Women on the verge - What went wrong?

[kofler22]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 7:05pm

Hi! Ive been listening to the obc recording of Wotvoanb and i find the music gorgeous and very theatrical...for those whove seen it, what went wrong? Was it that bad? And how about the London production? Have they changed a lot?

[Owen22]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 7:22pm

It needed an out-of-town tryout and probably another leading lady. But even with its problems it's a better musical than Tootsie or Beetlejuice.

[BIG BALONEY]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 9:02pm

I liked it alot and it was as frantic as the movie. Patti Lupone was all over the stage and a hoot. Wanted to see this again in London at The Playhouse, but it closed a week before I arrived. Not successful there either.

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 10:03pm

Don’t blame this on Sherie, she did the best she could with a totally thankless role. It was like Dorothy disappeared and the Apple Trees and Flying Monkeys got all the best songs. She didn’t even have an 11 o’clock number!

The score is beautiful but the problem is that every song except for two (Model Behavior and Tangled Up) are metaphor songs that have nothing to do with the plot. They don’t move the story forward. They are trunk songs that could be sung in any cabaret show or in any context besides this show. It’s essentially a song cycle set in an Almodovar setting.

The book was an absolute disaster and didn’t even make sense. Just listen to the wonderful album, close your eyes, and imagine it all worked as well as Model Behavior did. Or better yet, just watch the Criterion Blu-Ray of the classic and wonderful film.

In the theatre it was a massive disappointment, totally perplexing, messy and just plain boring.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 11:45pm

 

Go back and read the threads. It was a VERY contentious time around here when the show was playing. The show seemed to cause so much vitriol from some posters, then there was a small group of us who loved it and knew the score was very special. Once the cast recording was released, people started coming around to the score and recognized how good Yazbek’s work was, leading to him getting a Tony nomination and famously knocking Shaiman’s score for Catch Me If You Can out of the category.

And yes, the show definitely could’ve used an out-of-town try out. 

Updated On: 5/10/19 at 11:45 PM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 11:51pm

I love this score so much. “Mother’s Day” is one of the prettiest songs written for the musical theater in the past decade.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 11:55pm

I agree, what a delicate song. The score is also notable because it was the first time we heard elements of the more serious and mature style Yazbek would eventually deliver with TBV.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 11:57pm

One day, someone will write a tell all book about the making of this show, detailing all the juicy Sheri/Patti stories.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/10/19 at 11:59pm

God, yes. Those rumors/stories were delicious.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 12:04am

This show should’ve been Benanti’s second Tony Award.

Sherie did the best she could with one of the most thankless leading roles. I would love to see an off-Broadway company take a stab at the revised version.

[MarkBearSF]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 12:09am

I adore the score and loved it when I saw it about a month into the run - as I was also thinking, "this is really not very good."
- It was another in a series of stage adaptations that tried and failed to bring a uniquely filmic experience to the stage. Lots of frantic rushing around and quick scenes and "cuts" to no effect other than to create confusion.
- A couple staging mistakes loom large in memory. There was a neon frame taxicab driven by Danny Berstein (who was great) which, due to the limitations of the Belasco wing space, had to be backed into its offstage spot, Often. Luckily it didn't beep as it backed up. And Pepa literally set fire on her bed every night, spreading smoke through the theatre which took a while to disperse.
-  As has been mentioned, Sherie Rene Scott was not strong (for whatever reason) and Brian Stokes Mitchell and Patti LuPone were both wasted in their roles. And Stokes (I call him that) was given arguably the weakest songs of the bunch. [I haven't heard it, but PLEASE tell me there's no song in Tootsie with "blah, blah" ...or "nunny']

I still turn to the recording often. And I love that Patti has made "Invisible" one of her standards. But the musical just didn't work.

Updated On: 5/11/19 at 12:09 AM

[Observation]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 1:08am

ljay889 said: "God, yes. Those rumors/stories were delicious."

ooooo! Where can one find those stories? 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 1:38am

Become friends with someone who was there.

[Ravenclaw]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 2:44am

I worked on a small production of the revised version a couple of years ago. Aside from a couple new songs, the main difference is that it's just a little tighter and more confident. The book isn't perfect yet, but it's solid enough that the show can really work. From what I remember, the problems in the original production seemed to primarily stem from the gargantuan design--they were trying to put a big, colorful, dazzling Almodovar film on the stage, and the story really got lost in the process. The design elements prevented an out-of-town tryout from being realistic, which it clearly needed, considering how vastly different the first preview was from the last preview. That song "My Crazy Heart" was tried in at least three different places, if I remember correctly, and the Act II opener became the Act I opener, among other drastic changes. And then there was the fact that the design dwarfed the actors and upstaged the music. So much was happening visually that it was hard to focus on what you were hearing. The show is essentially a farce, and for a farce to work, the plot needs to take focus, which is hard to happen when you're being assaulted with bright images. 

