WICKED...Can a musical be good without good music?- Page 2

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 11:04am

In total agreement with you, Magruder. The abundance of distinguished melody in this score lifts it way up above the rest of his oeuvre. Chanson, Gifts of Love, Proud Lady, Where is the Warmth? are simply ravishing songs and Meadowlark is simply one of the very greatest musical theatre songs ever written, the high point of Schwartz's writing career. His later additions such as Plain and Simple are charming, too. But the unnecessary revisions he made on Meadowlark and other songs rob the songs of their original thrilling theatricality and musical impact. Why, oh, why, Stephen?
However, despite the quality of the writing, the story simply lacks variety of character and incident to justify full-length musical treatment, accounting for its troubled history, and the additional songs only serve to make the show seem more padded than ever.
But we'll always have Meadowlark...

[magruder]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 11:33am

Do you think The Baker's Wife could ever be revised to work? Perhaps trimmed to one act, 90 minutes? The show can be languorous in its present form, and it really is a very small, intimate story. I'll confess: Aimable's speech to Pom-Pom in Act Two turns on the waterworks for me, so I know dramatically the show has some heft...

Sorry to interrupt the Wicked thread, folks.

[notabb]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 12:16pm

saw the show .loved it for the most part.felt the dancing was just o.k. and didn't care for the song "as long as your mine"(i thought they needed something much more intense at that point)but loved the score.very strong book that suprises in all the right ways and the two leads are great.no,you don't come out humming the songs the way you do at "ave q" but two different shows with different needs.i have a feeling people will like the score they more they hear it.finally,great to see a show where you can SEE they spent money,great sets and costumes and big orchestra.it looks and sounds wonderful

[tpdc]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 12:28pm

Magruder, I agree with you about Schwartz and THE BAKER'S WIFE. All the threads on WICKED have pointed to the score as the weakness of the show. I started thinking about other Schwartz shows. Most of them have a couple of good songs in an undistinguished score. THE BAKER'S WIFE is the exception. There are more good songs in it than in all his other shows put together. The show might work if the book could make the villager scenes more relevant to show and more interesting. Most of their silly songs could be cut as well. A 90 minute intermissonless version might be very effective.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 12:30pm

Magruder, I think The Baker's Wife, like Merrily We Roll Along, is a show that is basically unworkable, which no amount of revision will save. But at least you can understand why somebody like David Merrick and Schwartz attempted it, unlike a property such as Sweet Smell of Success, which was just a very dumb and horrible idea for a musical, at least as conceived by Messrs. Hamlisch and Carnelia.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 12:31pm

What is up with the constant error messages and torturous upload times? Updated On: 10/13/03 at 12:31 PM

[TheBalladeer]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 12:33pm

I think Merrily We Roll Along can work. Actually, I think latest version worked very well.

Cheers,
The Balladeer

[magruder]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 1:03pm

As good and helpful as the many revisions to Merrily We Roll Along have been, there's one instrinsic problem with that show that I'm not sure can ever be solved. You meet the characters at their heartless worst and only grow to care about them late in the evening. It all ends with an emotional whallop, with that powerful rooftop scene, but early on, you need something that illustrates what was lost along the way. The show needs a new framing device of some sort, and the stagings of the revised version that I've seen have set the opening "Merrily We Roll Along" number pretty much in limbo. If, as in the original version, you saw the old Franklin Shepard confronted by the young Franklin Shepard (a good idea that they didn't exploit enough), there may be a way to include the audience earlier on the character's subsequent journey backwards-forwards.

Boy...discussing Merrily We Roll Along AND Baker's Wife in one day! I couldn't be happier!

[tpdc]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 1:50pm

I have seen MERRILY many times on stage. Last summer's production at the Sondheim Celebration made me think that it doesn't work on stage in the version that is now liscensed. I saw the Arena Stage production in the early 90s with Victor Garber, David Garrison, Becky Ann Baker, Marin Mazzie and Mary Gordon Murray. I thought it was much more gripping then. That version opened with a brief version of the three of them meeting on the rooftop and then flashed forward during the overture. I found the show much more moving when you saw their real connection from the beginning. But even without that bit, the authors have made changes that weaken the show. I think combining the Like It Was scene and the Franklin Shepard Inc. scene also made those moments and the story less effective. In this revision, we know a lot about Frank but too little about Mary and Charlie. With less material, we wind up seeing Mary and Charlie as the judgmental nudges Frank claims they are and not as the more rounded characters they were in earlier versions. The Celebration production was also hurt by poor staging from Ashley that had Mary on stage but in the dark during the collapse of Charley and Frank's friendship.

