Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown opened tonight in London, after the failure of the overblown US version, the UK production was vastly reworked and stripped down and critics seem to be enjoying it.
Headline is "It will lift you up and melt your heart". Concludes "this show will send you out of the theatre feeling repaired."
Telegraph is similar, also 4 stars; "this is an absolute joy of an evening"
With a limited run, getting tickets just got trickier...
Why don't you go? Why don't you leave Manderley? He doesn't need you... he's got his memories. He doesn't love you, he wants to be alone again with her. You've nothing to stay for. You've nothing to live for really, have you?
Why you gotta bring mushy peas into this? Those are delicious!
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
So glad this show is finding an audience. I loved the Broadway production, flaws and all. It deserves another shot stateside. Hope Encores! is amenable.
Listening to Haydn Gwynne's Invisible now. It was undoubtedly the highlight of the Broadway production. It's weird to hear it with an English accent, and the orchestrations sound a little deadened. All in all I think the song is just better suited to Patti's voice, which makes sense since it was written for her. I didn't hate the show as much as many others did.
Edit: I didn't know Time Stood Still had been cut! Along with Invisible it's the only song from the recording that lingers on my iPod.
I loved Time Stood Still, but hopefully the replacement song will carry the same message. The brilliance behind that song was that it perfectly captured the essence of the character based on a more static and listless scene in the film. I believe Microphone was also cut, but it's understandable as Ivan never has a scene with his son in the film and the scene the number is based on, which is the opening scene of the film, really only exists as a preface for his character rather than enhancing the plot.
I'm thrilled with the reviews and looking forward to seeing it in April!
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
Finally found audio of ON THE VERGE (act 1 finale) with slightly revised lyrics. I do miss the full orchestration, but I LOVE how it now ends with Candela "jumping" and not the pregnancy announcement.
On the whole, I think the whole added up to less than the sum of its parts. So I'll review on a piecemeal basis:
Good things:
Tamsin - she can do no wrong. The show gets off to a slow start but once the valium goes in the gazpacho, Tamsin gets to do her stuff and she does it, as always, brilliantly. Her voice is, if not beautiful, there, on-the-note and projected with power when necessary.
Haydn - totally commanding, particularly in her solo number during which I almost forgot Tamsin was in the same building.
The score - definitely in keeping with the title.
Not-so-good things:
Trying to put a car/moped chase on stage - it doesn't matter whether the car is in the full-scale treatment it got on Broadway or the two-chairs-and-steering-wheel treatment it got in the West End, it just doesn't work. Particularly when you're trying to erase memories of a great film.
The score, the book and the direction - one of my party came out saying: "It doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama." Correct. The folks on stage may be suffering but we, the audience are supposed to be having a fun time.
Use of English accents to define social demographics - it's no good starting with an opening number emphasising the Spanish culture and location and then reverting to this. We're Europeans now (well, at least until 2017), we can cope.
That said, I was disappointed when the Olivier noms came out and this had been overlooked for Best Musical in favour of jukebox shows that I shall never see. But, now that I've seen it, I'm beginning to maybe, just, kinda, you-know, think they made the right decision.
I'm seeing it in 3 weeks. While I doubt I will have as much fun as I did seeing the Broadway production, I'm really looking forward to it. My purpose really was to hear the score again and to see Tamsin. Haydn and Jerome are definitely bonuses (I've had a crazy crush on Jerome Pradon ever since I saw him perform Crime of Passion at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest in 1999).
Personally, I never thought the musical suffered an identity crisis any more than the film did (or so many decades of "musical comedies"). The film was not a knee-slapping farce. It's a comedy with poignant elements. The ending of the film was certainly darker than the altered ending of the Broadway production.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
Part of the problem we had is that the understudy was on in place of Jerome. We actually had two understudies on a Saturday evening (second time this has happened to me within a year - theatregoer on the verge of a nervous breakdown). The taxi-driver understudy was great but the Ivan understudy was someone normally given to comedy-sidekick roles (at which he's great). He just didn't have the charisma to convince us that the alpha-female, that was Tamsin's Pepa, could fall for him and be so despondent about losing him.
I think you'll have a better time with Jerome, Mister M.