People Who Saw Shows That Now Live In Infamy, What Was Your Experience At Said Show?- Page 3

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/8/20 at 4:20pm

Shows with long preview periods were Golden Rainbow 43 and Legs Diamond 72

Updated On: 5/8/20 at 04:20 PM

[joevitus]

Posted: 5/8/20 at 4:23pm

Dollypop said: "joevitus said: "Dollypop said: "Lordy me, how did I forget BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's with Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain? Edward Albee's book was exceptionally talky and leaden and it's true, the audience did talk back to the actors. At one point Moore's character asked the rhetorical question, "What am I to do?" and a male voice from the audience answered, "Go home so we can, too!""

So I've always been baffled--since there was no cast album and other than a book on famous flops, no history of musical theater really covers it--what was such a train wreck about the show? Your comment about the book helps, but were the songs outrageously bad or just mediocre and forgettable? Was the direction and choreography hysterically wrong, or just uninteresting? Were the leads way out of their depth, or just stuck with bad material? This show is a famous ginormous bomb, but I never hear details."





There is, indeed, a cast album. It's a studio recording starring Faith Prince and John Scjneider.

"

I had meant the original cast, but I didn't know about this either. Is it worth listening to?

[Jarethan]

Posted: 5/8/20 at 7:17pm

Mr Roxy said: "Shows with long preview periods were Golden Rainbow 43 and Legs Diamond 72"

Golden Rinbow is another guilty pleasure for me.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I knew it was bad.  That became apparent especially when I saw it a second time.  The first time, in the second act, Steve and Eydie broke character and the entire audience was laughing as much as Eydie.  The second time I saw it, it happened in exactly the same place, and the lines they said were even the same (or at least thematically the same...I do not have photographic memory).  They needed comedy in the second act, so they introduced it by cheating...after all, everyone was there to see Steve and Eydie, so everyone lapped up the supposed ad-lib.  

On a separate note, I think there is a difference between infamy and a bad flop.  I saw The Yearling, Dr. Jazz and Come Summer, three musicals that together can a total of, I believe 15 performances.  They were all awful.  I don't know that they live in infamy, rhowever; ather that they have pretty much been forgotten.  Carrie has not been forgotten, nor has Moose Murders...not sure they ever will...they have become part of Broadway legend.  Legs Diamond and Breakfast at Tiffany's probably belongs in the infamy category, whereas A Doll's Life or Onward Victoria, and etc., have pretty much been forgotten.

Some the shows identified here were really more appropriate to the stinkers subject that was also recently covered.

[Scarlet Leigh]

Posted: 5/8/20 at 10:49pm

So......... Dance of the Vampires. *Pops open a bottle of vodka and takes a shot for strength* Let's talk about that for a hot second.

I don't even know where to start with it. Two girls getting brutally murdered in the opening number while the ensemble has a rocking ballet dance break. Crawford's entrance in a coffin shooting up from the stage floor. The creepy vibe Crawford was giving off anytime he was on the stage with Mandy Gonzalez. The entire song dedicated to garlic. The random flamboyantly gay vampire coming onto the hero waaaaay to strong and that was all he was there to do. The.... *sigh*..... penis sponge joke (Note: every time I talk about this show and I have to mention "penis sponge joke" I die a little inside). The ending flash-forward to an alternate modern day New York were vampires are the dominate race and Times Square is filled with vampire related pun jokes like "Bats: the Musical" instead of Cats. "VSPN" instead of ESPN. "Fang" instead of Tang. "Got Blood?" instead of-OH GOD WHAT WAS THIS SHOW?! 

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 5/9/20 at 10:12am

joevitus said: "Dollypop said: "joevitus said: "Dollypop said: "Lordy me, how did I forget BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY's with Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain? Edward Albee's book was exceptionally talky and leaden and it's true, the audience did talk back to the actors. At one point Moore's character asked the rhetorical question, "What am I to do?" and a male voice from the audience answered, "Go home so we can, too!""

So I've always been baffled--since there was no cast album and other than a book on famous flops, no history of musical theater really covers it--what was such a train wreck about the show? Your comment about the book helps, but were the songs outrageously bad or just mediocre and forgettable? Was the direction and choreography hysterically wrong, or just uninteresting? Were the leads way out of their depth, or just stuck with bad material? This show is a famous ginormous bomb, but I never hear details."





