousness ... but a little of that shtick goes a long way, and she's in a real bind here, having to keep both Karen and the brilliant stamp of Madeleine Kahn from taking over. Too much Madeleine, it's homage (at best); too much Karen, it's recycled from her bag of tricks. In a way, she's so spot-on, cast in this role, that it requires all kinds of invention for her to surprise us. Does she surprise us?

And what's it like to have arguably the most bankable star in the company so absent from the story for so long? It works in a show like PROMISES PROMISES, when Owl Coat lady comes in (the brilliant Marian Mercer) late. But here we have a star billed, and a star off-stage a long time. Reports all agree that efforts to shoe-horn Elizabeth into the end of act one feel forced. I suspect another number may be required, but how can it be added, and wehere?

[bjivie2]

Posted: 8/10/07 at 1:32am

Megan was nothing but lovely, personable and humble at the stage door, and nothing but hilarious, commanding and inventive on stage. I can't wait to see what the final product in New York is of her performance if I got that at the second preview out of town.

If I didn't say it, "Puttin' On The Ritz" got a standing ovation when I saw it. It's pretty fantastic and innovative.

And the show has the leggiest chorus girls I've ever seen. Christopher Fitzgerald barely goes up to their hips. Amazing.