THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY to Close May 18- Page 4

[avyrocks]

Posted: 5/1/14 at 11:44pm

I didn't go until after opening week because of those awful ads. And I only went because I try to see everything on Broadway. If I had known how great this show was, I would've started going during previews. Marketing fail.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:06am

Roxy, I'm still final reserving judgement that there must've been something worse in Broadway history besides "MORE SONGS THAN THE BOOK!" though after much though anything else escapes me.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:09am

It's always sad when shows I have an affinity for close, and this one is no exception. It's far from flawless, but it's a really lovely show that deserved a longer run. But at least we've got that gorgeous cast recording. I hope to catch it for a third and final time in the next couple of weeks.

[jawjuhh]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:30am

So disappointed I won't be able to watch this one, it was one of the first shows on my "to see" list when I got back home!

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 1:36am

what a shame, hopefully the tour works out better for them

[trpguyy]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 4:24am

The show could do fine on tour, as most of the touring market is based on a bundled season subscription. But I am genuinely sad that this show didn't find it's New York audience, and that this stupidly talented cast and creative team don't get to keep doing this show every night.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 6:18am

"Go away with your negative crap and watch the last show you actually enjoyed watching ....in 1953. Yuck. "

Sure.

Leonard Bernstein... Yuck.

Cole Porter.... Yuck.

Rodgers and Hammerstein... Double Yuck.

Yep. They all take a back seat to Jason Robert Brown.

The laughs sure are coming thick and fast around here.

[mc1227]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 6:52am

This makes me very sad. Such beautiful songs performed by two talented actors should have been seen by more people. I believe Kelli will finally get her Tony by this signature performance. She is just exquisite!!

[TimesSquared]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 9:29am

Bridges has some lovely moments and performances, but it has some serious flaws, and many things working against it, not the least of which is its source material. The book was the national butt of jokes and critical pans when it came out, despite (and especially because of) its huge popularity—much like "Fifty Shades of Gray".

When a Bridges musical was announced, there was an awful lot of eye-rolling in the press and on this board. I imagine it would be like the reaction to a Sondheim musical based on a painting by Thomas Kinkade. The mawkish associations the title evokes killed it more than anything. In the eyes of the general public, adding "The Musical" to an existing title is already a joke in itself: Hurt Locker: The Musical. Unless you mean it to be a parody, adding it to a title that's already the subject of scorn, is courting failure.

If The Bridges of Madison County had been a relatively unknown book, and had never been a film, it might have had a different fate, but sadly, I think ticket sales were doomed before Brown and Norman put pen to paper.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 9:33am

Tell me how a nothing confection like Aladdin , who everyone said was dead in Toronto, is now a huge success & quality theater like this is a failure.

People do not want to think & just want mindless entertainment. This is what tourists demand and this is what they are getting.

The critics would fall all over themselves if Sondheim did this or the Kincaid musical.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 9:38am

"People do not want to think & just want mindless entertainment."

Says the board's biggest Frank Wildhorn fan.


EDIT: Oh, excuse me. WILDHORNE.

Updated On: 5/2/14 at 09:38 AM

[mjohnson2]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 9:54am

Okay, BOMC, though I did like it, was 100% mindless. It was a nice little soap opera musical, and there was nothing in it at all that made you think.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 9:57am

I wouldn't say that it was 100% mindless. The themes of love, loss, and choices are not mindless. At least it doesn't confuse and alienate half of the audience like IF/THEN (a musical that I wanted to love).

[newintown]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 10:00am

I imagine that this will have a brief tour with someone like Elena Shaddoe or Katie Rose Clarke. But even Light in the Piazza was a hard sell on the road. Introspective, romantic, ballad-heavy shows, much as they are rabidly beloved by some, can be difficult commodities to sell.

I would be interested in a longer (polite) discussion/exploration of something touched upon earlier in this thread - the difficulty of accurately judging a show merely by listening to its cast recording. Of course, there are going to be many people who can't afford to see a lot of shows in their entirety, only able to judge its merits by marketing, the occasional national TV appearance, and the cast recording. But as has been pointed out millions of times, a show most often succeeds or fails because of its book, not the score. The score is rarely the problem - we all own a lot of beloved flop recordings, and many ask "how could this show flop? The score is so great!"

It seems that loving the score and loving the show are very often different and unrelated things. I'm no fan of either for Bridges, but (to me) the book really is bad - sentimental, anti-intellectual, casually immoral, reductive, artificial. Those same qualities could be couched in more positive terms by someone to whom this book/narrative speaks. But this closing indicates that the majority (whether slim or vast) don't admire the book.

