mediocre shows with great scores?
mediocre shows with great scores?
#1mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/28/13 at 10:41pm
I was thinking about this today and I'm curious what you guys think.
What are some shows that, in your opinion, have great scores, but overall are not so great? The shows don't even necessarily have to be BAD, but rather noticeably inferior to the score.
#2mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/28/13 at 10:45pmANYONE CAN WHISTLE, maybe. Some great songs ("ME AND MY TOWN", "THERE WON'T BE TRUMPETS", "ANYONE CAN WHISTLE") but it just doesn't work on stage.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#2mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/28/13 at 10:47pm
I'm going to be very controversial here but...WONDERLAND (especially the concept recording). I'd probably say most Wildhorn except for BONNIE & CLYDE which is actually a great show too.
"Pardon my prior Mcfee slip. I know how to spell her name. I just don't know how to type it." -Talulah
Updated On: 3/28/13 at 10:47 PM
#3mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/28/13 at 10:48pmSurely this is the knock on MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, no? That the concept is too difficult to work without exposing some flaw(s) or another, but that the score is usually (if not unanimously) praised as one of Sondheim's most beautiful.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
Ed_Mottershead
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/20/05
#4mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/28/13 at 11:10pmMack and Mabel; Rags; Candide come to mind.
BroadwayEd
#5mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/28/13 at 11:58pmLove Never Dies. Sublime score. Wrecked by lame plot.
#6mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 12:52amWonderland
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
AngelorPhantom1359
Understudy Joined: 12/25/11
#7mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 1:16am
The Baker's Wife. Great songs (Meadowlark, Gifts of Love, Where is the Warmth, Chanson) ruined by a plot that simply refuses to work on stage.
I'd like to second Love Never Dies. There are some really beautiful moments in that score, but the story just doesn't work.
#8mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 1:34amDear World, Anyone Can Whistle, Mack and Mabel, Golden Boy, Superman, Flora: the Red Menace, and the Rink
"Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok. Have you guys heard about fidget spinners!?" ~Patti LuPone
brian.klimowski
Understudy Joined: 7/30/10
#9mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 4:16am
I agree! If Love Never Dies ditched the lyrics, plot and characters and became a concert suite, it would be great. I've always been a sucker for a lush ALW score!
I'd also say Chess. I've always loved that score!
#10mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 5:02amJust about anything written before 1940. The scripts in those days werent meant to be anything other than a clothesline to hang the songs on, which makes it all but impossible to produce any of them without doing some serious re-writes.
http://docandraider.com
DustyC
Understudy Joined: 1/22/13
#11mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 5:04amWonderland, Lysistrata Jones, High Fidelity and Glory Days.
Dave19
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/11
#12mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 9:08am
Not really a show, but an animated musical, I think "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" has a glorious score and is a very mediocre film.
I also love the score of "Home on the range", but don't like the film.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#14mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 10:02amLove Never Dies is one of my favorite musicals at the moment, but I admit it took me multiple viewings to get used to the story. Once I gave in, the show as a whole was absolutely breathtaking, and it all made sense. I think for someone who's not familiar with the original, the book wouldn't be a problem as it is a very compelling story, it's just shocking to see the characters so drastically changed. I still think it the show has a future, it just needs some slight re-imagining. Perhaps a dream sequence in the beginning where the characters are again in Paris, and you see some slight character development.
#15mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 10:11am
Minnie's Boys
Chess
LND
"Your eyes..... they shine like the pants on my blue serge suit"
MCfan2
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/06
#17mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 11:10am
I'll challenge fashionguru's listing of THE RINK here. Saw the OBC 4 times, and loved everything about that show-- score, script, A J Antoon's direction, all of it.
I'm counter-submitting a slew of Sondheims:
PACIFIC OVERTURES
ASSASSINS
DO I HEAR A WALTZ
and heretically, FOLLIES
#18mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 11:35amThe Little Mermaid. The cast recording is beautiful even if the show was a plastic mess.
"I saw Pavarotti play Rodolfo on stage and with his girth I thought he was about to eat the whole table at the Cafe Momus." - Dollypop
#19mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 12:06pmAida? Ive not seen it, love the cd but understand the book had issues
#20mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/29/13 at 11:48pm
personal ones for me include:
john & Jen - I had listened to the CR and loved it, but when I saw it I thought it really didn't work.
American Idiot - I know it's not an original score but I find the music and arrangements much more more enjoyable than the show as a whole
West Side Story - I don't dislike the show, but I find the score far superior to the book
#21mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/30/13 at 12:08am
Johnny Johnson
The Gay Life
On a Clear Day
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#22mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/30/13 at 12:54am
No Name,
Did you see The Gay Life? If you did, you would know the show was anything but mediocre. It was a sheer and utter delight from start to finish. And the score, of course, is magical.
With respect to the subject of this thread, time changes everything. What might have been considered a mediocre show back in the good old days now looks like a masterpiece compared to the things we get today that garner raves and awards.
I'd take Happy Hunting over Once, Out of This World over Book of Mormon, and Carmelina over Queen of the Mist, Parade, Light in the Piazza et al. any day of the week.
Wouldn't everyone?
JohnyBroadway
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/10/12
Emmaloucbway
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/16/11
#24mediocre shows with great scores?
Posted: 3/30/13 at 1:23amWomen on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
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