There is, indeed, a cast album. It's a studio recording starring Faith Prince and John Scjneider.

"

I had meant the original cast, but I didn't know about this either. Is it worth listening to?"

Definitely, there are a number of fairly decent songs, and I feel like you also get a sense of why the show didn’t work. It reminds me of Henry Sweet Henry - unfocused and inorganic. I can totally see why another poster in a previous thread about the show said that it was bad, but not boring - it’s sort of interesting analyzing why the choices seem wrong.

[mikey2573]

Posted: 5/9/20 at 10:15am

Not sure it this is infamous but I did see THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER with my son, who was 9 at the time.  We both loved it. The chase through the caves in the second act was simply brilliant, and Heidi Ettinger's sets (including what has since been referred to as the "tennis racket tree" were breathtaking.  I still remember how some of the younger cast members would slide down the set for their entrances.  And Injun Joe falling through the stage floor got a round of applause (there is a similar effect in PHANTOM).  The songs and the book were really fun and I just remember smiling through the entire show.  I am glad I saw it. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 5/9/20 at 4:24pm

Charley Kringas Inc said: "

Definitely, there are a number of fairly decent songs, and I feel like you also get a sense of why the show didn’t work. It reminds me of Henry Sweet Henry - unfocused and inorganic. I can totally see why another poster in a previous thread about the show said that it was bad, but not boring - it’s sort ofinteresting analyzing why the choices seem wrong."

Thank you!

[Lot666]

Posted: 5/28/20 at 10:47am

CATSNYrevival said: "Stephen Ward was obviously a subject that was particularly interesting to Andrew Lloyd Webber but had limitedcommercial appeal to West End audiences, and virtually zero commercial appeal outside the UK.It's hard to build a hit show from that. Most people, particularly in America, likely don't know who Stephen Ward was and likelyjustdon't care either. Having said that, there are some lovely tunes. "This Side of the Sky" is a favorite."

I love both "Human Sacrifice" and "Too Close to the Flame".

[Lot666]

Posted: 5/28/20 at 10:59am

tmdonahue said: "This is what experience has taught me. Shows that get positive reviews may not be a positive experience for me. But the converse is not true: shows with bad reviews are always bad."

This is what experience has taught me. Shows that get positive reviews from other Broadway/West End performers are usually very good, as are shows that get bad reviews from snarky, mean-spirited critics (e.g., Brantley, Riedel).

[Roland von Berlin]

Posted: 8/7/20 at 9:23pm

You're wrong to say that no book besides Mandelbaum's discusses Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Ethan Mordden's book on sixties musicals spends a few pages on it. He saw the show in

Philadelphia, when it was called Holly Golightly, so you get the flavor of what the work was

like in performance.

[joevitus]

Posted: 8/7/20 at 11:27pm

Jibl said: "I saw Merrily We Roll Along and loved the music and story (although not the idea of casting the entire show with very young, inexperienced actors).

My most vivid memories are all the people that left before the end and Hal Prince (who was sitting a few rows in front of me) shaking his head and covering his face with his hands a lot."

It's baffling to one who owns the cast album and has seen footage of that production that people would walk out in droves as they did, night after night. Sondheim insisted it was out of hatred of himself and Prince, not just a case of dissatisfied audience members. This strikes me as most likely. 

[carnzee]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 6:34am

joevitus said: "

It's baffling to one who owns the cast album and has seen footage of that productionthat people would walk out in droves as they did, night after night.Sondheim insisted it was out of hatred of himself and Prince,not just a case of dissatisfied audience members. This strikes me as most likely."

Right. Same thing happened with Passion. As Mordden says, what did they have better to do than see the latest Sondheim? 

[lotiloti]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 6:50am

Saw Carrie at the Stratford  RSC, before it went to NY.  I kept laughing at dramatic moments (the pig's arrival on stage from the pit, hilarious) Poor old Barbara Cook who seemed not to have a head for heights. Clinging to the red handrail  down the centre of the stage wide staircase, like her life depended on it. People around me loved it. Told me I was talking nonsense when I said it wouldn't last a week on Broadway.

 

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 10:32am

My wife and I many years ago went to see "Laughter On The 23rd Floor" with fairly high expectations of a fun evening. A show written by Neil Simon about the Sid Ceasar show and starring Nathan Lane should be pretty good -lol. We open our Playbill and see Nathan Lane will not be performing that evening (think he was doing promotion of LIon King movie) and the actor that replaced him was wooden and awful in the role. Most of the jokes were pretty lame and watching the show was about as fun as having root canal done.

