PRELUDES the musical thread

[BroadwayBaby6]

Posted: 4/26/15 at 2:15pm

Any thoughts/insights about the new musical PRELUDES? It's an exceptionally strong cast for a small musical (one piano, I believe): Eisa Davis, Gabriel Ebert, Nikki M. James, Chris Sarandon, etc. 

I'm wondering what the style of music of the show would be. Is it going to be in the "style" of Rachmaninoff (which is quite over the top almost-kitch classical)?

[JBroadway]

Posted: 4/26/15 at 2:39pm

I'm a huge Dave Malloy fan, and I'm really bummed that I won't be able to see it. Looking forward to hearing people's reports! 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/26/15 at 3:52pm

I have no idea what to expect and I'm kind of thinking of going in blind. I didn't see Natasha, Pierre, etc. but the cast sounded good and with LincTix it's even cheaper than normal.

[Milo3]

Posted: 5/23/15 at 12:24pm

Anyone going tonight? Very interested to hear reports.

[Brave Sir Robin2]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 1:55am

I'm debating whether to see this next week or "Clinton: The Musical." Very different, but I am curious to hear reports!

[AntV]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 3:53am

It's a bizarre show that feels unfocused. A very thin plot that starts to drag quickly. Nice music though. Strong performance by Ebert. It's worth checking out, but isn't anything special.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 7:00pm

I saw the matinee today. Anybody who knows me knows that I love very few composers as much as I love Dave Malloy, so keep that in mind when I say that I really, really did not like it at all. I know it's very early in the preview period, but I don't see the problems with it as fixable. As best I can tell the issue is that the piece is so completely married to Rachmaninoff's music that there's no room for Dave to be Dave. Just glancing at the playbill shows that most of the songs Dave wrote are "suggested" by Rachmaninoff, and it really shows. There are glimmers of the brilliance of the Comet - ten minutes in we get "Lilacs," and I thought, "There it is. There's that genius." But then it goes away and it never comes back. It's possible to see it for a split second during "Loop" at the top of the second act, but then that number devolves into scary aping of everything that made the Comet so wonderful. I guess that comes from the issue of getting the old team back together - Dave, Rachel Chavkin, Mimi Lien, etc, of course people are going to be expecting the Comet. But it's very obvious how aware they all were of that while they put the piece together.

Another huge problem is that even if we're not familiar with Rachmaninoff himself we've heard the plot before - stunted male writer/composer/musician can't get his life together and so the show is framed in therapy sessions. Really it just felt like Gabriel Ebert whining for two hours. Early in the first act Chekhov for some reason shows up and tells him that he's seen people lose limbs and so Rach's life is not that bad, but then we ignore that and keep moaning.

I thought at the beginning of Nikki James' song that it would be something quietly special - like Sonya Alone or Tango Dancer. But 90% of it is just the same line repeated over and over, and after that there's a five minute "pause." I couldn't help thinking that they were afraid the audience would walk out if given any more time than that.

The ending was the most disappointing part. Thinking back to the Comet and Ghost Quartet, I was expecting the closing number to just be shattering the way it was in the other two shows. I don't know why I still expected it to be so even after those two hours, but I did. And it's not.

I'm so, so, so disappointed by this show. I guess it would upset me less if I didn't know what Dave Malloy is capable of. My advice is skip this one and wait for the Comet to come back.

[BroadwayGuy12]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 7:07pm

Glinda, thank you for sharing your thoughts so honestly and articulately. I'm also a huge fan of Malloy's earlier works (especially Great Comet, which I would see appx. once a week if I could), and I'm bummed to hear that Preludes doesn't yet measure up. I'm still hoping to catch this one, but it sounds like it may be smart to temper my expectations.

[playbill-love]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 8:07pm

What is the run time of this show? We have tickets for late June and are trying to figure out if we can catch a concert at 54 Below after this. 

