Jagged Little Pill to Premiere at ART- Page 7

[Boston Friend]

Posted: 5/23/18 at 11:29pm

Saw tonight.  Mid show standing ovation for Lauren Patten. 

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 5/24/18 at 2:50am

Boston Friend said: "Saw tonight. Mid show standing ovation for Lauren Patten."

She's been getting them every night and it's no surprise why. 

[theaterdarling]

Posted: 5/24/18 at 8:18am

I saw it two nights ago and have to agree with the negative critiques.

The book is awful. As others have said, the show lacks focus, suffers from a hackneyed, derivative plot lines and the dialog is maddingly trite. It plops down every de rigueur social issue (suburban opiate addiction, sexual identity, racial identity, teenagers party/date rape) with all the originality of an Afterschool Special. So many plot lines, so little time (well 2 hours 30 minutes to be exact). The first act was quite slow and barely moved past setting up each individual character’s dilemma.

It seems, at first, that there is  a lot of energy in the group musical numbers, but as the night goes on it just seems more like flailing. There are a couple of decent song stagings and one excellent staging.  Many commenters were reminded of  “Next To Normal”, (I wish), DEH or Spring Awakenings (if only), however, for the most part, I could only think of the Elizabeth Swados musical “Runaways.” Lot's of glorified skipping and hopping with random arm gestures that seems so dated.

As others have also mentioned the lame screen projections (other than those that convey room décor) do the show no favors and only serve to double down on the triteness.

I also echo a commenter who noted that the band being pushed and pulled on off the stage at seemingly random intervals was puzzling, dizzying (not in a good way), and extremely distracting. Brian Perri is adorbs but his raucous head bobbing out was distracting.

Certain songs - the whole #MeToo march seems so ever gratuitous--need to be removed.  I don’t know, however,  if you can just tweak the narrative—they might to need completely throw out the book and reconceive story or stories. Everyone’s story seemed banal-- even if you were to eliminate some of the narrative threads to whittle down the plot, I don’t know if the story ( or stories) remain are interesting enough.

Performers are okay – no standouts to me. Celia Gooding was there and my only thought was that she was okay. All actors were sabotaged by silly dialogue.  About that mid-show standing ovation for Lauren Patten, get a grip people. Absurd. Rather than stand, I was fuming. Many audience members are reading these threads or other social media, because it is clear that they are just waiting to leap to their feet because someone told them they should. Stopping the show to give Lauren Patten a standing ovation has now become a Pavlovian response, what they should be doing, rather than an organic response. The idea of “show stopping” has now jumped the shark if this performance now has that moniker. Lauren Patten is a talented singer (though I found her annoyingly one-note and adenoidal in the book parts), her performance of this song is fine, but it does not lend itself to mid-show standing ovation. Still trying to get over this.

It is always an occupational risk to shoehorn a plot around pre-existing songs and while Morissette's music might have deserved that effort, this is just a mish-mash of milquetoast angst done better in other shows, IMHO.  I can't imagine drastic changes from the show I saw before opening night which I think is tonight

If you can't make it to Cambridge, don't fret. Hopefully you will see a more improved version later on, but it should be back to the drawing board on this one.

 

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 5/25/18 at 1:56pm

How is Antonio Cipriano in the role of Phoenix? I see he's part of two numbers in the song list but I haven't seen him mentioned by the critics. He's playing one of the love interests, yes? 

[a-mad]

Posted: 5/25/18 at 3:12pm

I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised with the positive notices this show is getting from the Boston press.  Perhaps this will be critically better received on Broadway than expected...

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 5/25/18 at 3:29pm

MrsSallyAdams said: "How isAntonio Cipriano in the role of Phoenix? I see he's part of two numbers in the song list but I haven't seen him mentioned by the critics. He's playing one of the love interests, yes?"

His role is the smallest out of the main characters. He's great with the little that he has to do.

[sndtrklvr]

Posted: 5/26/18 at 6:14pm

Saw it today at what appeared to be a sold out matinee. The book, as many have mentioned, still needs work. They could also drop a couple of songs. The main cast were all very good with Gooding and Stanley as standouts. Lauren Patten's "You ought to Know" was face meltingly good and she got her standing ovation. Very positive buzz from everyone on the exit from the theater.

