Sweet Bird Of Youth Revival?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 8:54pm

Whatever happened to this one?

 

For those of us who never saw it on Broadway - since it has never been revived if I am correct - it is about time.I know the movie is a bastardized version of the play so really interested in seeing it.

Updated On: 9/16/15 at 08:54 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:02pm

But what if it's a huge hit and the ticket prices are high?  The production would suck then, right?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:04pm

Does anyone have any idea re this production?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:06pm

Since the production was dropped in 2011, it must literally be any day now.

[mpd4165]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:10pm

Mr Roxy said: "Does anyone have any idea re this production?

Cromer basically did this production at the Goodman with Diane Lane and Finn Wittrock in Fall 2012

http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season/1213/sweet-bird-of-youth/

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:14pm

Thank god it never came in with James Franco because tickets would have been high and Roxy would have hated it without seeing it but somehow he would live.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:16pm

Nothing on Broadway,however.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:24pm

Mr Roxy said: "since it has never been revived if I am correct"

 

You are not correct, as (per WikiPedia) it was revived back in 1975 with Irene Worth giving a Tony-winning performance in the lead role. Forty years is long enough, though, so I'll let you away with it.

Updated On: 9/16/15 at 09:24 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:25pm

Thanks

 

I was not aware of that production.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:27pm

Somebody should create a website where you can check on which shows have played on Broadway.  I mean, it's crazy but if there's an Internet Movie Database wouldn't it be WILD if there was a Broadway Database on the Internet??  #MINDblown

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:35pm

I thought a production was coming to Broadway a few years ago. I wonder what happened to it as it is ripe for a revival.

[morosco]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:49pm

Would love to see Cherry Jones do this.

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:52pm

mpd4165 said: "Mr Roxy said: "Does anyone have any idea re this production?

 

Cromer basically did this production at the Goodman with Diane Lane and Finn Wittrock in Fall 2012

 

http://www.goodmantheatre.org/season/1213/sweet-bird-of-youth/

Such an incredible revival...I wish it would have transferred. Lane and Wittrock were phenomenal (read: incredibly sexy) and Cromer's production enthralling.  

 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 9:58pm

Mr Roxy said: "Whatever happened to this one?

 

 

 

For those of us who never saw it on Broadway - since it has never been revived if I am correct - it is about time.I know the movie is a bastardized version of the play so really interested in seeing it.

 

It has been revived.  Irene Worth gave one of the ten or twelve best performances I have ever seen on the stage and won a Tony for it.  Chance was played by a young Christopher Walken.  Unfortunately, it played at the since closed Harkness theatre, which was between Broadway and Lincoln Center and was not going to get any foot traffic.  Also, at that time, revivals were not as accepted as they are today.

 

Updated On: 9/16/15 at 09:58 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 10:03pm

Wow Walken as Chance. That must have been a trip

 

The Harkness was, without doubt, one butt ugly theater. Started out as RKO ColonIal  best know for hosting the annual Cerebral Palsy telethon.

Updated On: 9/16/15 at 10:03 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 11:11pm

One but ugly!

 

Two if by see!

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 9/16/15 at 11:30pm

I saw the revival with Irene Worth (who was spectacular) and Christopher Walken (when he was an unknown) at BAM before it moved to Broadway. It is my most amazing theatrical experience ever. The performance was stunning and I left the theatre totally shattered and yet transfixed.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 2:49am

To clarify for Mr Roxy, a production was announced for Broadway a few years back with David Cromer set to direct Nicole Kidman and James Franco in the lead roles. That production fell through, but Cromer was able to stage his production in Chicago with Diane Lane and Finn Wittrock in those roles. The production was very well-received and sold remarkably well, but no transfer occurred. I am glad it worked out the way it did, as Lane and Wittrock were better than I could imagine Kidman and Franco in those roles. At the time, I was unfamiliar with Wittrock's work, and I found his performance spectacular. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 3:02am

It seems to have a reputation for being, among Williams' biggest hits, one of his hardest shows to do right--although it's one of my faves (I will admit that it's pretty clear that Williams' combined two of his separate stories to make it though I don't find that a problem)--and even the original reviews, which foolishly complained about Williams' getting more ugly and violent with his plays (c'mon, you can't handle lynching and castrations??) mainly praised the stars and Kazan's production which used projections in a way that was then new.

