Hilty & Simard to lead DEATH BECOMES HER in Chicago spring 2024; Broadway in the fall- Page 9

[Dolly80]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 2:04am

This all confirms my initial hunch- why the hell did they cast Michelle Williams? This role needs a powerhouse performer - she ain’t it. Let’s hope they recast her before this comes to the Lunt.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 3:07am

jacobsnchz14 said: "Merch is online!https://aracaeventmerch.com/collections/dbh-shop-all"

Now that's some cute merch. I do like the pins and the fact they aren't afraid of graphics but the font also elevates the text-based stuff. It looks better than all the basic text merch that's so popular because it feels like there's some design to it.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 8:43am

EDSOSLO858 said: "RippedMan said: "Is this Arden’s first original musical?"

Arden’s not doing this. Are you thinking ofMaybe Happy Ending?"

Was thinking of Queen of Versailles! 

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 8:59am

It’s such a pity that you can’t just get a T-shirt with the little bottle and the words now a warning ( like on the back ) instead of the over the top logo on the front. 
Sometimes less is more 

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 9:16am

Dolly80 said: "This all confirms my initial hunch- why the hell did they cast Michelle Williams? This role needs a powerhouse performer - she ain’t it. Let’s hope they recast her before this comes to the Lunt."

Scherzinger did the workshops and I couldn’t help but think what she would have brought to the role considering how much more dynamic she naturally is as a performer. 

[Scarlet Leigh]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 9:44am

jacobsnchz14 said: "The ending felt rushed and there is a change with Ernest that’s different from the film, and there’s no final moment from the film of the ladies falling and collapsing after the funeral."

By chance is the ending something along the lines of 

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

The two of them looking fabulous but watching on as Ernest has moved on with a new life and family and though he is aging he is happy and the play it off as "poor him, growing old and going to die" but are clearly both envious of him though they won't say it because he is the one truly "living"?

Because that was suppose to be the original end to the movie but they decided to end on a comedic note so filmed the comedic falling down the stairs one instead. When I first heard about this musical, I guessed they would return the original pensive/bittersweet ending.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 9:45am

Adeliciaboy said: "Dear Broadway World message board readers. Please allow me to inject a note of sanity into the severalfavorable reactions to this travesty’s first preview. I was there tonight too. First off, this is NOT a Broadway musical. It’s a trashy Vegas comic act masquerading as theater. The show has no coherentscript and no music except for one 11 o’clock number sung by the two leading ladiesthat is so ridiculously over the top that you listen in disbelief. The show also is mostly devoid of choreography even though that is supposedly Gattelli’s strength. What he has put in the show is movement that any grade schooler could have provided. Did I mention the bare-behind chorus boys that greet the audience at the top of the show?By the final curtain Iwas beyond exhausted fromwatching two women who I thought had some theater chops hyperventilate for well over two tedious hours trying to land all their punch lines. The show as directed (If you can call what Gattelli is doing direction) is a total camp catastrophe. The less said about Michelle Williams the better. She must need work desperately if she’s willing to sit around backstage for most of the show, only to appear a couple of times to sing dull bombastic stuff that stops the show — but not in a good way. Poor Christopher Sieber. What a waste of talent. Totally disconnected from reality, “Death Becomes Her” is nothing more than a garish and overlong cartoon strip. Go if you like. Laugh all you want. But the theater industry is getting another nail in its coffin with this dead-on-arrival monstrosity."

This made me want to buy a ticket.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 9:47am

Made me more excited about seeing it next week lol

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 9:55am

I thought I'd seen the movie before, but I guess I got it confused with the Roseanne Barr movie. Guess I'll be watching this tonight in anticipation of Sunday. Very excited! 

[dave1606]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 10:08am

Anyone who has seen this can you let me know the runtime? Many thanks. 

