BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE - is it ripe for a revival

[henrikegerman]

I've always had great affection for this play, which was so very popular at one time (1128 performances on Broadway in the original 1969-debuted run, the Goldie Hawn-Edward Albert movie that won Eileen Heckart an Oscar) but now seems all but forgotten

Anyone else think a revival might work?

My dream cast:

Frances McDormand.  She'd nail Mrs. Baker and it would be a much welcome change of pace from her recent high profile earthy working class heroines.

Timothee Chalamet as Don. But Lucas Hedges would prob. be just as exciting.

Nina Arianda or Condola Rashad as Jill.

ps: originally posted on off-topic board by mistake, apologies

[goodlead]

Maybe Blythe Danner, who created the role of the girl, could play the mother.

[Tom5]

Yes, it's wildly overdue.

[bk]

henrikegerman said: "I've always had great affection for this play, which was so very popular at one time (1128 performances on Broadway in the original 1969-debuted run, the Goldie Hawn-Keir Dullea movie that won Eileen Heckart an Oscar) but now seems all but forgotten

Anyone else think a revival might work?

My dream cast:

Frances McDormand. She'd nail Mrs. Baker and it would be a much welcome change of pace from her recent high profile earthy working class heroines.

Timothy Chalamet as Don. But Lucas Hedges would prob. be just as exciting.

Nina Arianda or Condola Rashad as Jill.

ps: originally posted on off-topic board by mistake, apologies"

Keir Dullea was the Broadway lead - Edward Albert did the film version.

[Dollypop]

Always liked the show. In my youth I played Don. (Wasn't hard playing blind--I just took out my contact lenses!)

[henrikegerman]

Thank you, BK, I knew that and it was pure oversight.  I corrected my post.

[Jarethan]

Unless they can get a mega-star to appear in this, it is inconceivable to me that this could be successful on Broadway in 2018.  This was a success in a different time, when (s)light comedies could be very successful.  When is the last time that a revival of a light comedy was a success?  I can only think of Boeing Boeing which, ironically, was a major flop in its original run; and I certainly assumed at the time that its success was due to Mark Rylance's performance...it was also an out-and-out farce, rather than a light comedy.

[Elegance101]

Sadly, there's no reason to disagree with the above. There are so many straight plays I want to see come back around, but it's so hard to make them work. That's why I really like the subscription houses like Roundabout, but they can only do so much.

Love the play, but they'd have to do some STAR casting, probably as Mrs. Baker.

[henrikegerman]

I agree that star casting would almost certainly be essential for a revival of this play to succeed financially.
Hence some of my casting suggstions.
The play is conventional in its realism.   A bittersweet, gentle comedy, relatively light and personally-domestically focused in relation to almost every play and revival we've seen on Broadway in recent memory.  There is little if anything politically or broadly social about it.  

The story of a blind man's growing pains on the road to an independent adulthood may no longer be considered at all "weighty," assuming they ever were to begin with.

But might not the play's relatively light aims and personal tone make it refreshingly different and appealing?  
 

[markypoo]

I regret missing the touring company starring GLORIA SWANSON when it played Chicago in 1970-71.

[newintown]

I think it would be much like trying to revive Cactus Flower or Forty Carats or Mary, Mary or Sunday in New York or A Hole in the Head - these were all contemporary light comedies that reflected the spirit of their time very well. Today, they would be period pieces. None could be truly successfully "updated," and why would you anyway, instead of writing a light comedy that truly reflects our current spirit, a spirit significantly different from those of the 60s and 70s?

I think that dreadfully unfunny and un-60s revival of Barefoot in the Park from several years ago (with Patrick Wilson and Amanda Peet drowning in ineptitude) is an good example of what would probably happen with commercial revivals of Butterflies  or any of the other plays mentioned.

[Jarethan]

I was unable to see the revival of Barefoot in the Park, although I did see the original production twice.  I was actually going to reference that as an example of something that failed despite being a 'better candidate' for revival.  I am curious...was the revival itself just a bad production or was it another illustration of a show that was of its time?  (I always thought it was probably the best of the late fifties to early 70s comedies...and have wondered whether the primary reason for its failure was that its time had passed OR that the production just wasn't very good OR that revivals need big stars.

[henrikegerman]

newintown said: "I think it would be much like trying to reviveCactus FlowerorForty CaratsorMary, MaryorSunday in New Yorkor A Hole in the Head - these were all contemporary light comedies that reflected the spirit of their time very well. Today, they would be period pieces. None could be truly successfully "updated," and why would you anyway, instead of writing a light comedy that truly reflects our current spirit, a spirit significantly different from those of the 60s and 70s?

I think that dreadfully unfunny and un-60s revival ofBarefoot in the Parkfrom several years ago (with Patrick Wilson andAmanda Peet drowning in ineptitude) is an good example of what would probably happen with commercial revivals ofButterfliesor any of the other plays mentioned."

Maybe.  But Butterflies seems to me both edgier (in the stakes) and gentler (in character and, for the most part, in comedy) and ultimately more heartbreaking than the plays you've mentioned.  it's also a play in which, unlike the others, and perhaps unlike all other romantic comedies of that time, the vulnerable character in romantic need is a man.  He is surrounded by two very strong women.  That seems to give it much more currency today than the others