QueenAlice, but "Now That I've Seen Her" doesn't try to make Ellen sympathetic. She actually says (or sings, rather) that she will do what it takes to keep Chris.
Wildcard, I believe Maltby wrote the English lyrics -- or rather, translated Boublil's French lyrics.
"Maybe" makes no sense. Kim has just revealed that she and Chris were more than a one-night stand, and Kim has screamed in Ellen's face, so why should she suddenly feel compassion for Kim? "Now That I've Seen Her" is a far better reaction to that.
IMO, the original Broadway production was the best. They were still tinkering with it in London, but by the time it arrived in NY, I thought it was the definitive edition. I don't understand all these rewrites and revisions and new songs. They make the piece worse. I hate these new lyrics changes and the inclusion of "Too Much for One Heart" and "Maybe." At least, the former uses the same melody (and some lyrics) as "Please," but the latter is a travesty
TheatreFan4: "What the f**k? I mean Cynthia Erivo was lauded to high heavens and you want to throw out "They didn't like her cause she's not American!" about a production of a British show. That was Composed, Written, Designed, Costumed, & largely choreographed by Brits? This is such a stupid statement that I question your objectivity on really anything."
CATSBTrevival:"It also helped that the show did not open with their deaths in La Jolla. We already know they're going to die when we take our seats so I've never understood the point of opening the show with the shootout like they did on Broadway."
Since they used historical photographs throughout the show, they should've started the show with the "How 'Bout a Dance?" instrumental prolog play
I agree that Act II needed a bit of work. This is when they should've introduced one or two members of the Barrow Gang, particularly W.D. Jones and/or Henry Methvin. Jones was 16 (later turned 17) and from the same squatters' camp (under the Oak Cliff Viaduct) as the Barrows. In fact, he was a good friend of Clyde's younger brother and idolized Clyde, who was six years older. He was on the run with B&C for longer (nearly a year)&n
They already did the impotent angle in the 1967 film. After they scrapped the ménage à trois nonsense, the writers decided to make Clyde impotent, instead, because they argued that Bonnie and Clyde couldn't just commit felonies and be happy. They needed something to keep them apart, to overcome -- in this case, his impotence, which Bonnie finally 'cures' by writing the poem about them. Somehow that did the trick in the movie.
¿?Macavity?: "These are all interesting points, but why has this thread come back? I have no problem with it, it just seems to come out of the blue."
Last weekend, I finally watched a bootleg of the Broadway show, which I enjoyed very much (to my surprise), so I searched to see if there were any B&C threads remaining, just to see what people had to say at the time, since I didn't participate in
WhizzerMarvin:"I also remember there being some director's note in the Playbill about how Clyde wasn't a homosexual or bi-sexual, or at least it hadn't been substantiated and therefore they weren't going to include it in their musical. It was this kind of announcement of wholesomeness and stripping of the gritty that would have been fine in the 1950s, but by 2011 I would much rather have seen an exploration of what life was like t
newintown:"Actually, authentic history shows us that they murdered at least 13 people and robbed small family-owned stores, as well as banks patronized by poor and lower-class investors, taking the money of those who could least afford to lose it or defend themselves."
Correction: the Barrow Gang (which at one point consisted of 9 members) was responsible for 13 murders (mainly lawmen), no
newintown wrote: "I would say that it had an unusually bad book, idiotically reducing two complex anti-social psychopathic murderers to sexy misunderstood kids just trying to express their individuality, like an episode of a YA TV show."
You obviously don't know anything about the real Bonnie and Clyde, which is who the musical was trying to capture (pun intended, I guess). I've studied the pair for over twenty
Ellen also finds out that Kim meant much more to Chris than he had told her.
Not to mention that Ellen didn't learn about Kim until after the "Bui-Doi" number (a month before the "Room 317" confrontation). Before then, Chris had never mentioned Kim (except by shouting her name in his sleep) nor shared his experiences in Vietnam with Ellen. That's why, in "I Still Believe," she frustratingly laments
'Can we focus on the obvious question? How in the world does ALW actually think that the actress playing Grizabella would have an easy shot at the Tony????? This isn't the 80's Andrew.'
'Totally agree - we are not casting Rose in GYPSY here. This is a musical that has already had its limelight come and go, and from the perspective of people I have encountered on this forum at least, the show has not exactly he
I read that Prince Ben's parents are referred to as 'Queen Belle' (ok) and 'Prince Beast' (?). Why not 'King Adam'? In Disney canon, 'Adam' has been the Beast's official name, even if it's never mentioned in the movie -- or Broadway musical, for that matter.
I forgot, Cats also won for Best Book, with the award going to long-dead T.S. Eliot, who obviously had nothing to do with that production other than his poems being the source for the show, which was entirely sung and had virtually no plot.
- Best Book of a Musical for Evita, which it won. The show is barely more than a string of songs with hardly a libretto, so I don't know how it got nominated in the first place.
- Speaking of Tim Rice, last year, he was nominated for Best Original Score for Aladdin even though he had nothing to do with the production other than having written the lyrics to some of the songs for the animated film 2