[Marlothom]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 10:22am

dave1606 said: "Anyone who has seen this can you let me know the runtime? Many thanks."

tough to tell since it was first preview and I imagine they will be making some cuts, but Act 1 ran about 80 minutes, act 2 was closer to 45-50.  Very short speech by Director at the top of the show.   

I think one thing they will need to work on is timing of jokes.  There were many lines that went unheard because the audience was laughing or clapping.  Simard was the only one that instinctively changed her pacing so that most of her lines were heard.   

I kept imagining how this would have been like with Nicole Scherzinger as Viola!!!  

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 10:23am

“Garish cartoon strip” is kind of exactly the tone of the movie, so I don’t think it’s the dig Adeliciaboy thinks it is.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 10:40am

RippedMan said: "I thought I'd seen the movie before, but I guess I got it confused with the Roseanne Barr movie. Guess I'll be watching this tonight in anticipation of Sunday. Very excited!"

You got the director of the show wrong and you got the movie it was based on wrong? I guess you’ll at the very least be surprised when you see it. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 10:51am

Makes it even more exciting! But I think I'll watch the movie beforehand. 

[Plannietink08]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 11:07am

Adeliciaboy said: "Dear Broadway World message board readers. Please allow me to inject a note of sanity into the severalfavorable reactions to this travesty’s first preview. I was there tonight too. First off, this is NOT a Broadway musical. It’s a trashy Vegas comic act masquerading as theater. The show has no coherentscript and no music except for one 11 o’clock number sung by the two leading ladiesthat is so ridiculously over the top that you listen in disbelief. The show also is mostly devoid of choreography even though that is supposedly Gattelli’s strength. What he has put in the show is movement that any grade schooler could have provided. Did I mention the bare-behind chorus boys that greet the audience at the top of the show?By the final curtain Iwas beyond exhausted fromwatching two women who I thought had some theater chops hyperventilate for well over two tedious hours trying to land all their punch lines. The show as directed (If you can call what Gattelli is doing direction) is a total camp catastrophe. The less said about Michelle Williams the better. She must need work desperately if she’s willing to sit around backstage for most of the show, only to appear a couple of times to sing dull bombastic stuff that stops the show — but not in a good way. Poor Christopher Sieber. What a waste of talent. Totally disconnected from reality, “Death Becomes Her” is nothing more than a garish and overlong cartoon strip. Go if you like. Laugh all you want. But the theater industry is getting another nail in its coffin with this dead-on-arrival monstrosity."

Omg! Sounds incredible! 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 11:13am

Also, they had me at “bare-behind chorus boys.” Like, yeah babes, they know their audience.

[Observation]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 11:15am

Some of these comments bring up a point that I had asked a friend last night. “Do you think if someone walked into this show without seeing the movie, would any of this make sense or land?” And we were not sure how to answer that. I would be interested to get some takes on it from folks who have never seen the film, because to be honest, I could see the musical being all over the place. I still very much enjoyed it. I will also go back later in the run to see what changes they made!

[Menken Fan]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 11:27am

I had a hard time getting through this last night. Maybe I set my expectations too high.

Megan and Jennifer are fantastic, but they are working really hard to carry this material. Megan is perfect for this role. I love Jennifer, and she is realistic and believable in the first act, but she develops a crazy accent and mannerisms starting from the point in the story when she's in the asylum, which make her seem very cartoonish for the rest of the show.

Megan's big first number is a highlight, but also mildly offensive. It's about her appeal to the gays, so of course she dresses as stereotypical gay icons, like Liza and Judy, surrounded by chorus boys in rainbow tuxedos that have a big reveal of bare ass cheeks. Always fun and modern to make gays the butt of the joke (so to speak).

In the movie, Madeline is performing in a musical version of Sweet Bird of Youth, which was funny and relevant to the story themes. In this stage version she's in a show called "Me! Me! Me!" and all we see of that is this big gay number.  What is this show she's in??? It looks like a cheesy Las Vegas female impersonator show.