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 8:33pm

Today was two hours and fifteen minutes with a five minute "pause" instead of an intermission. I suspect that will change into an actual intermission and shorter acts on either side, so the run time should remain pretty constant.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 10:28pm

Hm. Quite a long run time with no intermission. I'm seeing it next Sunday. 

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 5/24/15 at 10:47pm

keep in mind, this is a brand new piece, who knows what this could look like in a few weeks. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/31/15 at 10:27pm

Saw this tonight to a not full house. 

 

It was.... not great. It was messy, but not an entertaining mess, just messy and boring. I felt like I was also suffering from some sort of blockage, so maybe that's the point? 

First off, the set is really interesting. Most of it doesn't quite seem purposeful. There's a whole kitchen set up on stage left that gets little to know use. There's a pile of stuff up-center that the actors climb through. There's a big white pile of paper that pays off later in a rather expected way, but still beautiful. Then on stage right there's just a big black platform that doesn't really get used? Very strange, but interesting to look at. 

Key mention goes to the Lighting. It was really beautiful and hats off to the designer. You kept me engaged in this hot mess. 

The story is just boring. There's no plot. But there's also no suspense or dramatic tension. There's nothing holding the story together. It's just a therapy session with some little musical interludes. 

The score kind of felt like super sub-par Friedman. He can get away with the whole like "one minute" song because they're catchy and fun. But here... it just didn't work. There were moments of beauty - James' Act 1 song wasn't terrible, but it repeated quite a bit and didn't have much to say. The Act 2 opener was just bizarre and not in a good way. 

The actors were okay. I'm just not much of an Eppert fan, and he didn't win me over in this one. There's just something I find quite annoying about him. And his singing voice..isn't really anything. But he's fine. James, to me, was the stand out because she had the best voice and was given the prettiest stuff to sing, but she didn't have much in the way of character development or anything. The "opera" singer was the weakest link. He just was a bad actor, and not so interesting. In fact, and maybe one of the reasons the story is so boring, is that no one changes. There's nothing in the way of character development, which is why it's so strange we're given a "pause" halfway in. For what reason? There's no momentum, there's nothing leaving me wondering what's going to happen next - except for wondering what's going to happen to that giant pile of white paper on strings. 

Unless you like seeing shows in progress, this was a struggle for me to sit through. So I wouldn't recommend it. 

 

Someone on the way out was like "please tell me there's a recording?!" - Um.... the recording would be 5mins? And would just be like 5 lines repeated over and over again over some synths? Snooze. 

[macnyc]

Posted: 6/11/15 at 12:24pm

I saw the show last evening, and I agree with Glinda and Ripped. There's no saving this beast, alas. I am a fan of the Great Comet, and I know Malloy is gifted and capable of beautiful melodies and character-probing lyrics. But none of that is in evidence here. And the show is not fixable, other than to throw the whole shebang out the window and begin anew. It's the kind of situation where I actually felt sorry for the performers, who were trying their best to put this thing over. Good grief!

On the plus side, the Claire Tow is a beautiful space, and my friends and I were blessed with a balmy summer evening to spend on the deck with delicious cocktails. I noticed that Tracy Letts and (I believe) Carrie Coon were in attendance, sitting a couple of rows ahead of me. I wonder what they thought of it!

 

[followspot]

Posted: 6/12/15 at 12:19pm

Well, I guess put this one in the "to each their own" category.  I found this wonderfully imaginative fantasia on art, fame, and love enthralling, moving, and ultimately inspiring.  What a treat to bathe in the glorious music — both Dave Malloy's and Rachmaninoff's — with this ensemble of perfect performers, in such an intimate space, but all elements of the production are to be applauded.  

Two hours even last night (including a 5-minute "pause"), full house, 3/4 standing ovation.

Ultimate enjoyment of this show would most likely be enhanced by a) a basic knowledge of Rachmaninoff and his times (check); b) ever having been an artist facing a creative block (check); c) not comparing this to Great Comet (check — didn't see it).

An exquisite experience.

