The Perfect Musical?- Page 2

[Younger Brother]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 12:44pm

Ragtime. It's one of two musicals (the other being Hairspray) where I can say I love every single note of the score.

A close second would be The King and I followed by Fiddler On The Roof.

[karloskar2]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 12:51pm

The fact that we're talking about live theatre and every night is a different show means perfection is not really an option when there are so many variables including the mood of the audience. How well a show can withstand an amateur production is always a good guide to how well it is written/constructed. Sweeney, Guys and Dolls and She Loves Me stand up well, provide you have good enough singers. Strangely, one show that I've never seen a bad production of is Assassins. It always seems to work, even with no set and some very dodgy acting it gets its message across.

[broadwaybabytn]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 12:54pm

I think MY FAIR LADY, SHE LOVES ME, and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC come the closest to perfect. That doesn't make them my favorites, but I love them all and think they're incredibly well constructed in many ways.

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 12:59pm

My Fair Lady
Fiddler on the Roof
The King and I

[VotePeron]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 1:23pm

Evita. 120 minutes of musical bliss, in my opinion. I love how its 99% sung through, and tells such a great story.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 4:53pm

My Fair Lady bores me to tears, I'm afraid.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 6:12pm

I honestly don't see one flaw in She Loves Me. Maybe I am biased.

You and a number of others, apparently. I love the score of SHE LOVES ME as much as anyone, but the plot is concluded halfway through the second act (with the title song) and the rest is killing time and tying up loose ends ("A Trip to the Library"). The killing time is often clever ("Twelve Days to Christmas"), but the fact remains that the show is really over when Georg realizes Amalia is his correspondent. The rest is filler while we wait for him to tell her.

So lovely, yes. Do I miss a production? Not if I can help it.

But perfect? Alas, no.

***

Those of you who want to cut "Little Lamb" need to consider that "All I Need Is the Girl" (which is really a scene about Louise, not Tulsa) won't land without it. We won't know Louise well enough or care about her.

And you'll lose BOTH tender moments in Act I, not just one.

***

As for my choices, I would definitely vote for OKLAHOMA! It isn't the show's fault that the country has changed since it was written.

MY FAIR LADY comes close.

But those are choices from the R&H era. I think it's hard to define "perfect" in the era of the concept musical because, by definition, each show is uniquely conceived. My favorite show by far is FOLLIES, but I don't have an objective argument why I like it better than A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (really quite perfectly structured) or SWEENEY TODD (shows I also love). Throw in CHICAGO and FALSETTOS and a few others, and each is "perfect" in its own way.

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 6:31pm

LES MISERABLES

[Gothampc]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 6:52pm

"Those of you who want to cut "Little Lamb"

I think there should definitely be a Louise moment there. I just don't think that Little Lamb is such a great song. I think it's the weakest song in the show and all it tells us is that Louise doesn't have any friends and lives in her made up little world.

[FutureDirector]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 7:04pm

Follies, Rent, I wouldn't change the writing in Carousel, but the show has to be cast so carefully and you have to make the conscious choice to cast actors over singer.

Posted: 12/15/13 at 7:12pm

I had totally forgotten about A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC!

That would probably tie with SHE LOVES ME for me.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 7:14pm

goth, it also establishes Louise's naiveté--emotionally, she's even younger than her chronological age--which begins the arc that will conclude with her becoming the faux-sophisticated Gypsy Rose Lee.

And it gives the listener's ear a break from all the fast-paced belting before and after. I find it a breath of fresh air with a lovely tune.

If I were to find fault, I'd agree with Sondheim that "Goldstone" is sort of a one-joke song. Maybe if a better song were written for that spot, you would better appreciate "Little Lamb".

A thought: I wonder if "Little Lamb" was influenced by Sondheim's chagrin over Harnick's reaction to "I Feel Pretty". In the former, Sondheim goes out of his way not to write lyrics too sophisticated for the character.

(Anecdote: when we remounted the Lansbury production in South Florida, it wasn't "lamb season", so it took me weeks to find a lamb from Animal Actors of New Jersey and to have it flown to Florida. But on opening night, just as Nana Tucker held the last note of "Little Lamb", the real lamb went "baaaaaaaaa" as if in reply--gently, on cue and even in the right key! It was truly a magical movement and, live theater being what it is, never happened again.)

Updated On: 12/15/13 at 07:14 PM

[karloskar2]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 7:29pm

Les Miserables has a major flaw in that it has very few tunes for the size of the show, and so they are often repeated as material which does not relate to the characters or emotions originally intended. So it is both confusing and repetitive. Lloyd Webber is guilty of the same offence, whereas Sondheim manages to make a few themes go a long way by using them imaginatively in Passion for instance.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 8:03pm

What's the perfect play?

[xxdrewboy85xx]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 8:19pm

On paper I'd say Guys and Dolls and Fiddler... I don't understand how so many productions can fvck them up... But they do.

"What's the perfect play?"

Death of a Salesman
Long days Journey...
Angels in America

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 8:22pm

"What's the perfect play?"

The Voice of the Turtle, Mary, Mary, Any Wednesday......

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 8:43pm

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Full stop.

[broadwaybabytn]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 8:44pm

STREETCAR and SALESMAN.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 8:47pm

Also Ibsen's GHOSTS. Not even bad British translations can kill it.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 9:28pm

More votes here for A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, GUYS AND DOLLS, CAROUSEL and HELLO DOLLY. probably in that order.

SHE LOVES ME, FIDDLER and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND come close.


Updated On: 12/15/13 at 09:28 PM

[jnb9872]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 10:40pm

It isn't one you'd likely expect to be in this conversation, but of all the plays I've studied in an academic setting, from classical to contemporary, the only one that seems so tightly constructed as to be perfect, like a swiss watch, is THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE. That is one hell of a script.

[metropolis10111]

Posted: 12/15/13 at 10:58pm

For me it's SHOW BOAT. The perfect show

I do find it rather funny that GYPSY is being called a star vehicle and FOLLIES isn't. You need a fleet of old stars to do it.

[jv92]

Posted: 12/20/13 at 3:31pm

Perfect plays: STREETCAR, WHO'S AFRIAD OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, and OUR TOWN, when it isn't played like a cutesy Thanksgiving pageant. It's truly a devastating play.

Funny, but I haven't heard of ANY of those plays After Death mentioned. (OK, I've heard of ANY WEDNESDAY, but know nothing about it aside from its title.)

But honestly, "perfect" anything is so subjective. When I saw PASSION at CSC in February, I thought, "This is perfect, and absolutely thrilling theater!" But it depends on the person-- I know many people who cannot and will not accept PASSION on its own terms. And even I find Donna Murphy's Fosca overwrought sometimes. (Judy Kuhn made Fosca a human being, for me.) But it's a flawless piece of writing-- even if there are nearly no moments of humor. Which is fine. It's engrossing for me.

But yeah, it's such a subjective thing.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/20/13 at 4:08pm

jv, I will certainly agree that PASSION is the most uncompromising show I have ever seen. It simply refuses to pander to the audience with humor, cheap pathos or "likable" characters.

And that refusal to compromise is a kind of perfection, even if many people find the result unbearable. (Myself, I found it exhilarating!)

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/20/13 at 5:56pm

For me, the musicals that have come the closest to perfection are:

The Music Man
The Most Happy Fella
Fiddler on the Roof
Les Miserables