Pale Imitations of the Original
Pale Imitations of the Original
#1Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/17/14 at 5:04pm
In the "Phantom Tour" thread, we've been talking about shows (whether tours or revivals) that are pale imitations of the original. It occurred to me that the topic probably deserves its own thread. So, what tours, revivals, or even motion picture adaptations are pale imitations of the original, and why?
I'll start off: A few years ago, I saw what must have been one of the "Les Miz" tours at Wolf Trap, near Washington, DC. The projections for the sewer scene were undoubtedly inexpensive, and they seemed amateurish. While I never saw the original, I can't imagine that the sewer effects were that chintzy.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
#2Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/17/14 at 5:43pmThe Roundabout revival of Follies
"Sticks and stones, sister. Here, have a Valium." - Patti LuPone, a Memoir
Wildcard
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/21/06
#2Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/17/14 at 5:45pmThe original Les Mis sewer effect was worse. The revival was an improvement
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#3Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/17/14 at 5:57pm
Not that I agree with every one of these Pauline Kael observations, but they make for far funnier and bitchier responses to your post, AH, than anything I can offer:
"This film is a cut above Song of Norway and The Blue Bird, but it's in that general sylvan-setting category. It's an adaptation of the Broadway show, which was a reworking, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, of Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. What was lyrical farce in the Bergman film has now become clodhopping operetta. This picture has been made as if the director (Harold Prince) had never seen a movie."
"An extremely unpleasant version of the Broadway musical based on Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs. Rosalind Russell is the psychopathic stage mother who uses and destroys everyone within reach of her excruciatingly loud voice. Natalie Wood (almost pitifully miscast) is the daughter Russell rants at, and Karl Malden gets it, too."
"Imitation wit and imitation poetry at the 12th-century court of the Plantagenets. Anthony Harvey directed James Goldman's adaptation of his own 1966 play. On the Broadway stage this play seemed to be an entertaining melodrama about the PLantagenets as a family of monsters playing Freudian games of sex and power, but it was brought to the screen as if it were poetic drama of a very high order, and the point of view is too limited and anachronistic to justify all this howling and sobbing and carrying on. Peter O'Toole is in great voice and good spirits as Henry II - he's so robust he almost carries the role off. Not a small feat when you have to deliver lines such as "Well, what shall we hang? The holly or each other?" and "The sky is pocked with starts." Goldman's dialogue can't bear the weight of the film's aspirations to grandeur, and, as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Katharine Hepburn does a gallant-ravaged-great-lady number. She draws upon our feelings for her, not for the character she's playing, and the self-exploitation is hard to take."
"Too terrible to be boring; you can get fixated staring at it and wondering what exactly Lucille Ball thinks she's doing. When that sound comes out- it's somewhere between a bark, a croak, and a quaver- does she think she's singing? When she throws up her arms, in their red giant-batwing sleeves, and cries out "Listen, everybody!" does she really think she's a fun person? Onna White choreographs like mad, with bodies hurtling over and around the near-stationary star (Lucille Ball was well into her 60s at the time), and the director, Gene Saks, tries to wring a little humor out of the frayed old skits that serve as the story line..... Mame is a camp heroine - a female impersonator's dream woman; constantly changing her wigs and her gowns and her decor, basking in jewels and bitchy repartee. The 1958 film version, Auntie Mame, which starred Rosalind Russell, was stale and squawking; subsequently the material was turned into the Broadway musical Mame and then into this hippopotamic slapstick musical. About 10 minutes of this film, featuring Beatrice Arthur as Mame's bosom buddy, Vera Charles - she's like a coquettish tank- are genuinely satirical, and Jane Connell as a sweetly wan Agnes Gooch and Robert Preston as Mame's sturdy, relaxed suitor, Beauregard, are in there working and doing better than might be expected."
Updated On: 12/17/14 at 05:57 PM
#4Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/17/14 at 6:14pmThe 2006 revival of A CHORUS LINE comes to mind.
#5Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 6:06pm
Henrike, you're right that Pauline Kael elevated bitchy to high art in the reviews you quoted.
