A Room With A View : A New Musical- Page 2

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/14/12 at 2:04pm

That's how I feel Henrick. I admit, things like the two roles in drag do seem too slapstick/farcial for the comedy I associate with the material. Although I think combining Beebe and Eager makes theatrical sense, myself. I really truly loathe the idea of Charlotte Bartlett getting an "emotional anthem." That seems slightly too "musical theatre cliche", and not remotely fitting for the character--it also randomly reminds me of the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice which gave a big "Don't judge me Lizzie!" scene to Charlotte which completely seemed to not get the novel, but I digress...

I've always meant to check out Triumph of Love's score--a lot of people I respect seem to at least have loved the music, despite the show closing early.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/14/12 at 2:12pm

I think we all read reviews differently - what I take away is that the reviewers (and who knows how stupid they may be) think the show is pleasant yet inert and generic.

I don't know Acito's work, but Stock's music for Triumph of Love was very BMI-by-the-numbers; standard 80's-90's musical-comedy fare. There's a lot worse out there, but the final feeling is that one has eaten a box of paper shavings.

I think it's very difficult to adapt a sprawling public domain novel like Room With A View without succumbing to the deathly Cliff Notes effect (like those simply unbearable Paul Gordon pieces, Jane Eyre and Emma).

Updated On: 3/14/12 at 02:12 PM

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 3/14/12 at 2:23pm

^in agreement, Eric. Although I think Charlotte Lucas's moment in the Wright film of P&P was an interesting departure from (or at least riff on) the novel and, more importantly, added to the story cinematically, by resonating strongly with Elizabeth's journey toward flexibility. But I am skeptical about other Charlotte's romantic anthem, and about Ziemba in that role (not that I don't generally like Ziemba), especially given her Variety review.

I'd love to see Blair Brown, Tyne Daly or Julie Walters as Charlotte (not that those three women have much in common, except they'd all be so exciting in the role). Ah, if only Lynn Redgrave was still around!

[dented146]

Posted: 3/15/12 at 1:57am

Having seen the show, I feel the reviews taken together fairly sum up my feelings. It's a splendid, lovely production. It is extremely well directed. And while there are three or four decent musical numbers and one really great one, I kept thinking where's Richard Rodgers or Jule Styne when you need them?

This is a really first rate creative effort but I personally feel the effort should have been made on a property that has more wide appeal.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/15/12 at 3:23am

Interesting comments. Having heard Rodgers' take on Italy as seen by foreigners with Do I Hear a Waltz? (which I have a soft spot for but half is pretty uninspired), I'm not sure if he would be an ideal choice.

I always thought as far as lit from that era goes anyway that Forster's novel actually has rather broad appeal indeed, especially after the movie was such a cross over hit, so am curious what you mean.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 3/15/12 at 7:06pm

seeing it April 8

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/15/12 at 7:15pm

Anyone know if there's a demo? I wish I could see this!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/15/12 at 7:29pm

Didn't the Globe put clips of Emma up last year (which musically didn't do much for me). I hope clips of this surface...

[dented146]

Posted: 3/16/12 at 2:43am

Eric, this is a much much more involved and complete musical than Emma. Emma had snappier dialogue as you would expect from a Jane Austin story. They did a good job in that regard. The set for Emma was very simple but clever. This musical is far superior in terms of set design and flow.

Also Room With a View has superior music both in English and Italian. My reference to Rodgers was really a generic way of saying, Where are all the beautiful melodies today? I'm old school and have trouble getting use to musicals that flow from song to song where much of it sounds the same. As much as I admire Sondheim, ( and I own his book Finishing the Hat), that aspect of his work still bothers me.

I personally believe that one of the reasons many people liked Bonnie and Clyde was that Wildhorn's style is more old school in spite of being uneven.

Also about my mass appeal crack. I suppose that a musical which takes place in 1908 can have mass appeal if it is done extremely well. But when you look at the musicals which have been very sucessful on Broadway over the last several years, they don't much resemble this type of musical. I know that may sound like I'm saying that producers should dumb down their subject matter toward the everyday crowd but I don't mean that. A Room With a View asks the audience to accept and understand the morals and world view of people in 1908 in order to get the humor and satire within the production. I think that for a young audience or one that can't identify culturally with the characters it's asking much.

