The Wild Party: The E! True Broadway Story --- What happened?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 9:16am

I've heard various rumblings about certain things that went on backstage (namely Mandy Patinkin acting like a psycho)

Anyone wanna fill me in on the behind the scenes craziness?

[jv92]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 10:00am

Look, I like Mandy. He's a little intense, a little method, sure, but I met him once and he was very nice to me. He's also one of the finest stage actors I know of.
I don't know the full story with The Wild Party, but Mandy allegedly spit on Toni Collette (?). This is typical Mandy. His character was not a nice guy and I take it that he was being method. However, Collette thought he was personally attacking her, called Equity and made a big deal out of it. Either way, he did spit on her which was not right at all.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 10:45am

Really? Was that it? What about this whole business about the show's finale? And this is a link to a Broadway.com interview Mandy did a while back and this is what he said about his experience on the show:

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=42084&pn=8

Posted: 1/25/08 at 10:51am

I'm glad I saw it but I still wonder- why in the hell did ANYONE think that was a good idea for a musical--much less TWO people at once?

[BrianS]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 12:05pm

A book had just come out that brought attention to the play. And there was no fee to acquire any rights which was attractive. I agree, though, that making it into a full length musical (or two) was a stretch. Any story that occurs over such a short time period has to overcome the feeling in the audience that the characters don't really have much of a journey.

[mallardo]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 12:12pm

The characters don't have much of a journey???? I take it you've never actually SEEN the piece.

Posted: 1/25/08 at 12:17pm

I saw it Mallardo. You go ahead though, tell us about the Characters journey.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 12:57pm

Patinkin (notoriously hard to work with - the perfect reason why he and Patti LuPone get along so well!) used his Method training while working on the show.

He checked "Mandy" at the stagedoor and was in character from the moment he'd go back stage. One night, I had heard he allegedly threw a phone at Toni Colette on stage, along with a variety of other incidents with other cast members.

From Riedel:

"But for many of his fellow cast members, Patinkin's performance has at times been a little too intense, a little too frightening and a little too real.

Cast members say that during previews, the actor has ad-libbed bits of physical and verbal abuse, including smacking people in the head, shoving them, spitting water in their faces and making offensive remarks to them under his breath.

He has also been prone to strange emotional outbursts - at one point holing up in his dressing room and sobbing uncontrollably for four hours because he was unhappy with the show's lighting.

The actors say they were never sure what Patinkin was going to do to them on stage. One said they "walked around like we were wearing lead underwear for protection."

Patinkin's co-star Toni Collette got so fed up with his antics that she decided to get even. During the performance last Friday night, she crept up on him from behind and gave him a "retaliatory shove," according to a cast member.

After the performance, a furious Patinkin said he was quitting "The Wild Party." He did not show up for the Saturday matinee, prompting the producers to threaten him with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, production sources said."

The rest of the piece can be found here:
http://community.tvguide.com/blog/Lonely-Ranger-Blog/700000712?month=200707

[jv92]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 1:03pm

One thing you can never expect from Mandy is a phoned in performance, that's for sure!

[Jon]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 1:05pm

JoeKy99 - the reason two people thought it was a good idea for a musical was that the copywright expired and it fell into public domain. It had a bunch of colorful characters and an interesting setting. And face it, the first few lines could be lifted verbatim as an opening lyric ("Queenie was a blonde and her age stood still...").

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 1:08pm

Martin Short had a memorable quip in his one man show about supposed advice Mandy gave him, "Always leave them wanting less."

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 1:13pm

Whoah. Talk about nuts.

[BrianS]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 1:56pm

actually mallardo, I saw both versions in NYC. did you? my opinion isn't any more right than yours (though if you didn't see both versions in NYC it would be funny to call me out like that), but I think it's very hard to have a character arc in an 8 hour stretch of time. And while critics aren't the bastion of truth in these matters, that was a very common compliant with both of these pieces.

Oh, and the reason I asked if you saw the original productions is because a) the thread was about one of them and b) like any piece of theater, we can only comment on the particular staging we saw.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 2:57pm

I have to agree with those who feel The Wild Party was not worth doing as a musical once or twice. I felt both versions were an evening of not-nice people doing not-nice things to one another. Who needs that?

Gower had a rule. "Who do you root for?" In the case of The Wild Party, none of the characters were worth rooting for.

I think The Wild Party (both versions) was doomed from the decision to write a show using this source material. Neither had a snowball's chance.

[singtopher]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 3:22pm

Finally, a thread on TWP that isn't comparing the two.

[devonian.t]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 3:24pm

I loved the Broadway production, and I think it is possible to watch flawed characters in a spiral of destruction. I believe it's called tragedy.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 3:31pm

Wow, I have to disagree with the majority here, at least concerning the LaChiusa verson (not familiar with the Lippa). I think it's a wonderful musical, with a fantastic score.

It mixes some "hopefulness" with its tragedy, namely at the end of the show where Queenie wipes away her "mask of snow" and is ready to go on living in light. The brothers make up, and renew faith in one another, and Eddie makes a big admission to Mae, and the two make up and grow closer.

A lot is revealed in the 8 hours of story, and gigantic character arcs are undertaken, and I love the "acts" -- introductions, and the idea that everything comes out "after midnight dies."

And "People Like Us" was one of my ultimate favorite theatre songs.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 3:44pm

If the show is so unworkable, why is it one of the very few flops that has had a relatively healthy afterlife in regional and small-theatre productions? I'm talking about both versions here.

I don't see folks knocking themselves out to do TABOO or SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS the same way....both LaChiusa and Lippa must have done something right.

[mallardo]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 3:46pm

BrianS I did see The Wild Party on Broadway and in two other productions including a great one in LA - never saw the Lippa version and I was not referring to it. You can dislike what LaChiusa did with the story, fine, but for you to say that the characters don't develop and reveal themselves in the course of the drama - or "take a journey" as you put it, because the story is compressed into a short period of time - which seems to be your point - is, well, ridiculous.

[phantomo88]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:04pm

You think that was bad? When Colm Wilkenson was the Phantom, he broke Rebecca Caines wrist. On stage. Hear is some more Colm stuff I've heard:

"If people were talking in the audience or someone walked in/out during Colm's scenes, he would just walk off stage and they'd had to drag in a standby"

"One time he refused to finish the show after the first act because some people had come in late and they had to do some emergency preparation of his understudy for Act Two."

Here is a Colm gossip thread:
http://www.musicalfans.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13295&st=25

[MrSweetNAwful]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:05pm

Just because a story has a short lapse of time doesn't make it poor material, didn't Oedipus take place over only a few hours?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:08pm

Eight hours?

[MrSweetNAwful]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:16pm

Technically LaChiusa's takes place over about a fifteen hour time span.

Queenie wakes up at 2ish that afternoon:

Burrs- A woman who sleeps til half past two
then wakes up tired. Whaddaya do
with a woman who sleeps like the stone deaf dead.
Needs a kick in the ass or a smack in the head"


And during the final conversation between Queenie and Black:

Black- Maybe we should go see one [a cornfield] sometime.
Queenie- ...It's four-thiry in the morning!
Black- Not now soon, maybe tomorrow.




alot can happen in a day

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:18pm

...an evening of not-nice people doing not-nice things to one another. Who needs that?

Mamet made a career out of it.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 1/25/08 at 4:36pm

Thanks for clearing that up, MrSweetNAwful.