[Ron Pulliam]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 4:03pm

Golly, gee, TPDC, what threads are your reading and where are they?

The score to "Wicked" is sensational.

Every thread I've read -- including this one -- seems to bear this out with more folks who love it than decry it.

"Wicked" was a HUGE SUCCESS in San Francisco despite the reviews. SRO each performance and STANDING OVATIONS. That's not an out-of-town stinker by any stretch of the imagination.

I wasn't a Schwartz fan UNTIL I saw "Wicked". I've liked some of his songs over the years...but this is the first complete Schwartz score I've been agog over. That isn't to say I didn't find a few things I'd improve, or change...but I love the music anyway. I'm extremely fond of "The Wizard and I," "Popular," "I'm Not That Girl" (getting way too little mention), and "Defying Gravity." I'm a sucker for "Wonderful," too. I still hear Bobby Morse doing it, so it will take the OBC album to change that memory. Morse improved greatly in the role toward the end and I was shocked to learn he'd been replaced. Still...Joel Grey ought to be "Wonderful", too.

If anything was truly wrong with the show, it's that too much happens in the second act. Way too much. And there are too many "short" songs. The show I saw went three hours. I would gladly have stayed an extra hour to have had a little more breathing room...and some exposition...in between the revelations thrown at me in that second act...I needed time to take in what I was learning...and time was being compressed.

Oh, well. I predict audiences will take this show to their hearts and that it will thrive and run long. It may win a grunch of Tonys, too.

It's an original...a Broadway original...not dependent upon/or based upon a movie...and with a far better score than some of the shows currently packing them in. But we know that great scores don't make money at the box office...otherwise, Sondheim would have a history of great box office success.

[Ron Pulliam]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 4:06pm

Golly, gee, TPDC, what threads are you reading and where are they?

The score to "Wicked" is sensational.

Every thread I've read -- including this one -- seems to bear this out with more folks who love it than decry it.

"Wicked" was a HUGE SUCCESS in San Francisco despite the reviews. SRO each performance and STANDING OVATIONS. That's not an out-of-town stinker by any stretch of the imagination.

I wasn't a Schwartz fan UNTIL I saw "Wicked". I've liked some of his songs over the years...but this is the first complete Schwartz score I've been agog over. That isn't to say I didn't find a few things I'd improve, or change...but I love the music anyway. I'm extremely fond of "The Wizard and I," "Popular," "I'm Not That Girl" (getting way too little mention), and "Defying Gravity." I'm a sucker for "Wonderful," too. I still hear Bobby Morse doing it, so it will take the OBC album to change that memory. Morse improved greatly in the role toward the end and I was shocked to learn he'd been replaced. Still...Joel Grey ought to be "Wonderful", too.

If anything was truly wrong with the show, it's that too much happens in the second act. Way too much. And there are too many "short" songs. The show I saw went three hours. I would gladly have stayed an extra hour to have had a little more breathing room...and some exposition...in between the revelations thrown at me in that second act...I needed time to take in what I was learning...and time was being compressed.

Oh, well. I predict audiences will take this show to their hearts and that it will thrive and run long. It may win a grunch of Tonys, too.

It's an original...a Broadway original...not dependent upon/or based upon a movie...and with a far better score than some of the shows currently packing them in. But we know that great scores don't make money at the box office...otherwise, Sondheim would have a history of great box office success.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 4:10pm

Can someone explain to me how a musical based on a book is more original than one based on a movie? Especially when the book in question is based on one of the most identifiable stories on the planet?

Adaptation is adaptation.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 4:57pm

The only distinction (but it can be considerable) is that a screenplay is already a story in some kind of dramatic form, whereas a novel has to be condensed and given a structure. Of course, both genres have to be adapted to the stage but at least a screenplay provides the dramatization of characters IN ACTION.

