I don't take offense to your statement Popular -- you're right, I should have posted that (I had to go and wrapped up quicker than I intended to). I didn't see the second act, but fixing the problems with the book in the first act wouldn't be that difficult - even in the matter of keeping with the same basic story-line:
SPOILER AHEAD (OBVIOUSLY)
1) The entire first 20 minutes should have been condensed into a 5-10 minute prologue. We didn't NEED all that build up to her becoming a member of the crew - if for no other reason than going into the show you know she will become a member soon - why take so long to get to that point?
2) The Queen was a HUGE hypocrite singing one song about how difficult it is to be a woman and then turning around and saying Grace can't lead a ship because she's a woman (at least, that seemed to be her main point in stopping Grace from what I got out of it, which makes very little sense). Give the queen some kind of internal conflict about the fact that she's facing a strong woman -- that connection was NEVER made in the first act where it NEEDED to be in order to build any kind of real tension between what I assume was a confrontation that must have come eventually.
3) Introduce the other clan earlier. When Donal's clan came on and suddenly Grace had to marry him, I felt like I was suddenly dumped into another show. These people weren't seen before AT ALL - they should have been introduced in the prologue (mentioned above) and the conflict between the clans shown earlier.
4) Tiernan's role feels VERY tangential throughout. He was literally "they guy Grace loved" with absolutely no personality whatsoever. "I'll Be There" - his one song, didn't solve that problem since he sang about Grace - nothing showed in his own personality there - nor did he pose any sort of tangible threat to the Grace/Donal marraige. Without that real threat, or making us care about him more, his role seemed tacked on (this is not to take away from the actor playing him - the role is just severely under-written)
5) There needed to be SOMETHING more to show the connection between Grace and her father. His death in the end of the first act is devoid of any meaning. Grace was never shown to REALLY care about him, he was only SORT OF shown to care about her (the excuse for a song that they gave him early in the act was pathetic and without any melody at all). They tried piling on some false emotion at the end, but no one could really say they cared he died -- two ways to fix that - one, show the relationship between father/daughter more, two, show his death - maybe it was an empty death, or he was injured protecting Grace - but SOMETHING needed to be there (who cares about historical realism here - it's a musical - MAKE US CARE!).
6) The one sword fight in the first act - I stage a better one with my middle school kids last year. That was EXTREMELY disappointing in the way of stage fighting - and it wasn't too impressive as a dance either.
7) Boys'll Be Boys has to go. The song is ridiculous and manipulative - it's a cheap attempt to make us go "Oh, Donal is scum, we get it, we won't like him." The song was unnecessarily crass -- they could have shown Donal as a "bad" guy in far more interesting ways - and far EARLIER in the show. (though I have to admit it was one melody-line I actually kind of liked, though it was very close to Master of the House).
As I said, I didn't see the second act -- but I think any or all of the things I listed here would have improved the first act quite a bit. To say that those who created the show are "seasoned professionals" and therefore beyond fault is ludicrous. Sondheim couldn't figure out what to do with Bounce, Kander and Ebb didn't exactly have a hit with Steel Pier -- there's no reason to assume that B & S were going to be able to nail this show just because they hit one out of the park with Les Mis.
Hi, Shirley Temple Pudding.
