Short & Sweet Treats discussion

What plays or musicals have you seen that you'd like to share with us? Are they based on books? If so, how do they compare?

I loved the musical WICKED, based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. While it had to condense elements of the book, I thought it captured Maguire's theme beautifully.

I found a youtube video of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth performing "Defying Gravity" at the Tony Awards--MAGIC! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g4ek...

Julia wrote: "I loved the musical WICKED, based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. While it had to condense elements of the book, I thoug..."

That's one musical I haven't been able to see yet because it keeps coming to theaters with expensive tickets and no deals. But during my vacation to Washington DC, we took a day-trip on Amtrak, and we saw Idina Menzel starring in the musical If/Then on Broadway! A rare treat for me!! My first musical I actually saw in New York (all the rest have been in LA)! I was worried my 13 year old nephew would be bored, but afterwards, he said he would give it 4 of 5 stars. I was so happy!

For me, Idina Menzel was wonderful, but I liked the last musical created by that team (Next to Normal) much better. Next to Normal is a fascinating musical about struggles with mental illness and loss. A strikingly affecting musical! Here is a link to a scene from Next to Normal on YouTube: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Uq_sdaQ5CU

Here's a link to a View performance of Alice Ripley (who plays the mother): http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j2CXMXEIPI0

Julia wrote: "I loved the musical WICKED, based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. While it had to condense elements of the book, I thoug..."

I love Wicked as well Julia. I remember the first time I saw Gravity performed. It took my breath away!

I absolutely love musicals! My favorites are definitely Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and Rent. I haven't been able to see any live though because of money and transportation issues. Hopefully someday.

I've been putting off watching Wicked (a bootleg of course since watching live is not an option) for a long time now because I'm steadfast on reading the book first. Still haven't been able to get my hands on a copy.

A shout out to one of my favorite producers of plays & musicals in California - Deaf West Theater. They produce top notch versions of both plays & musicals utilizing a mix of deaf and hearing actors. The surprising thing: I haven't seen one production of theirs that hasn't outdid the original material they adapted!

Their version of Pippin in my humble opinion was a masterpiece! They used two different actors, one deaf and one hearing to portray each of the major characters. The deaf one signed, and the hearing one sang. Both acted the part. The fascinating thing about deaf actors is that they've grown up using facial expressions along with sign language to express themselves; so many of the actors I've seen there are incredibly expressive. They could practically tell the entire story with their face! In the climax of their version of Pippin, the two actors playing him come into conflict and one of them is stripped away. I won't tell more in case anyone gets the chance to see a revival.

Here's a link to Michael Arden singing "Morning Glory" from the show. No picture at all though. The choreography and the deaf & hearing dancers were amazing!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RrpkJUeUVr8

And here's a link to Deaf West Theater:

http://www.deafwest.org

I can't wait to check out the link. sounds amazing!

I wish there was a DVD of the show! Unfortunately the link I gave you is only audio because there's no official recording for sale.

I saw it 10 times or so during its LA run - it took me a couple months to recover financially from all the ticket purchases, but it was worth it! :)

I've seen and enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera, Noises Off and Urinetown.

My favorite musical of all time is Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. Bernadette Peters was incredible as the Witch in the original Broadway production. The musical premiered on Broadway Nov. 5, 1987, at the Martin Beck Theatre. The production, which ran for 764 performances, won Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book and Best Actress in a Musical. You can see the opening scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFKDd...

Disney will be releasing the film this Christmas, with Meryl Streep as the Witch; the trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QEW3... Even from the short trailer, I'm disappointed at the "over the top" quality--what made it so magical on Broadway was the fairytale quality of the sets as well as the songs. The changes Disney has made are disappointing, to say the least.

Full cast and crew is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/f...

Not sure I care to see it, since I own the DVD of the Broadway show, which I absolutely love. And if they really do cut the part of the Narrator, the entire show will suffer imho.

I've seen several different productions of that musical Julia, though never on Broadway. The show has a very fine book and score! One bigger production at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles with Vanessa Williams as the witch was quite good. At the other end of the spectrum, I saw a small production at East West Theater that was different but also excellent. East West Theater is a smaller company that does versions of plays and musicals with Asian American casts (meant to provide more opportunities to the Asian theater community - I think it was founded by David Henry Hwang).

It can be hard to see the changes that come about when plays and musicals get adapted for movies, but it's nice they can reach a larger audience. The Phantom Of the Opera movie was pretty good (despite Gerard Butler's singing or sort-of singing). And I thought the movie version of Les Miserables with Jackman and Hathaway was fantastic!

I see your point, Greg--and I do think the huge musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables transfer well to screen.