 

Updated On: 6/12/15 at 12:19 PM

[macnyc]

Posted: 6/14/15 at 12:37pm

MINOR SPOILERS

 

I saw the show for a second time last night, and I actually enjoyed it a lot more. Part of the problem is that I'm too sober. I had a cocktail before the show, but I should have had two. At least. Preludes is great to see in an altered state of consciousness. I'm not advocating drug use, per se, but if you happen to indulge, you might as well do so before seeing the show. For instance, the number Loop would be great while high. As it is, I really enjoyed Loop the second time around. Yes, it's wacky, and I don't know what it means, but it's fun. Plus, when the hypnotherapist was putting Rach under, at one point, I also shut my eyes and followed the instructions ("Breathe in, breathe out.) I felt myself going into a trance for a little bit of audience participation.

Was this workshopped anywhere, does anyone know?

Updated On: 6/14/15 at 12:37 PM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/15/15 at 1:58am

So you're saying to get through this show you need to be in an altered state? Um.. not sure that's a glowing review. And to say that you sat through an entire song and it was "fun" but didn't really add to the story? Yeah... it's a hot mess of theatre. 

[GalindaLucinda]

Posted: 6/15/15 at 11:36am

Is it completely sold out? I tried to buy tickets this morning and it didn't seem like any were available

[macnyc]

Posted: 6/15/15 at 9:23pm

David Rooney's review:

Playwright-musician Dave Malloy and director Rachel Chavkin took an invigorating romp through19th century Russia with Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, their inventive 2012 electro-pop dinner-theater opera, fashioned out of a chapter of War and Peace. That team returns to the same setting, roughly 80 years later, to drop in on composer Sergei Rachmaninoff in a mid-career funk in Preludes. But the inspiration runs thinner this time around. A load of talent and resources has been thrown at this ambitious bio-drama, which features some rhapsodic music — notably via the masterful hands of onstage pianist Or Matias — and glorious singing. However, the distancing show is too clever by half; it's dense, exhausting and pretentious.

 

Hollywood Reporter's Review of Preludes

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 6/15/15 at 9:30pm

I just started getting into Natasha and I was looking forward to hearing how Preludes is. Is it really not good at all?

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/15/15 at 10:11pm

Correct. 

[macnyc]

Posted: 6/15/15 at 11:50pm

Brantley loves Preludes! It's a NYT critics' pick! Which only goes to show, once again, what the heck do I know?

 Writer’s block turns out to be a lot more inspiring than you could ever have imagined — and sad and stirring and gloriously fun. In “Preludes,”which opened on Monday night at the Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center, Dave Malloy makes beautiful music out of a composer’s three years of creative silence.

 Brantley's Review of Preludes

 EW, on the other hand, give it a C+.

But Malloy’s inspiration also proves to be an impediment. Rachmaninoff’s music dominates the proceedings, accounting for more than half of the musical numbers—of Malloy’s originals, many of those are “suggested” (the program’s wording) by Rachmaninoff works. A few of the suggested-by pieces are breathtakingly, lump-in-the-throat beautiful—particularly “Mountains,” sung by musical director/virtuoso pianist Or Matias, who spends most of the show seated at a grand piano as Rachmaninoff. Tunes like “Loop,” a more-silly-than-trippy techno-infused thump-fest, are just puzzlements. And ultimately, there’s precious little of the breathless, giddy style that propelled Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre…and even his 2014 song cycle Ghost Quartet(“Tchaikovsky’s Child’s Song,” with its yodeling break and playfully layered piano-synthesizer lines, is a welcome exception). 

EW's Review of Preludes

Updated On: 6/16/15 at 11:50 PM

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 6/16/15 at 12:25am

I was feeling disappointed because of all the negative buzz around here, but now I'm thrilled that Brantley liked it! I hope this show can extend so I can see it.

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 6/16/15 at 1:33am

I hope a cast album is released so I can hear the music. 

[JayG 2]

Posted: 6/16/15 at 8:57am

The tide has turned. Brantley loved it, so now watch the onrush of raves from virtually everyone on this board.