Marie Christine

[Actriz2]

Posted: 6/25/15 at 8:00pm

Did anybody see the original Broadway production of Marie Christine with Audra McDonald and Anthony Crivello?

I'm listening to the OBC recording right now, and I find it pretty stunning. Audra sounds great as usual. Looking at the lineup that year, I would've given the Tony for Original Score to LaChiusa.

Do you think the show would have fared better at the Tonys if it had remained open throughout the Spring?

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 6/25/15 at 8:07pm

The award for score should've gone to Lachiusa that year for The Wild Party (yes he had two new musicals running at the same time).  I'm not a very big fan of Aida and I have no clue why it won.

[Fantod]

Posted: 6/25/15 at 8:42pm

The show actually extended a week when it opened. I find it to be one of the most difficult to listen to scores ever written. I borrowed a copy of the libretto from a friend and I actually thought without the musical component it was interesting. Maybe they could make a play adaptation of Medea in New Orleans. That would be interesting.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 6/25/15 at 9:04pm

The scores is one of the most stunning, gorgeous pieces ever written. As a cast recording, it plays wonderfully - and Audra is vocally divine! The show doesn't work on stage for numerous reasons, but the score is incredible. An ideal show for Encores!

 

From what I’ve heard from a bootleg during previews (there were more songs for the brothers, there were more choral transitions, the finale was different) Act I is pretty much perfect. “I Will Give” is one of the highlights of all Musical Theatre and “Way Back To Paradise” is a great song. Basically there is no extra material that should be cut - everything helps the story and keeps it pretty airtight.

I have always said that Magdalena keeps Act II afloat. Marie Christine has nothing to do after “Tell Me” that is remotely interesting (with the possible exception of “Prison in a Prison&rdquo and is deprived of a big, lengthy solo that she deserves and the audience needs so they can identify with her final choice. As of now, she is ready to kill her children after “Tell Me”, only “Good-Looking Woman” does not occur until about a half hour later, which makes no sense for the plot.

Dante needs more to do in Act II: as of now he pops in a whore house to campaign for a politic position, forces Marie to say one of the most insipid lines of musical theatre history: “You have left me, Dante.” (Like, no ****, Marie. You should know this. It happened sometime during “Cincinnati”. There is absolutely no reason for the duet “I Will Love You”, besides it being a fantastic song, and after that when Dante randomly leaves her offstage during the next 5 minutes), yells about his kids, has a menagie-a-trois (?) with Helena and Marie, gets married (offstage), then sings “Your Name”.

The audience needs to know why he left Marie when they were fine before the intermission. The audience hates him for the entire second act and there’s nothing an actor can do to overcome that.

Meanwhile, Magdalena gets to belt her face off throughout Act II, gets a sympathetic storyline, and gets to help Marie: the sure way into the audience’s heart. The only bad part is that face poor Mary Testa made during the climax of the show.

The other problem is that, like the greek original, all the dramatic action in the second act happens offstage - we want to see Dante leave her!

But the score is gorgeous, and makes it all worth it. I think it would have been successful if there was a different bookwriter: LaChiusa can’t do everything. He might have been preoccupied with The Wild Party, which previewed barely 2 months after MC closed. While Marie Christine had ambition that never came fully to fruition, I believe The Wild Party became exactly what the creator’s wanted it to be. It is a tragedy both lost to the mediocre Aida.

Updated On: 6/25/15 at 09:04 PM

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 6/26/15 at 3:22am

Why take a Greek tragedy, reset it in New Orleans at the end of the 19th century, and then stage it on bleachers like a Greek tragedy?  A misconceived, hot mess, the good cast notwithstanding.

[LarryD2]

Posted: 6/26/15 at 7:22am

The score is stunning. Vocally and dramatically, Audra's performance was brilliant. But it just didn't really work on stage. It felt like a long evening in the theater. On record, it's one of my favorite cast albums.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/26/15 at 8:56am

Interesting score musically, although I find it be rather overwrought, heavy-handed, obvious and humorless most of the time.

The show itself (for me), in both workshops and the final LC product, was a real chore to sit through.

The lyrics/text added nothing significantly interesting to the Medea tale (other than setting it in late-19th-century Creole/voodoo New Orleans), and I found myself growing increasingly impatient for the infanticide to happen so I could get out of my seat and stop listening to people wallow fortissimo in their unhappiness.

[aj88]

Posted: 6/26/15 at 9:40am

I remember seeing this show despite being very young primarily because I just wanted to see Audra McDonald in something again after seeing her in Ragtime.

Needless to say, I got points of the show but at the same time I was too young to really appreciate it.

Looking back on the show now, it was such a bold and very intriguing piece of work.

It certainly deserved to win score more than Aida and deserved a musical nomination more most of the shows that got nominated. Had McDonald won, it would've been a deserving win. It was a great actress lineup that year.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/26/15 at 10:04am

My father and I saw it at Lincoln Center and really enjoyed it.  The show was intense with a haunting complex score and Audra's performance was a tour de force (not sure how anyone thought Headley was better than either McDonald or Collette, but it is what it is).  I found the concept interesting, but the set and staging didn't always work well visually.  It's such a heavy show, it needed more diversity in its palette.  I actually liked the risers, which created a foreboding atmosphere that was ever-present.  And that female chorus finale is still one of the most thrilling numbers ever written for musical theatre.  I will never EVER forget the feeling of seeing that even if I one day forget everything else about the show.  The emotional, visual and musical intensity was unlike anything else I've ever seen.  I enjoy listening to the CD and I've seen a video of that finale, but nothing can replicate the feeling seeing and hearing it live.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 6/26/15 at 11:40am

One of the most uneven shows I've ever seen. The score was good, but as someone said earlier, dour and overwrought. Some stunners, my favorite "Way Back to Paradise".

McDonald was wonderful, as usual, and much better than Headley, imo. Vivian Reed was also great. The rest of the cast was fine (one TERRIBLE performance, imo).

 

I had been looking forward to this and thought it was a great concept, but the book really got muddled....inducing some giggles, even from me.