But Into the Woods is such a fey, magical piece--with that dark existential second act--and I just wish they'd decided to go with less "bombast" in the film. The trailer made me cringe. Guess we'll see--I'm sure it will be popular, but whether it can keep the Sondheim magic intact is a question for me.

I know what you mean Julia. Sometimes I feel that way when cherished plays are adapted into movies as well. Friends love them, and I don't want to be a snob but sometimes they feel really off to me. Of course other times plays transfer to screen quite well.

I share your fears about Into the Woods .. it's an intimate and intelligent piece, much less of a giant spectacle than a musical like Phantom. And making it into a giant spectacle would distort the whole show.

My town does two plays for the Shakespeare Festival - it's lots of fun and really laid back. It's at an outdoor theater so everyone brings the kids, blankets, picnics, pets, etc.

Tonight's play was The Two Gentlemen of Verona and I have to say, WTF were you thinking, Shakespeare?!

Yes, yes, I know that by the rules of comedy everyone should have a happy ending and preferably get married but come on! If I were Julia, I would have slapped the **** out of Proteus and possibly tried to gouge his eyes out. If I were Valentine, I would have decked him and then kicked him right where it hurt most until that part didn't work any more. And I'm not a violent person, so that should say a little bit about how terribly pissed off the second half of the play made me.

(view spoiler)[Proteus betrays his best friend Valentine and gets him exiled on the night he was to elope so that he could have a chance with the fiance Silvia - and this is all despite him having a serious relationship of his own!

Julia arrives in town - and realizes that Proteus is cheating on her - and for some unknown reason, decides to stay disguised as a boy so she can be his servant and has to assist in wooing Silvia by carrying letters and even the ring that she'd given Proteus as a love-token when they parted at the beginning of the play.

Silvia runs away - runs into outlaws and is rescued by Proteus - who says he intends to "force" her love - by which I assume (and so did the directors) that Proteus was going to rape her. In the nick of time, Valentine arrives to rescue her from her rescuer. He's understandably furious, but Proteus is contrite and Valentine forgives him within a couple of minutes... and in less 10 minutes later, they're off to a double wedding - Valentine with Silvia and Proteus with Julia.

Seriously... If I'd been Julia, it all would have been over once I realized Proteus was cheating on me. I certainly wouldn't have HELPED with the cheating - and not have given the ring away! And yet she married him!

If I'd been Valentine and I'd heard my best friend say he was going to rape my fiance, I'd do my best to make sure he'd never get it up again!
(hide spoiler)]

It's definitely the worst Shakespeare play I've read or heard so far. I didn't like The Comedy of Errors much either, but that was just because I don't care for slapstick humor. This play just plain pissed me off. I could barely bring myself to clap at the end - which is a shame cause the performance was quite good for the script they had to work with.

LOL, Melanti--you go, girl! I do think Shakespeare was able to write great plays with women dressed as men, since he wanted to give females a freedom they certainly didn't possess in that time period!

My favorites of that ilk are As You Like It and Twelfth Night, but those don't have all the ugly underpinnings of Proteus's infidelity. In a way, by making the men such JERKS, Shakespeare is once again placing value on the women's viewpoint, perhaps?

Even though I taught Shakespeare for years, I'm well aware that he had his highs and lows--plus he was writing for his "audience", which included the groundlings who LOVED "slapstick".

I have a fond place in my heart for only a few of the Bard's works--Hamlet and Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I do think his men are more blatant (and unreasoning) jerks in the earlier plays - like The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew. Same with the slapstick humor - it makes me cringe more in the earliest plays as well.

That leads me to think that it's more to do with Shakespeare still figuring out how to balance all the different elements rather than a deliberate effect.

My favorite out of all the comedies I've read so far has been Much Ado About Nothing. I love all the banter between Benedict and Beatrice which makes up for Claudio being such an ass.

My favorite out of the tragedies is Othello, though I do really like how every time I see Hamlet it seems like a completely different play since there's so many different ways the lines can be interpreted.

I always enjoyed teaching Hamlet, followed by having the students watch the film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (one of my top 10 plays). They grasped the central link of both, while being able to really "get" Stoppard's dark humor.

The clip called "Life in a Box" echoes Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" speech; youtube has it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LYDK... Tim Roth and Gary Oldman are excellent, imho. The entire film can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KchhS...

I've just read Everyman by Carol Ann Duffy after seeing the play performed in London. Both the playscript and performance were outstanding, I would love to see it again, but sadly the run is over.

I'm not sure it is a dying art. More often in the news I hear of classically trained actors who have been doing film and TV returning to the stage e.g. benedict Cumerbutch in Hamlet.
Theatre are gradually opening to the idea of digital productions as well, although it needs to be developed.

Unless of course you just made a pun on Everyman. In which case lol! :)