[bethyd]

Posted: 5/26/18 at 7:59pm

Today I saw the show for a second time. It truly is something remarkable. I hope it takes Broadway by storm. Lauren Patten steals the show. 

[ACL2006]

Posted: 5/27/18 at 2:02pm

Just finished reading some reviews for this and they mostly positive. Hopefully with some tweaks to the book it'll do well on Broadway. Hopefully it's aiming to arrive next Spring.

[VotePeron]

Posted: 5/27/18 at 5:52pm

I saw this this afternoon, after being super tepid having already planned a day trip from the city and not reading stellar things on here. I am so glad I went.

I see a lot, and I am so sick of seeing these hyper modern, current, and terribly written new musicals. They feel fake and silly, and almost pretentious in their attempt to come off as relatable and cool. I didn’t get any of that vibe from JLP, and felt it to be one of the most genuine new musicals I’ve seen in a while.

I thought act 1 was excellent in terms of storytelling & execution. The songs fit well and the staging was wonderful. Act 2 is where the trouble starts dramaturgically - jokes fall flat, the story drags a bit, and they keep in two songs (“Perfect,” “Mary Jane”) that don’t stall the plot and only add to the 2:45 running time.

The performances across the board were phenomenal, and I think the commitment the actors give the pieces feels authentic enough that it’s real. Elizabeth Stanley - damn. That woman is talented as hell. And she lays it all out. I really admired her performance, and the whole ensemble, who I felt does much more than move the scenery. The only actor that gets the short end of the stick is Logan Hart, who I simply just think was miscast. Since ART to Broadway transfers have a history of cast changes, I was wondering during Act 2 who might be getting let go.

Production wise, it’s exactly what I’d imagine an out of town tryout at a regional house would be. I think it’s pretty clear where they’ll improve the design, and I expect with a larger budget that’ll help. The choreography is outstanding and fresh, and I think this is the best staging I’ve seen Paulus do.

The music and arrangements are so lovely and it didn’t feel like a typical jukebox musical to me, unlike Escape to Margaritaville for example where they try and cram the songs into the show for plot.

I’m very confident in this show, and think with some new narrative direction for act 2, it’ll be more than strong enough for whatever venue is next. I think it’d be a huge waste for this not to come to NYC, it’s truly too strong of a concept not too.

[wonderfulguy]

Posted: 6/3/18 at 2:53am

NYT review https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/theater/review-jagged-little-pill-musical.html

[ACL2006]

Posted: 6/3/18 at 11:12am

Definitely feels like there's a lot of positive feedback coming from this show. But also some necessary cuts need to made, including a song or two in act 2 and possibly one of the supporting characters.

[Broadway2People]

Posted: 6/6/18 at 2:37pm

Does anyone know anything about the standing room tickets for Jagged Little Pill? Website says they have some available when the box office opens at noon and I'm wondering if people are lining up/how early they're lining up to buy them. I'd love to try to go up one weekend and see this!

[barcelona20]

Posted: 6/6/18 at 3:35pm

Broadway2People said: "Does anyone know anything about the standing room tickets for Jagged Little Pill? Website says they have some available when the box office opens at noon and I'm wondering if people are lining up/how early they're lining up to buy them. I'd love to try to go up one weekend and see this!"

It's obviously going to Broadway. Why not wait and see the finished product?

[mufish]

Posted: 6/8/18 at 8:17pm

I went to the matinee last Saturday.  I was a little uncertain of my decision to pick up a seat in the front row (house left) when I read people mentioning the high stage, but thought ultimately that my 6'1 height would offset it.  As it turns out, the stage was a tad too high for me, but not so high where I HAD to strain to see anything (there was one moment on the other side of the stage I missed a little of, but it's not like I didn't know what was happening).  But anyway, on to the show...

Overall, I enjoyed it and I definitely see a future for this production on Broadway although it might even benefit from going the route American Psycho was going to go and first go off-Broadway with an eye on ultimately transferring at some point.

I agree with theaterdarling's comparison to an after school special (that nagged at me throughout the performance, ha!) though I don't think the book is that awful.  I do think that they need to trim or cut some things entirely, like 20 minutes or so worth (maybe start by getting rid of the epilogue-like ending - people can draw their own conclusions).  This show in no way needs to be nearly three hours long.  Pick one or two terrible things to deal with, we don't need to see the kitchen sink thrown at this family! 