Updated On: 5/2/14 at 10:00 AM

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 10:14am

"At least it doesn't confuse and alienate half of the audience like IF/THEN"

It may not have confused the audience, but the tale itself, the slow pacing, even inertia, of the book, and the turgid, ruminative nature of the score probably alienated quite a few people in it.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 11:09am

"At least it doesn't confuse and alienate half of the audience like IF/THEN"

Exactly. Nominations aren't everything, but there's a reason this totally original show with huge names behind it didn't get a Best Musical nom. When half the audience has no idea what's going on, your show is in trouble and typically sucks.

Bridges had its issues, but the score wasn't one of them. Like the performances, the score was pretty much universally praised both from critics and audiences. Nothing TURGID about it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 11:42am

I guess I can cross that off my list of possibilities for my trip.

[GilmoreGirlO2]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:24pm

But this closing indicates that the majority (whether slim or vast) don't admire the book.

I don’t think we can necessarily make such a concrete assumption as this. Full disclosure, this is coming from someone who found the book to be made of intimate and natural dialogue (as well as creating complex, full characters) that made me feel like I was sitting at that dining room table right next to them. However, whether the majority of those who saw the show liked the book or not, to my eyes, I can’t see the reception to the book as the main reason for the show’s short run. Word of mouth and critical/audience reception was fairly good for the show (especially in comparison to many of the other musicals this season) – it seemed that the show, more than anything, had a hard time getting people interested in a musicalized version of “The Bridges of Madison County” in the first place, which is why I believe that the marketing, reputation of the source material, and style of the show were its biggest hindrances to finding an audience.

I do think the discussion on judging a show by its cast recording is interesting and I think it can go both ways: in some cases I think the recording can really encompass the show and, other times, give you an entirely different picture. There are also the cases where the songs are enjoyable on their own, but when put into context onstage either don’t add much to the show or don’t fit well into the overall show. I know it’s often the case for many that they can’t appreciate a cast recording until after seeing the show; much can be added to a score when you can understand the context and impact of the moment in the show (and, I find that having seen the show brings out moments or lyrics on the cast recording that have much more meaning than I knew having listened to it before seeing the show).

This also (in my mind) brings up discussion of how Best Score awards should be approached: are we judging on the quality of the score on its own or on how much it elevates the story-telling during the show/how well it serves its purpose as a musical score? I have always approached it from the latter train of thought (although, of course, excelling at both is the ultimate hope).

[Kad]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:27pm

The musical could not overcome the fact that the source material is a slight paperback romantic fantasy. It's a bored, unappreciated housewife having a brief, passionate affair with a perfect man who happens to pull up to her house by chance.

[newintown]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:41pm

The message of the novel, film, and musical is: it's a beautiful thing to cheat on your spouse with another man and consider abandoning your family if:
1) said spouse is dull,
2) said family is annoying,
3) said other man is sexy, and
4) you convince yourself that you really, deeply, truly are "in love" with him (however loosely you might define that phrase), and
5) after a few rolls in the hay with said other man, decide to stay with said boring husband and said annoying family.

Codicil: you don't need to actually know said other man for more than a few days before convincing yourself he is the love of your life.

Updated On: 5/2/14 at 12:41 PM

[broadfan327]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 12:48pm

The popular tourist shows that have run for a long time I would argue have sustained because of their scores, not their books. Do you think Wicked, Motown, Mamma Mia, Chicago, The Lion King, and Jersey Boys have survived because of their strong books? I hadn't seen any version of Grease before the last revival, but after I saw it I thought to myself the book was atrocious.

[newintown]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 1:02pm

The book is more than just dialogue - it's the shape of the show, it determines the pace, the way the story is told. Most people watch a show with no conscious understanding of how the book influences their enjoyment.

I know many people who feel that the book of Wicked is much more skillfully done than the score. Several of the other shows you mention also succeed because of the skillful way their books tell the story, manipulate the audience, and allow the songs to contribute.



Updated On: 5/2/14 at 01:02 PM

[Steve721]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 1:28pm

Perhaps the producers thought that with the book, the film, O'Hara and Pasqauale, they had some insurance against closing even if the show didn't get raves. That judgment (if they in fact made it) proved to be wrong--as it turned out, there was no hook to draw an audience. So there was no margin for error. If the show had gotten Book of Mormon/Matilda level raves and gobs of Tony nominations, there would be no closing notice and this thread wouldn't exist. But it could not survive mixed reviews.

This does make one marvel at what Ms. Dazeem has done for If/Then; without her, that show would be in even worse shape than Bridges.

[decotodd]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 1:41pm

As I've mentioned before, I loved this show and saw it twice (the second time with friends, who also really enjoyed it and expressed a desire to get the cast album). I could nitpick about some of it, but overall I was moved in a way that is rare for a musical.

Many here have remarked on the poor marketing. Living in LA, I haven't really seen how it is marketed (trailers, key art, etc). What in your opinion were the flaws in the campaign and how could they have improved?

[Eris0303]

Posted: 5/2/14 at 1:52pm

I'll be there with my family on Mother's Day. Sad to see this closing. I heard nothing but good things.