Updated On: 3/16/12 at 02:43 AM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/17/12 at 6:24pm

Dented--I really appreciate your reply! I'm glad you thought it was a more accomplished musical than Emma--which (judging solely from a "live" recording) I felt lacking at least musically.

I'm not sure what your definition of younger audience is (I just turned 32 so I'm not sure if I qualify or not), but I don't think it's too much to accept that audiences realize the differences between the early 20th Century and our own. I was obviously not old enough to pay attention to it when it came out, but I always got the impression that the reason the Merchant/Ivory film version was such a surprise hit in the mid 80s (and kinda coined the very term Merchant/Ivory as mneaning a classy, albeit sometimes dull, period picture) was that it captured a huge younger fanbase than expected. It made period material cool in a way.

[A Director]

Posted: 3/18/12 at 1:36am

Another review.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/03/theater-review-a-room-with-a-view-at-the-old-globe.html

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 3/18/12 at 11:28pm

Seeing this on Wednesday night

[Wicked Fanatic]

Posted: 3/22/12 at 5:45pm

Old Globe has posted some videos for the show including 4 songs all good ones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8EgOukGmlo&list=UUiX__TR8G5-QzM0TydBu1_A&index=1&feature=plcp&utm_source=BenchmarkEmail&utm_campaign=Mar%2020%202012%20Email.RWAV-Anna-London%20tour&utm_medium=email

The 1st one "Splash" is the best in the show and very well-staged although the ad-libbed doggy-talk filler with a beautiful English setter that I saw at stage door arriving post show just for this moment when the stage is being mopped needs to go.

The 2nd is the title song sung by Ephie Aardema which is good but the applause that follows is about how I felt about the song.

The 3rd one at the end the aria "Preludio" opens the show sung by Ragazza and Italiano. It was beautifully sung by both but especially by sexy Glen Seven Allen who stole every scene he was in whether in Florence or in Surrey, England where he played the bumbling servant, Albert who got to display his throbbing abs.

Reread some of the reviews posted earlier in the thread and then watch the video which will show you how wonderfully visual this musical is.

I saw it yesterday afternoon with the mostly senior citizen audience, of which I'm one of them, where it was loved by the audience. I enjoyed it very much and will post more of my thoughts later as this one is already long enough.

Finally this video has the 4th song of Kyle Harris singing "I Know You"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9ze7q2UV34

His "Let It Rain" is better and ends Act 1 with a bang!

[inception]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 3:40am

I'm going down to Seattle for the long weekend, and Saturday will be seeing the production of this that opened tonight at the 5th Avenue theatre. I ponied up a couple months ago for good seats, but am going in cold as I've never read the book and if I saw the film it was so long ago I can't remember it. After I see it I'll make some notes here for those interested.
Looking at the 5th Avenue website tonight, I noticed that they have the following parental advisory:
"Full frontal male nudity. As in the novel and film, this new musical includes a lively, non-sexual skinny dipping scene. The scene has no sexual connotations, but it does contain full frontal male nudity. Two young Englishman remove their clothes onstage to bathe in a lake and persuade the clergyman to join them. In high spirits, they sing, wrestle, splash, and dunk each other, and then emerge to chase each other around the lake. When Lucy, her mother, her chaperone, and her fiancé arrive unexpectedly, the embarrassed bathers hide behind the shrubbery and the women screen the men from view with their parasols."

I am still debating getting tickets to see the new Joe Dipietro show that is having its first run in Seattle this month (Earnest Shackleton Loves Me). It will have to be a matinee as I am seeing Chelsea Handler the Friday night.

[promisespromises2]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 5:11am

Oh I never knew they made a musical out of this! I'm obsessed with Helena Bonham Carter so I've seen this film dozens of times. Thanks for bringing this thread back up! And have fun seeing Chelsea! I want to see her this go around but tickets are about 5 times more expensive than her first tour (obviously). If you stay after for her to sign stuff, she is the SWEETEST person ever.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/16/14 at 4:25pm

Why such a long winded explanation of the nude scene? Anyone who has read the book or seen the movie would be expecting that scene and those who haven't have just had it ruined for them. Why can't they just state that the production contains nudity and leave it at that?

[inception]

Posted: 5/11/14 at 2:34pm

the Seattle production of A Room With a View at The 5th Avenue Theater closes today. I saw it on the Easter weekend, but was waiting for some reviews from local papers to post here. Reviews didn't start showing up until this past week, so I am guessing that the producers were not giving reviewers free tickets until late in the run. Many of the reviews were pretty negative, but the weekly The Stranger put up their review the other day and it seems a bit more reasonable to me. I'll post the link.