[Eastwickian]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 11:34am

Does ‘In My Life’ count? That show was . . . I don’t know what it was. The cast were obviously talented, but they were overwhelmed by the weird narrative shifts, mostly boring songs, and tonal gear changes which meant it was difficult to know if you were supposed to be laughing at many points. As a bonus I got glared at by fellow audience members because I refused to give it a standing ovation (though in retrospect the cast probably deserved one). And that’s before all the drama around the shows composer/lyricist/director...

 

lotiloti said: "Saw Carrie at the Stratford RSC, before it went to NY. I kept laughing at dramatic moments (the pig's arrival on stage from the pit, hilarious) Poor old Barbara Cook who seemed not to have a head for heights. Clinging to the red handrail down the centre of the stage wide staircase, like her life depended on it. People around me loved it. Told me I was talking nonsense when I said it wouldn't last a week on Broadway.”

My family went to see Carrie at Stratford - I remember the entertaining conversation over breakfast the next morning when I asked how it was and my parents tried to summerise what they had seen... I think I’ve still got the poster somewhere!

 

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

Posted: 8/8/20 at 12:29pm

Scarlet Leigh said: "So......... Dance of the Vampires. *Pops open a bottle of vodka and takes a shot for strength* Let's talk about that for a hot second.

I don't even know where to start with it.Two girls getting brutally murdered in the opening number while the ensemble has a rocking ballet dance break.Crawford's entrance in a coffin shooting up from the stage floor.The creepyvibe Crawford was giving off anytime he was on the stage with Mandy Gonzalez. The entire song dedicated to garlic. The random flamboyantly gay vampire coming onto the hero waaaaay to strong and that was all he was there to do. The.... *sigh*..... penis sponge joke (Note: every time I talk about this show and I have to mention "penis sponge joke" I die a little inside). The ending flash-forward to an alternate modern day New York were vampires are the dominate race and Times Square is filled with vampire related pun jokes like "Bats: the Musical" instead of Cats. "VSPN" instead of ESPN. "Fang" instead of Tang. "Got Blood?" instead of-OH GOD WHAT WAS THIS SHOW?!"

A ****ty version of a much more interesting one that admittedly had similar elements but didn't try to pretend it was something else.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 1:17pm

joevitus said: "Jibl said: "I saw Merrily We Roll Along and loved the music and story (although not the idea of casting the entire show with very young, inexperienced actors).

My most vivid memories are all the people that left before the end and Hal Prince (who was sitting a few rows in front of me) shaking his head and covering his face with his hands a lot."

It's baffling to one who owns the cast album and has seen footage of that productionthat people would walk out in droves as they did, night after night.Sondheim insisted it was out of hatred of himself and Prince,not just a case of dissatisfied audience members. This strikes me as most likely."

One of my favorite (sad) stories from one of the cast members of the original production was that, throughout the evening, they could see the exit sign in the back of the theatre flickering as people crossed in front of it to leave.

I don't know if it was necessarily because of public opinion about Sondheim and Prince, because the show itself had a notoriously extended preview period with a lot of shake-ups, though there could be an element of rubbernecking at the fall of titans. Sondheim has acknowledged, I think, that they made an error in judgement previewing the show in New York, as they felt confident after having done the same for Sweeney Todd (though they'd had to for Sweeney due to Eugene Lee's giant set).

I've listened to a recording of the show's second preview many times, and the fact that they were able to whittle something as vaguely shapely as what the show eventually became out of the bloated third draft that they started previews with is kind of amazing, but they had no business doing that in front of their New York audience.

What shocks me more is how much worse the show got after it closed and was revised, but I've died on this hill many times.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 5:34pm

One notable turkey I saw was Via Galactica. My first thoughts were WTF. Seeing a bunch of Ping Pong balls suspended by cords to simulate planets in space cemented my initial reaction

Updated On: 8/8/20 at 05:34 PM

[Jarethan]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 6:11pm

Charley Kringas Inc said: "joevitus said: "Jibl said: "I saw Merrily We Roll Along and loved the music and story (although not the idea of casting the entire show with very young, inexperienced actors).

My most vivid memories are all the people that left before the end and Hal Prince (who was sitting a few rows in front of me) shaking his head and covering his face with his hands a lot."