As others have said, the cast album is what really made a case for this show. It's one of my most-listened to albums these days. This is a show that proves just how hard it is to make a fully successful musical. You can have one of the best scores of the decade, three of the most talented musical theatre actresses alive, and an iconic source material that plays like gangbusters and almost begs to be musicalized, and it can still fail. 

I feel like 10 years from now, there will be an Encores! production and everyone will ask "Why wasn't this a big fat hit back in the day?"

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 7:05am

Something that hasn’t been mentioned as a great thing to come out of the show was the discovery that Justin Guarini is a very good musical theater actor. I enjoyed him in this and later absolutely loved him in Paint Your Wagon at Encores!

[Justin Guarini3]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 7:23am

Soooooo very many things, my friends. The show could have definitely used an out of town run...first and foremost. We we’re making so many changes during previews...and then only had one run of the “set” version before we got reviewed.

The score, the personnel, and the book were all beautiful...but the LCT crowd wasn’t the right crowd for this show. WOTV was funky and weird and pure Almodovar...not something the older crowd of LCT patrons got or particularly liked. Just like the movie...you had no idea what was going on until 20min into the play. So many of the old folks complained about that at the stage door. It was depressing at times LOL

[Justin Guarini3]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 7:29am

Thank you! I loved both of those shows so much. I can’t tell you how intimidating it was to have Patti playing my mother and Stokes playing my father

[mamaleh]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 7:40am

Ok, so maybe the book wasn’t perfect and the production a bit overwrought.. But I thought the melodic, heartfelt, hilarious and beautifully sung score plus the sharp, quirky performances made WOTV a very watchable show. I saw it twice: once early in previews, and a month or so after opening. Moving Danny Burstein’s “Madrid is My Mama” to open the show was a great improvement, as it captured the frenetic milieu of the personalities the audience was about to meet. “Invisible” is one of my all-time favorite musical theater songs. The show deserved a better fate.

[BJR]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 8:08am

I think everyone has hit on it with it needed an out of town. The design was massive and it seems it wasn't clear how that would affect the narrative until it was up and fully running. 

I think that proven by Sher returning to it a couple years later in London, scaling it down and having more success, if reviews are to be believed. 

Would love to see someone tackle the revised version one day. Shame it couldn't be with the same incredible cast. 

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 8:54am

The score for Women on the Verge is easily my favorite contemporary musical theatre score.

[ClumsyDude15]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 9:50am

I saw the show several times during its run and I really enjoyed it. The book was messy, but the score was wonderful and Laura Benanti and Patti LuPone chewed up all the scenery. I thought Sherie did the best with what she was given and she did sell Pepa's story well, but the book didn't help things there. 

I saw it early on in previews when My Crazy Heart was the opening number and then going back later on when they made Madrid the opening number was certainly jarring but it worked well to set the tone of the show. 

The show could have certainly used an out of town to work out the kinks but I still think fondly of the show overall especially the score. Also, to add to givesmevoice, Justin Guarini was excellent and bringing him to the stage was one of the good things the show did. 

I'm now relistening to the cast album because of this thread and my god, what an incredible cast of women. 

Updated On: 5/11/19 at 09:50 AM

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 10:18am

Remember the casting rumors? Jessica Biel? Selma Hayek?

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 10:29am

One thing I think still needs to happen, be it the Broadway or revised version presented: Danny Burstein's performance as Mambo-Loving Taxi Driver, at least to me, set him up to be a narrator or Greek chorus, but didn't deliver on this potential; instead, he appeared at a few crucial moments as a supporting comic character. Meanwhile, a number of smaller, one-scene-only male roles -- such as the judge, the police officer, the matador -- appeared briefly and did little but appear and then leave.

A more effective use of casting would have been to make Mambo-Loving Taxi Driver appear time and time again in various guises and smaller characters, creating a comic lead from a rather minor supporting character. Especially with the book being as messy as it was, it would have given the LCT crowd the illusion of the unity they were looking for.

The revised version is tighter, but I think adding this conceit would also help.

[ljay889]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 10:34am

What turns me off from the revised version is that the fabulous Overture is cut and the score is played by a very small band. The broadway sound was superior.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 5/11/19 at 1:24pm

I saw the show very early in previews and I know it went through vast changes, which indicates to me that they should have done an out of town tryout before the Broadway run. The main thing that sticks out as a problem to me a number of years on is the direction; it felt overwrought and was attempting to make a large-scale spectacle of a story that should have been small and focused on the relationships among the characters. The book definitely didn't help this as it wasn't particularly focused on anything, but Sher's production was frankly a mess and so was the design. The score, however, was excellent and I'm glad it got the attention it deserved from the cast album because a lot of it was mangled onstage due to the direction.

Updated On: 5/11/19 at 01:24 PM