Brooks' film does give us the two leads, as well as Burl Ives and they're worth watching, but it's an even worst and more confusing bastardization of the material than Brook's Cat film (which also had great performances...)  Not just because of the obligatory censorship needed, but due to Brooks, as he often does, imposing his weird morality onto it--that happy ending though is kinda hysterical.

The Chicago production looked beautiful--but if it had transferred Lane made it clear she was only committing to the Chicago run. There also more recently was a well received (I think?) UK revival with Kim Catrall and Seth Numrich two years ago--but the UK often seems to have more success with Williams' revivals for some reason.

 

 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 3:04am

 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 3:07am

And don't forget the NBC 1989 TV movie version with Liza Taylor and Mark Harmon!!  It's directed by Nicholas Roeg, of all people (talk about a once great director at the bottom of his career,) and kinda keeps the original ending.  But it's chopped down to 90 minutes--most of the scenes are essentially new and it's only really worth it for the camp (but oh, is there a lot of camp there.) 

 

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 8:05am

Re Awesome's post

 

This is the production, that never came to Broadway , I was referring to.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 8:46am

I've seen two big ones, the Worth/Walken (Kennedy Center, DC) that worked, the Bacall (London) that didn't work at all, Bacall shockingly at sea with a role that was eerily a perfect fit  The second act is just another play, and as we leave the Princess and move into the lurid dealings of this humid little Southern town, the focus becomes diffused, and even if well cast, it feels like water treading.  (Heavenly's plight fails to engage us.)  Chance is sort of a Brick if he'd led another life, and devilishly hard to nail.  Walken, as noted, was unknown and kind of brilliant.  I would've killed to see the Cromer/Lane.  Moving the Princess away from the grande diva and casting a luminous actor seems shrewd. It's an unapolgetically operatic play that would benefit from less opera, more human scale.   

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 1:07pm

I actually kinda like how it feels like a different play in the second act--it makes the Princess' delusions all the more powerful for me when he story is so self contained (physically since on stage she is essentially only ever in that bedroom until her exit leaving Chance accepting his doomed fate with that great monologue that Williams' fans either seem to LOVE or loathe.  The play does seem to bridge Williams' more popular 1950s work and, even though he still had Night of the Iguana and the semi-success of Period of Adjustment immediately to follow, his commercially unsuccessful later work, but I find that fascinating.  Then again my other fave play of his from the era is Orpheus Descending which proves likewise very hard to get right (the original flop production was apparently staged too realistically and of course caused Williams' to turn his back on Inge when Kazan directed Inge's Dark of the Stairs instead--as I know you know well Auggie,) though atleast we have a fairly successful filming of that in the Peter Hall/Redgrave cable tv adaptation of their revival.

I *believe* the Cromer Chicago production actually somehow conflated the middle act and scenes and maybe reshuffled them somehow, but I'm fuzzy now on the details.  Either way, most people seemed to think it worked.  As for the London production with Kim--it got good reviews from all I've looked up although the Guardian said the performances and some of the comedy were brilliant but, like many previous critics, seemed baffled by the extremes of the play.

[AwesomeDanny]

Posted: 9/17/15 at 3:09pm

EricMontreal22, that was indeed the case with Cromer's production. The first act was left in its original state, but the second act consisted of just the first scene of act two in the published script, relocated from the cocktail lounge to (if I am remembering correctly) a pier at or near the Finley residence. The third act of Cromer's production consisted of the second scene of act two and the entirety of the third act in the published script. The only thing that didn't work for me about this change was the fact that act two ran only about 20 minutes.