The ensemble does nothing except slink around in the scenes with Viola, wearing very revealing bodysuits. Not really complaining about that, since it's something pleasant to look at (hi, Mikey Graceffa), but it did give me strong Devil Wears Prada/Lempicka vibes when the show started, and that's not great.

Enough has been said about Michelle Williams. Bad acting and bad material. That role needs an overhaul.

Josh Lamon plays Madeline's assistant early in the show, but that character just disappears later. He also plays the fat version of Elvis Presley in the scene at Viola's party. In the movie, they cleverly had a number of dead celebrities attending the party, and I thought that would be a funny element to present in the musical. However, here we only have Elvis and no others. Seems like a missed opportunity.

In general, I didn't think the music was engaging. I can't really comment on the lyrics, since I couldn't hear 75% of the lyrics and much dialogue due to the Palace's atrocious sound system. I also missed a lot of dialogue, partly due to technical shortfalls, but also from an over enthusiastic audience whooping and yelling, mainly early in the show, before they settled down.

I had read about how a professional illusionist had been brought in to oversee the effects, so I was expecting to be amazed, especially considering the movie relied heavily on impressive CGI.  I saw almost nothing in the way of effects on that stage. There was something happening with Megan's head for a second before the first act curtain, which I couldn't see well.  The famous gunshot hole through Helen's abdomen, which is played to great effect in the movie, is shown as just a black circle on Jennifer's costume, from what I could see, and then it's covered with another costume fairly quickly, never to be mentioned again.  Oh, and the memorable gunshot and shovel fight between the leads happen offstage. Also, Madeline's slow-motion fall down the stairs just looks like a very flexible ensemble member slowly bouncing back and forth before collapsing on the floor. I didn't see any other effects. If there were any, they weren't visible from the front row mezzanine.

The comedy seemed pretty low-key to me, aside from some cutting one-liners and random sexual double entendres. For example, at one point, Jennifer says the word "come" in a couple of lines, then points that out and says she just can't get "come" out of her mouth. Such an odd out-of-character non-sequitur.

There are many places where the pacing drags and could be tightened, scenes where Megan and Jennifer are just standing talking on a bare stage, bad staging where I couldn't see what was happening at the top of the stairs or the funeral scene, and very little actual choreography other than Megan's big number.

I really am pulling for this show and will be returning to it late in the run to see what might change.

 

[Observation]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 12:07pm

Sorry for million of posts but also just catching, in Hilty’s opening song, she literally sang “we all know that this whole damn show is for the gays/gaze!” 😂 they know that they’re doing. 

Updated On: 5/1/24 at 12:07 PM

[Marlothom]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 12:37pm

I realize there is no song list but I thought it was "I do it all for the gaze" which made it even more funny. 

Updated On: 5/1/24 at 12:37 PM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 12:42pm

Officially "gaze"...but obviously intending to be read/heard as "gays."



 

Updated On: 5/1/24 at 12:42 PM

[gingersnap2]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 1:21pm

They did throw a (stuffed) Toto into Megan's hands for that last button. I loved that. 

Updated On: 5/1/24 at 01:21 PM

[Meyerschultz]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 5:33pm

RippedMan said: "I thought I'd seen the movie before, but I guess I got it confused with the Roseanne Barr movie. Guess I'll be watching this tonight in anticipation of Sunday. Very excited!"

Were you thinking of She-Devil? I could see that with Meryl’s role being similar. 

[Plannietink08]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 6:13pm

I thank the kind soul who put Warren Yang in that bodysuit and the person who filmed the curtain call for us all to see. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 5/1/24 at 6:18pm

Meyerschultz said: "RippedMan said: "I thought I'd seen the movie before, but I guess I got it confused with the Roseanne Barr movie. Guess I'll be watching this tonight in anticipation of Sunday. Very excited!"

Wereyou thinking of She-Devil? I could see that with Meryl’s role being similar."

Yes!