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 10/13/03 at 6:22pm

I have heard the entire score of Wicked and love it. The songs, IMHO, are fresh and thrilling.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 9:40am

I posted this thought elsewhere, but it's on point here: Does anyone else here feel WICKED would benefit from a rousing overture? Perhaps the show's distinctive atonal opening ("She's deeeeaaaaad!") -- suggesting something like SWEENEY TODD or a Blitzstein opera -- promises a v. different score. When the story kicks in, and Schwartz defines character (well, to me) in a pop idiom that matches Holtzman's contemporary hipness, it may jar people to suddenly hear what is discussed, pejoratively, as "power ballads." I think the show's overall style is more old fashioned (and I mean that as a compliment) -- a book musical -- justifying a real overture with snippits of the songs to come later. A chunk of "Popular," "What is this Feeling?" "Wizard and I," and especially "Defying Gravity" would give the audience a taste of the stirring tunes to come, and say, upfront: this is a musical comedy. Schwartz DOES write strong melody. Listen to the musical at the curtain call -- it works beautifully in all-instrumental form.

[pacificnorthwest2]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 3:17pm

Saw Wicked on Friday night and, ultimately, loved it. It took me a while to warm up to it, as the music initally and the first couple of scenes left me a little cold. But it kept getting better and better. Audience jumped to its feet for a standing ovation as soon as the chorus took its bow. I think it will get good reviews. Then again, I really liked Little Shop of Horrors. Thought it was charming and fun and just well done all the way around, yet the reviews ranged from bad to barely lukewarm. And again, the audience loved that show. A very enthusiastic standing ovation. Even thought I see virtually everything that comes along on Broadway, I'll never figure out the critics.

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 5:35pm

When audiences stand for the likes of Thoroughly Modern Millie and every other piece of mediocre crap that passes for theater these days, it's a sign of little else but the audience's patting itself on the back for having spent $100.00 a ticket and dragging their sorry potato-couch asses to the theater when they could have stayed home and watched TV. There is nothing vibrant or spontaneous about these ovations in most instances--they're just canned, Pavlovian and ultimately hollow rituals, which, to me, indicates a theater that has no genuine meaning or relevance for its audience, not even as "entertainment."

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 5:38pm

What if there are people that exist that have a different opinion than you and found Thoroughly Modern Millie worthy of a standing ovation on a genuine level?

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 6:25pm

Then they got the show that they deserved.

[dry2olives]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 10:47pm

Hilarious book, clever lyrics, top notch cast, clever design and really ugly Liz Swados music. A great time despite the tunes.

Wicked, however, has less going for it. I'm quite confident it will be a smash hit, but based on the preview I saw a few days ago I seriously doubt it's going to be good.

[Princess MimiChica]

Posted: 10/14/03 at 10:53pm

whoa, MusicMan, whats with the bitterness against Millie!? Just because YOU don't feel it's a great peice of theatre is no reason to feel smug and superior to those people who DO enjoy that show! So now theatre has no meaning to an audience because YOU don't enjoy the same show OTHER people do!? come on! lighten up guys =) Updated On: 10/14/03 at 10:53 PM

[MusicMan]

Posted: 10/15/03 at 12:35am

No, sweetie, you miss my point completely. Which is: standing ovations are meaningless in an age of hype, undiscerning audiences and inflated ticket prices.

[CaTheatreGirl]

Posted: 10/15/03 at 2:59am

We saw the show last July in SF and the only problem we had was having to wait so long for the OBC recording. We loved the music and the show.

[ChristineDaae]

Posted: 10/15/03 at 4:34pm

I'm hearing that the songs are great!! My sister saw "Wicked" yesturday and LOVED it! She would not stop talking about it.

[robbiej]

Posted: 10/15/03 at 4:50pm

magruder...oh the memories!!! i was lucky enough to perform amiable's final speech in a college production of Baker's Wife. Delirious score, somewhat flimsy book, but when paced right, it can be a true confection.

Besides his solos for this show, the songs 'Serenade', 'Buzz-a-Buzz-a-Buzz', 'Any Day Now Day' and 'Romance' are extraordinary.

But let me tell you. Our Genevieve was black. Nothing wrong there...cept NO ONE ELSE in the show was a person of color, so the whole conceit of the show seemed racially based instead of age-based.