I didn't think that the songs felt forced, as if they had Alanis Morrisette's discography sitting in front of them and just tried to check off as much as they could.  "Ironic" is a bit of an exception to that, but you knew they were going to get it in somehow and at least they poked fun at it a bit.

It may have been because I was so close, but I hardly noticed the projections so fortunately wasn't distracted by them - though some of them when I forced myself to look or there was less going on onstage were pretty terrible.  I would imagine/hope that the plan would be to replace some of those with actual scenic elements and maybe scrap others - sometimes the singer is enough to command the stage, you don't ALWAYS have to have something going on behind them.  Also, I echo all the criticism of the band sliding on and off throughout the show.  What the hell?  Pick one or the other, either would be fine but good grief it was completely pointless and really seemed random.

As far as the performances, I really enjoyed Elizabeth Stanley and Lauren Patten, with honorable mention to Celia Gooding.  The cool part about sitting so close was being able to see Stanley's tears (Derek Klena cries too!) but she was fantastic.  Alanis would call it ironic, but coincidentally I went to see "On The Town" with the Boston Pops featuring Andy Karl, Brandon Victor Dixon, Andrea Martin, Marc Kudisch, et al the night before, and I realized I had seen Stanley in the revival years ago.  I really really enjoyed Patten, and her "You Oughta Know" is wonderful.  I had resolved not to stand after reading all the posts here as I think there are only certain rare instances where that's called for...like clockwork she got her standing O, but it took a while to develop and since I was in the first row, I stuck to my guns and clapped heartily while remaining seated.

There weren't any performances that I felt didn't work, but like some others have done, I did think about who might end up cast in a Broadway production should they decide to part with anyone from the current company.  While I certainly didn't mind Antonio Cipriano's performance, nor did I mind (very slight spoiler) when he jumped from the stage right in front of me, Isaac Powell came to mind as a possibility in that role.

All in all I'm glad I went, and I'd recommend anyone who finds themselves in or around Boston between now and mid-July who's thinking about checking it out to do so.  I don't know that I would make a special trip for it, unless pairing it with a Moulin Rouge performance or something.  I live in the area, so I do plan on trying to check it out once more before it closes so I can see it from a different perspective, as seeing it up close is great but you do miss some of the larger picture.

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 6/9/18 at 10:51am

^
I'm in that same seat the week before closing and front row center for closing. My first time was the last row of the double letter seats and it was pretty perfect. I'm 6hrs away and actually am pairing it with a Moulin Rouge show the day of closing.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/13/18 at 7:53am

This will be eaten alive by the NY critics if it shows up like this.   Its focus is non-existent.   Of all the things I've seen at ART that transferred, this is by far the weakest.  Too many issues that either are ignored or too neatly solved, a preachy Act II, staging that is ordinary and often presentational and dialogue that would be embarrassing in a writing class are all things that need to be fixed.  The performances are quite good, but not yet 3 dimensional, which I blame mostly on the writing (and some poor acting choices).  Some concepts work (the "memory" Bella) but then get weird...when they use the same actress as "inner turmoil" MJ.

Teenagers and young adults are going to fawn all over it, pretending that "at last, someone understands me".   

I agree A LOT with what Vote Peron had to say, although I didn't want to.  But he's very much on the nose with his details.   (And yes, I agree with your comment about the standing ovation didn't feel organic at all)

 

Can this be fixed?  Yes.  The question always is:  WILL it?

[JESRhody]

Posted: 6/14/18 at 9:25am

I saw the show for the second time last nght.

Since three weeks ago, I left with the impression that the show had been tightened up with choreography changes in at least two songs and some lyric changes.  The first time around there were a few internal consistency issues that really bugged me -- this time I didn't hear any glaring ones.  There's a chance I was a better listener and nothing changed though.

Unlike almost everyone I like the video screens -- they give context without an impractically extensive or a minimalist set. Even so, there is no shortage of sets.  The choreography is excellent in parts (very good in the group numbers) with Mary Jane's climax scene probably the best piece of dance I've seen in a musical.  "Body double" choreography was outstanding.  The "rewind" choreography in Act 1 is gimmicky but excellent.  Fortunately a much smaller percentage of people gave the standing ovation for "You Oughta Know" -- perhaps common sense has returned.  Some of the best midsong handoffs of songs between and among characters that I've seen -- the theme of how these issues reverberate across the community and across generations is very powerful.

