Why 'The Witches of Eastwick' never made it to Bway?- Page 2

[newintown]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 2:52pm

The show didn't close because of 9/11, it closed because it was losing money due to a dearth of sales, not related to 9/11. It had been playing to small houses for many months before 9/11.

Mackintosh tried very hard to champion the creators of the piece, working overtime to try to arrange a Broadway production, but couldn't drum up sufficient interest. And that's because, essentially, it's a rather dull piece of theatre with a few good musical moments. The authors have a definite talent, but unfortunately it's a talent for imitating others, generally Menken, Schwartz, and Sondheim. This is why, although they've churned out a good bit of product, very little has ever had any commercial life. It's just not good enough.

[itsahopi]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 4:07pm

I don't think "not good enough" is a fair excuse given the plethora of crap we've seen on Broadway throughout the years.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 4:14pm

Good point: even totally worthless work like Wonderland, Glory Days, and Good Vibrations somehow find enough suckers to cough up sufficient dough. Somehow these guys haven't hitched their stars to a sufficiently wolf-like producer.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 4:30pm

I saw it fairly late in its London run, when it had moved from the Drury Lane to the Prince of Wales (if memory serves), and Ian and two of the three ladies were long gone. I thought it was in every way unmemorable, with an unsure tone (satire? feminist fairy tale? magic show?) and an absolute clunker of a score. I'd seen THE BEAUTIFUL GAME the night before, which struck me as ambitious and provocative, if so dark it made WEST SIDE STORY look upbeat, and so was really looking forward to WITCHES, admittedly as a change of pace. It was a change all right -- lots of energy and no musical comedy fireworks. To be fair, the film on which it's based was an unsure adaptation of the Updike. Trying to accentuate the witchcraft seemed silly, and overcooked. Putting that on stage just looked like an excuse for flying. But even the flying wasn't thrilling.

9/11 didn't have any impact. What WITCHES OF EASTWICK has going for it is a great musical comedy title. If only it was even a good enough musical comedy. It's not funny, and the songs don't soar. I doubt it will ever resurface.

[newintown]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 4:39pm

Has anyone seen the writers' latest piece, called Brother Russia, at the Signature?

Peter Marks' review makes it sound like an unbearable mash-up of Pippin and Superstar...


Brother Russia Updated On: 4/2/12 at 04:39 PM

[kadu335]

Posted: 4/2/12 at 10:56pm

Thanks for the insight, guys!

I disagree with a couple of the comments but I understand some of the critics made here. I didn´t think the show was amazing or anything, but I certainly enjoyed it more than most of the movie adaptations I had the chance to see on Broadway in the past 3-4 years (e.g. Shrek, Sister Act, 9 to 5, Cry Baby and Catch Me If You Can).
I know that doesn´t mean a lot since all of those shows were pretty "blérgh", but I really saw some great potential with this one.

Updated On: 4/2/12 at 10:56 PM

[itsahopi]

Posted: 4/3/12 at 5:19am

Good point, Newintown, regarding producers. The Signature produced Glory Days a year after Eastwick. Probably because it was a heck of a lot cheaper, Glory Days got the producers and the green light. I never heard anything about Eastwick going further in the US after that.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 7:59am

I'm a fan of the score. Another Night at Daryl's is the best Cy Coleman song he never wrote (as a huge Coleman fan that's a big compliment btw). The only song I don't care for is Loose Ends which I'm glad was cut.

Anyway, I see that there is a new national tour in England starting in August with Marti Pellow as Daryl.

All I can say is that while I love Marti's pop music with Wet Wet Wet and as a solo artist, he does not seem to have the personality or vivaciousness to play Daryl.

I hope we at least get a new recording out of it though so I can hear Daryl's songs sung instead of the Rex Harrison treatment McShane gave them.

Updated On: 5/16/12 at 07:59 AM

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:40am

Tazbar he did the Witches of Eastwick UK tour a few years ago now, i am pretty sure it's not back this year as he is touring Blood Brothers. I watched him in the UK tour of Eastwick (also have a great DVD of it) and he did pretty well actually, not the best but certainly good enough to pull it off.

The set was of course scaled down for the tour but was still pretty much in keeping with the tone of the show. The show received mixed reviews on tour.

Here is a promo vid for the tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3lnxiCC9g

[tazber]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:42am

Oh wow, thanks for the info sadm. The website didn't actually have the year of the tour, but it (the site) looked like it was created in 2012 so I assumed it was current.

I'm curious if he was at all charismatic.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:44am

This was the website I was looking at

At the bottom is has ©2012 which is why I was confused/
Link

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:59am

If they're never going to bring it over, I wish they would at least release the rights. It has some fantastic songs that I would love to hear and see on stage.

[kadu335]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 12:12pm

Thanks for sharing the tour promo ad, songanddanceman.

It's interesting seeing the show performed in a small setting. The show played here in a pretty big theatre (around 1700 seats) and from the videos I saw from the London production, It looks like a big theatre as well.

The tour sets and costumes look less "cartoonish"(is that the word?) than the one they did over here. One thing I always notice is how old they cast some of the parts in international productions... The actors playing Michael and Jennifer look so much older than they are supposed to be.