The director gave a speech before the show started about how this was a world premiere, noticeably not mentioning the previous production. An article in one Seattle paper did mention that this was a thoroughly new production with new sets and a lot of revisions to the script. The director said something like, "Will this go the Broadway? We don't know." But it is obvious that this is one of their goals, though I don't know whether that will happen especially considering how many really bad reviews there have been. (I'm not going to post those, you can Google them easily enough.) Despite what reviewers had to say, word of mouth must have been good. Last week I was checking the box office, sort of toying with the possibility if driving back down to see it again, but it was almost completely sold out for the last week when most subscribers have already seen it. Seattle's 5th Avenue is a restored theater built in the 20's that seats just over 2100; the theater company has about 25,000 season subscribers which is how they are able to finance new productions like this. A sold out theater sounds like it did well. It's not like there isn't lots of other theater choices in Seattle - there are very well reviewed productions of Virginia Woolf and Little Shop of Horrors on, and The Lion King just played a few weeks at the 2800 seat Paramount Theater.

Personally I enjoyed the show. The sets and costumes were gorgeous and I felt like I was seeing an old MGM or Fox musical come to life - though perhaps one of the lesser more corny ones ones with Mario Lanza or Betty Grable and Donn Ameche. There was music that felt like a pastiche of a lot of older stage music - a bit of Puccini here with some Gilbert & Sullivan there. Then a couple numbers for the male lead had him doing some very modern howling like Idina Menzel got stuck inside him.
The reviewer for The Stranger didn't like the number Ludwig And I, but this was the stand-out number in the first act for me. Besides being a great performance vocally and physically, I felt it was the one number that helped convey Lucy's personality and inner motivations as expressed through her love for Beethoven.
Since seeing this production I have been reading the novel for the first time. I can see how someone who loves the book might be upset with how things in the book are conveyed differently onstage; but I can also see why certain decisions were made since so much of the book could be difficult to dramatize in a more compelling way, like her feeling towards Beethoven.
The show has problems, the first act had way too many numbers that sounded like bad English music-hall. By the end of the first act the guy with his girlfriend in front of me was falling asleep and tried to talk her into leaving. The people to my left didn't return after intermission. A review on All That Chat mentioned that since I saw the show at least one number has been changed in the first act.
Then the second act started with a bang - actually a Splash! The skinny dipping made for a spectacular number that built beautifully, had the audience in hysterics, and most importantly a song that everyone was still humming as they left the theater an hour later.

I like old fashioned shows, and the production values were a million times better than anything that gets done in Vancouver, so I left the theatre happy.

The Stranger newspaper review

[inception]

Posted: 5/23/14 at 3:25am

The 5th Avenue Theater has videos up of a few numbers from this on their channel:
Ludwig and I

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/23/14 at 4:04am

The clip makes it seem like a charming musical--set 25+ years earlier than the novel. Not the breezy book I recently re-read for a class. I do like a lot in the clip reel--it just still seems a bit out of the tone it should be. (And that's a comment from me, probably holding too tightly to one of my favorite novels) Still, I wish I had seen this.



Updated On: 5/24/14 at 04:04 AM

[inception]

Posted: 5/24/14 at 3:50am

Yes, having now read the novel, the tone was not quite right. The clips show so few of the numbers. Some of the songs which tried to amp up the comedy, and maybe were a bit campy. In the theatre this "Ludwig and I" number made a bigger impression on me, and watching it again in the clip I don't find it quite as good - but also I don't know if it is because I have now read the book.
I wish they had a clip of the number "A Carriage and Driver" of the carriage ride into the countryside. They changed it from the book so that all the characters were in one carriage, staged sort of like a movie from the 50's with the scenery moving behind them, and everyone singing. It was very beautiful; these clips give a nice sense of how lovely a lot of the scenery was.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/24/14 at 3:59am

Do they still have the drag roles as in the earlier version?

[inception]

Posted: 5/24/14 at 4:32am

This had a small cast of ten, so in early scenes set in the pension, the other elderly ladies were obviously male members of the cast in drag but they were more just background characters and didn't really do anything. What I found a bit annoying was that the same actress played both Miss lavish in Act 1 and then in a different wig came out in Act 2 as Mrs. Vyse.