An outstanding musical and work of art -- much better book than any jukebox musical I've seen.  A certain hit on broadway.  I spoke to an elderly couple walking to the parking garage -- they thought it was "very good", hadn't seen DEH or anything similar.  If you don't know all the JLP words by heart and are not a millenial, you're not the target demographic.

Edit: fix typo *not* a millenial

Updated On: 6/16/18 at 09:25 AM

[ren598]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 12:28am

Why hasn’t this show been extended?  Looks like every show in the remainder of the run is sold out.  I saw the show this evening and was hoping to score tickets to another show before it ended.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 1:46am

JESRhody said: " If you don't know all the JLP words by heart or are a millenial, you're not the target demographic."

Do people not know what millennial means? Hint: Millennials know Jagged Little Pill.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 5:51am

That would be a relatively small demographic. (And I think he meant to say if you aren't a millennial)

In general, I call bull**** on any theater "demographic" that is an aim of the creators . They want and need large amounts of people to want to see a show. Buffet has a huge fan base....couldnt keep Margaritaville open. A show has to have some universal appeal.

This also isn't about age...I'm far from a millennial, but love Morrisette's JLP. I'm also a parent who works with young people and am a victim of "me, too." Shouldn't I LOVE this? I'd say, I'm pretty target, too.

It has potential, I just hope they find it.

[Elegance101]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 11:35am

Also, a younger fanbase is great for cast album sales (and bootleg views), but they're not huge ticket buyers, as most of them wouldn't be using their own money to travel to New York and buy the tickets. And if you think twenty-somethings are going to be the audience, that's not great either, as they don't frequently have $150 lying around for a full-price ticket.

If you see Hamilton or Dear Evan Hansen, it's not the "stans" filling those seats, it's a lot of grown adults. They need to be enticed almost more than younger people to keep a show afloat.

[Skip23]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 11:37am

Saw JLP last Thursday.

 

Not earth shattering...but damn good.  Like a series of good music videos.  Choreography is great.  Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is a real find.  And book is clever and sharp.  Staging and video are just about perfect.  Morissette's songs sure work for this Musical. 

 

Sure plot is shoehorned.  But I went with the machinations and found myself having a good time.  Even with the subject matter...and I'm certainly FAR from the target audience.  It's a silly conceit, but irony works in this context.  (yes, I get the reference...).

 

They need to get rid of the son's three songs.  Stop the show cold and just torture the singer.  The character all in all has it pretty good.  These songs don't serve him or the show.

 

If Evan Hansen can grab Broadway, Pill is Hamilton!

 

 

 

 

Updated On: 6/16/18 at 11:37 AM

[JESRhody]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 5:24pm

My point on audience is that people who love JLP are a pretty separate audience than millennials.  Most millenials I've mentioned it to vaguely know JLP as an oldie or love it as a classic album.  But for people 38-52 or so, it is extremely familiar and frequently well-loved material from its initial release.

I think 52 and below is a pretty broad demographic to target a Broadway show against.  And older theatergoers like the ones I talked to seemed to like it too.  But I thought it was a very young audience for the ART.  These aren't sellouts because they're bringing new seniors to the theater.  There's are lots of older people (like my inlaws and their friends 70+) who are frequent Broadway goers and have absolutely no interest in Hamilton or DEH. Yet they both seem to be doing fine.  In the Heights was a similar demographic musical that was probably too youthful for Broadway audiences at the time.

If you think JLP will appeal to 55+ theatergoers, I think you're wrong.  But there are a lot of under-40s interested in shelling out $200+ for a Broadway show (or a concert ticket or a sports game) so I'm not concerned about it.  JLP isn't selling out based on senior citizens rushing to buy ART tickets at 200% of the normal musical price.

[mailhandler777]

Posted: 6/16/18 at 10:38pm

I am the same age as Alanis is and I know a lot of people young enough to be my kids love the show. I believe that a lot of that is everyone in the cast but 4 people are millennials or whatever the generation after millennials is themselves.

Updated On: 6/16/18 at 10:38 PM