I don't know if it was necessarily because of public opinion about Sondheim and Prince, because the show itself had a notoriously extended preview period with a lot of shake-ups, though there could be an element of rubbernecking at the fall of titans. Sondheim has acknowledged, I think, that they made an error in judgement previewing the show in New York, as they felt confident after having done the same for Sweeney Todd (though they'd had to for Sweeney due to Eugene Lee's giant set).

There may have been people hoping for them to have flop, probably older relatives of Michael Reidel.  I don't think that was the goal of Joe Q Public, who paid money to see the show.  IMO Sondheim and Prince had created such an incredible track record that expectations were set ridiculously high.  I mean Company, Follies, ALNM and Sweeney Todd, not to mention Pacific Overtures (which i intensely disliked but realized was not bad, just not to my taste) in a decade or so.

On top of that, the show really was a disaster.  I have said in previous posts that the lion's share of the blame laid at the feet of Harold Prince IMO, the same Harold Prince who I would argue has played a major creative role in more brilliant productions that anyone in the past 60 years, and I would bet since NY Theatre began.  His concept was just BAD.  No-one can figure out who the characters are...give'm t-shirts that describe their role in the scene, e.g., producer, friend, author, etc., and hope that people past the 4th row can actually read the t-shirts.  The casting with young people was also a grave mistake, again IMO; five or six years ago, i saw a production in Boston that was imported from London.  The lead role was played by an actor in his 40s, Mark Umber; I thought he was outstanding throughout the show, never more so than at the end of the show (beginning of the story) when he was supposed to be 21 or 22.  In the original production, having the roles played by young people created problems for the audience from the top of the show.  They looked like kids playing dress-up, at least insofar as a t-shirt can be construed as dress-up.  That simply strained credibility further.  Speaking for myself, I thought the show was so bad that I did not even realize how outstanding the score was (although I still don't like the overture...shoot me).

I also felt that the book could have been a lot better, an issue I also had with Company.  For me, George Furth was a third-rate writer with good friends.  So, really bad direction coupled with a mediocre script, was what caused the show to be such a notorious flop.

Interestingly, when I saw the Boston production, I did not have issues with the book.  I don't know whether the much better direction clarified things that were perhaps still a muddle in the script OR whether the book was not as bad as I originally thought OR if it had been worked on since I originally saw it.  In any event, the production was excellent.  I have been surprised for years that that production was not brought to Broadway, specifically by the Roundabout.  It is a real shame.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 8/8/20 at 11:29pm

It was just too many concepts to pull off in one round of previews. It's a throwback to frothy showbiz love triangle musicals. Great! It's a concept piece about a bunch of high schoolers putting on an amateur "This Is Your Life" play. Great! It's an investigation into what it means to have and keep artistic ideals. Great! That's a lot to put on to one audience.

I do love the idea of what it could've been if it had been clarified and edited. The concept that they're high school kids "doing" a high school play of his life has a lot of promise, but you have to not only sell the idea from the start, but blow it up so it's a bigger than life version of a high school play Are the opening scenes meant to be a pastiche of what a high-schooler would think showbiz is like? Are they acting bad on purpose? It needed a moment like Waiting For The Girls in Follies, where the audience has an a-ha and is on board with the concept.

I also love the idea of a throwback to frothy showbiz rom-com musicals, but Sondheim has trouble nailing this. "Old Friends" is a fun three-part number but it doesn't really "froth", and "Now You Know" is, narratively speaking, a trainwreck.

On top of that, and blame for this is to be laid also on Lorenz and Hart, they wimp out on providing an actual philosophical explanation to why Franklin gets where he is. It's not a story about giving up on ideals, it's a story about manipulative wives. This is particularly true in the awful rewrite, where Franklin almost convinces himself to do the right thing, and then Gussie comes out and basically sings about how she's horny and they should go to the bedroom to bang and be rich. That's not a motive, that's a cop-out, and the fact that we're perpetually denied real access to Frank's psyche makes it an unsatisfying show.

One of my favorite moments that was cut from the previews was a bit about Frank talking about how his dad died penniless, and Frank says, with legitimate desperation, "I can't be nobody! I can't be nobody with nothing!" Just for a moment we get this great flash of emotional insight. Why it was excised, I'll never know.

