rags Roundabout

[gchris11]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 12:24pm

Rags at roundabout

[PlayItAgain]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 12:29pm

im sure Beautiful Soup is pleased about this.....

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 12:30pm

I like Mueller a lot, but boy is she veering on the edge of being dangerously overexposed already. I would also think she'd be playing Bella, not Rebecca.

Updated On: 5/31/13 at 12:30 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 12:44pm

I would think she'd be Bella as well but I'm glad she's playing Rebecca; more of a stretch and more interesting. And I don't think she's overexposed; rather, she's getting a lot of work and having a lot of well-deserved success.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 1:13pm

Speaking of Beautiful Soup, did anyone see their production?

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 1:46pm

We've known about this for quite some time. We're happy that RAGS could have a possibly life in the future. It's a wonderful show.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 2:05pm

Possible, not possibly*. Apologies.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 2:08pm

I saw the beautiful soup production last night.

Can post more thoughts when I'm off my phone.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 2:22pm

Rags really needs a revisal. I wish some theater company outside of NYC would work on it because Roundabout is not the company to make the changes the show needs.

It's funny because in some parts of the show you can see where they were going and then some parts of the show you can see where they said "We're out of time, just go with what you got."

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 2:41pm

Schwartz is receiving some Sondheim-like attention. His shows are everywhere lately.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 2:52pm

There has always been a compelling musical hiding in there if the creators could just get out of their own way. With Wayne Blood on board, who knows every line and every bar of every revisal, they're in very good hands. I hope they listen to him. He's a very savvy man of the the theater. This is promising.

[macnyc]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 4:26pm

Does anyone know if the Connelly Theater (where Rags is now playing) has air conditioning? Thanks!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 4:31pm

Yes, it does!

[macnyc]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 4:34pm

Thanks a lot! Going this evening then!

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 4:40pm

Ok, so Rags is one of those flop OBCRs that plays so well and you think, "How did this only run 4 performances!?" Then you see a production.

I know I didn't see the Broadway version last night, but I've heard an audio and the same problems remain. The male characters are all extremely underwritten. Ben is super half-baked, Saul is a poor love interest for Rebecca (and he disappears for half of the show), and Nathan is an a$$hole who shows up at the end of act one out of the blue and is someone the audience instantly hates.

Nathan, in the hands of capable actor, should be like Father in Ragtime, but he isn't nearly as well-written and the actor last evening wasn't able to overcome the deficiencies in the script.

Rebecca is the only really well-developed character, and her songs are the best. I didn't like Children of the Wind being placed at the top of the show. It's a not a good beginning, and we don't care about Rebecca yet to really understand what she's singing about. I think it's more effective in its original slot.

The performance last night was...interesting. It's the best thing I've seen at The Beautiful Soup, but there were lots of hiccups. The light cues were a mess; Easy For You was performed in total darkness! The actors, god love them, just trucked on through the scene, but we couldn't see anything.

The orchestra sounded good, but they were way too loud, and often only the actress playing Rebecca could produce enough volume to be heard. The actress who played Rebecca also played the Holland Taylor role in Moose Murders. She has significantly improved since then, and she possesses a nice voice.

Reading many of the bios I realize that this production marked the New York acting debut of a good portion of the cast. To put it kindly, many of them were very green.

If Roundabout wants to revive this show the book needs to be heavily revived. I don't think it's possible, but this would be the PERFECT show for Encores to do.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 4:44pm

"To put it kindly, many of them were very green."

Greenhorns, yes indeed, to keep our pockets full of green.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 5:01pm

Oh, that EASY FOR YOU light cue gave me a heart attack last night. We had a bulb blow halfway through act one. It was one of those nights... But I still appreciate your candor, and your coming to see the show!

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 5:06pm

I'm glad they're casting a younger Rebecca, at least for this reading.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 5:08pm

"Children of the Wind" is a song you make the audience wait for. It has never belonged, or worked, at the top of the show.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 5:23pm

Speaking of "Children of the Wind," the best version of that song I've ever heard is this one, sung by a young Laura Michelle Kelly beginning about two minutes in. Truly magical, especially when the song really starts to soar toward the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2duniSnnLmQ

Updated On: 5/31/13 at 05:23 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 5:32pm

I have to agree with Whizzer. I've seen a production of the show before and it's all too obvious why it was a flop. It's a long, meandering show that somehow, for all that happens and its length, neglects the development of nearly all its characters.

They will need to do some major revising. If they were smart, they could shave it down to a tight one-act (which necessitates cutting pointless stuff like the trip to the Yiddish theater- which, considering someone is listed as playing "Yiddish Ophelia" doesn't seem to be the case in this workshop).

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 6:25pm

There are things I like about "Children" being early on, and things I don't. I moved it three times myself, unsure of what was right.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 6:37pm

Lea Michele in Rags

Starring Matt Morrison as Nathan
A New American Musical at the Minskoff Theatre
with Katharine McPhee as Bella
Buy your tickets TODAY to Broadway's gleeful smash!!

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 5/31/13 at 8:12pm

I guess I was among the lucky ones who saw one of the previews of RAGS in 1987.

At it's best, the show could approach the same thrilling combination of drama, pathos and Yiddishkeit that the immigrant storyline in RAGTIME managed to achieve 10 years later with more dexterity. There was definitely glory in the sets (giant mirror panels left and right that reflected either the poverty or elegance at stage center into infinity), in the full-stage choruses, and particularly in the roles of Rebecca and Bella. Yes, the Yiddish theater sequence was a tangent, but it was also authentic to the story being told. And when during the title song Bella is thrust among pairs of upper crust dancers in gowns and tails, it was musical theater heaven.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 6/1/13 at 8:39am

iluvtheatertrash, did the estate give you permission to do whatever you wanted with the show? It's very bizarre to me that they would give what is essentially a community theater production with none of the original writers involved free reign to do things like shuffle songs around wherever you see fit. Usually, it's very dicey to deviate from the licensed version of a show, and I've heard in the past that the Rodgers & Hammerstein organization (who licenses RAGS) are especially diligent about that policy.

I would also think that, given the proximity of this workshop at Roundabout (which has been in the works for close to a year and a half), the team would be particularly sensitive to a New York incarnation taking liberties with the material.

Updated On: 6/1/13 at 08:39 AM