I happen to think that the movie versions of musicals that do major rewrites and chop a bunch of songs are "pale imitations." This was standard operating procedure in the fifties and sixties, and it happened more recently with Sweeney Todd. (For that matter, ANY movie musical that casts Sasha Baron Cohen -- yes I mean Les Miz as well as Sweeney Todd -- cheapens the film because he is so darned over the top). "Fiddler on the Roof" on film was also a disaster.
Although I did not see it, last year's live "Sound of Music" sounds like it was the king of "pale imitations," at least of the Julie Andrews film, if not of the original Mary Martin production.
One tour/revival/cast change that worked as well as the original was the late Herschel Bernardi's take on "Fiddler." He became almost as well-known and acclaimed in the part as Zero Mostel, who had passed away when the tours and revivals came around.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
#6Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 6:49pm
Whoa! Zero Mostel's death has been prematurely dated.
He was alive and kicking as late as 1976, when he toured the country in FIDDLER and then revived it on Broadway. I worked on the Miami Beach leg of the tour (when Zero was out of control and just godawful).
I saw Herschel Bernardi on tour in FIDDLER when I was about 12, so there was considerable overlap.
Fantod
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
#7Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 7:02pm
Zero Mostel died in rehearsals for The Merchant, replaced by Joseph Leon. The show was originally slated to open at the Imperial, but then opened at the Plymouth. It closed after 6 performances. You can read about it in Arnold Wesker's book The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel
Updated On: 12/21/14 at 07:02 PM
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#8Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 7:08pm
Forget about Pauline Kael
Judith Crist was really in a world of her own. Her reviews were devastating & witty even when I disagreed with them. She wrote one book of her reviews which is long since out of print & not even available o Amazon.
Poster Emeritus
#9Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 7:12pmReviewers who dash off "witty" reviews judging a work that has taken years to create are the bane of art, commercial or not.
#10Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 7:13pmWait- is the movie version on Auntie Mame not considered a classic. Paulene Kael called it "stale and squawking". I never knew anyone didn't love it.
Fantod
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/3/14
#11Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 7:14pmEveryone who ever did an impression of Judy Garland. There was only one Judy, so why bother trying? The worst of all was Tracie Bennett, who was a disgrace.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#12Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 8:35pm
As I said lovebwy, I didn't always agree with, and sometimes vehemently disagreed with, Pauline Kael.
For instance, re: her above review of Lion in Winter, which weakly praises the play and finds fault with the movie. If you ask me, the play is a piece of drivel that was miraculously transformed into a breathtakingly good movie. Then there's her unmitigated love for - yikes - Shampoo!
But that doesn't change the fact that Kael was a great writer and a very important critic; someone who deeply loved movies and whom one can learn a great deal about movies from reading (even when one rejects her conclusions and undermines her premises, as I often do).
And speaking of Fiddler, she loved the movie:
"The movie offers the pleasures of big, bold stokes; it's American folk opera, commercial style It's not a celebration of Jewishness; it's a celebration of the sensual pleasures of staying alive and to trying to hang on to a bit of ceremony, too. Isaac Stern plays the theme (as he does in the solo parts throughout the movie) with startling brio and attack, and Topol's Tevye has the same vitality and sweetness and gaiety as Stern's music; he's a rough presence, masculine, with burly raw strength?
Updated On: 12/21/14 at 08:35 PM
#13Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 10:04pm
Gaveston writes:
Zero Mostel's death has been prematurely dated.
He was alive and kicking as late as 1976, when he toured the country in FIDDLER and then revived it on Broadway. I worked on the Miami Beach leg of the tour (when Zero was out of control and just godawful).
Wow, I didn't realize that ZM died so late. I graduated college and got married for the first time in 1976. I was sure he died when I was a teenager in the 1960's. I remember seeing the tour twice with Paul Lipson. I thought he wasn't very good. I'm pretty sure that, at one point, I managed to see Herschel Bernardi as well. I suspect that he'll always be better known as Charlie the Tuna instead of as Tevye.
I don't know if he's played the role, but I think Mandy Patinkin would make a GREAT Tevye.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
#14Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/21/14 at 11:05pm
I WANT MANDY PATINKIN IN EVERY MUSICAL EVER!!
Someone make this happen. ..NOW!
#15Pale Imitations of the Original
Posted: 12/22/14 at 7:46amBoth new Phantom and Les Miz are quite disappointing... And the last production of Passion with Judy Kuhn couldn't really compete with the original