Updated On: 8/8/20 at 11:29 PM

[JustAnotherNewYorker]

Posted: 8/9/20 at 2:08am

When the curtain fell on King Kong, I turned to my friend in the seat next to me and said "If I was the ape, I'd be on the phone with my agent to get me out of this turkey"

Not too much "infamy" in my history show history I guess. I do remember that I wasn't impressed with the original sideshow in very late 1997 (It may have suffered from the comparison with 1776, which I saw in matinee earlier in the day. Both Pat Hingle and Brent Spiner were great)

[A Director]

Posted: 8/9/20 at 3:20am

Charley Kringas Inc said: 
On top of that, and blame for this is to be laid also on Lorenz and Hart, they wimp out on providing an actual philosophical explanation to why Franklin gets where he is. It's not a story about giving up on ideals, it's a story about manipulative wives. This is particularly true in the awful rewrite, where Franklin almost convinces himself to do the right thing, and then Gussie comes out and basically sings about how she's horny and they should go to the bedroom tobang and be rich. That's not a motive, that's a cop-out, and the fact that we're perpetually denied real access to Frank's psyche makes it an unsatisfying show.

Who are Lorenz and Hart?  Merrily We Roll Along, the play, was written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.  It was their second show.  The first scene is okay and it ends with bottle of iodine thrown in the face of a young woman.  Nothing else in the play tops this. Overall, the play is so-so.

The  main things the musical has in common with the play is the title and going backward in time. Sondheim, Furth and Prince made changes, so they are to blame for the lack of explanation.

[joevitus]

Posted: 8/9/20 at 5:46am

One thing I will say about the costume choices: as someone who worked as a dresser on production of Merrily in the late 80's that used period costumes rather than sweatshirts with names on them--the idea of trying to do period costuming with this show is insane. The book simply leaves to time for the major characters (Frank especially) to change costumes. You end up with actors wearing layer upon layer of costume pieces to pull off and replace with something else, and it looks cheap and tacky and the actors are all in a heightened anxiety state about being ready costume-wise for the next scene, on top of the anxiety of having to play the next scene as if they have no knowledge of the previous scene but keeping in mind the motivations of future scenes that will provide the given current scene with it's subtext. Oh, and long, exhausting numbers one right after the other (all three of the leads have to go from "Now You Know" to "It's a Hit" almost immediately, after having been on stage for most of the entire act). 

Merrily is an abysmal show book-wise, though a glorious one score-wise.  I'm not remotely surprised it flopped. I'm just surprised that people would literally walk out during the performances at, apparently, all the previews and the few performances it had during its official run. Not going after the word got out or leaving at intermission? I can understand that. Walking out during the performance? Massive walkouts during the performance? Just baffles me. 

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 8/9/20 at 9:09am

A Director said: "Charley Kringas Inc said:
On top of that, and blame for this is to be laid also on Lorenz and Hart, they wimp out on providing an actual philosophical explanation to why Franklin gets where he is. It's not a story about giving up on ideals, it's a story about manipulative wives. This is particularly true in the awful rewrite, where Franklin almost convinces himself to do the right thing, and then Gussie comes out and basically sings about how she's horny and they should go to the bedroom tobang and be rich. That's not a motive, that's a cop-out, and the fact that we're perpetually denied real access to Frank's psyche makes it an unsatisfying show.

Who are Lorenz and Hart? Merrily We Roll Along, the play, was written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It was their second show. The first scene is okay and it ends with bottle of iodine thrown in the face of a young woman. Nothing else in the play tops this. Overall, the play is so-so.

The main things the musical has in common with the play is the title and going backward in time. Sondheim, Furth and Prince madechanges, so they are to blame for the lack of explanation."

OMG I did the thing lmao. Yes, Kaufman and Hart is who I meant. The other big similarity between the play and the musical is that, in the play, the Frank equivalent also is seduced by a sexy rich woman, and the Charley equivalent ruins their friendship by doing a painting of them in which she’s an octopus or something like that.

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 8/9/20 at 1:48pm

Dollypop wrote: The preview period for TITANIC was definitely infamous.

I've been a Titanic buff since 4th grade when I read Walter Lord's book, A NIGHT TO REMEMBER.

I went to an early preview of the musical and it truly was awful! I felt especially bad as Walter Lord...in a wheelchair and, I believe, with an oxygen tank, was in the audience that night.

I took a chance and went back to the show shortly after it had opened and loved it. I couldn't believe how much it had been improved! Saw it three more times after that...but the early previews were definitely infamous!