642 posts
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Post by Stasia on Aug 27, 2016 20:22:33 GMT
^Weird, and even weirder as we met at the Playhouse this time last year, didn't we, Mallardo. Shame indeed the intervals weren't at the same time. Maybe we should adopt the Southwark Playhouse as the official theatreboard clubhouse, now! I read that as cuddlehouse at first! Great to meet you Steve, and I'm kinda flattered you recognised me! Loved the show, I knew nothing about it and it felt really genuine and deep and somehow reminded me of a good movie (in the best possible way)
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3,784 posts
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Post by anthony40 on Aug 27, 2016 22:04:59 GMT
I'm kinda flattered you recognised me! See, I knew that posting profile pics would reap benefits
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642 posts
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Post by Stasia on Aug 27, 2016 22:45:26 GMT
anthony40, actually I always had my photo as a profile pic here and on the old forum and on twitter... But Steve recognised me from my dayseat selfies! This is what really helping
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2016 17:39:15 GMT
Well it's a charming but rather outdated show. I found it difficult to sympathise with the message of going home and thought the representation of the city and the new job to be too cartoonishly evil. The music is catchy and tuneful, but 'The Gentleman is a Dope' sounds like nothing else in the score and manages to wake the audience up a bit. It almost reminds me more of the kind of music Rodgers wrote when he worked with Hart, not Hammerstein (and the Rodgers that is more to my personal taste). It helps that the character that sings that song is the only principal female character that isn't a stereotype. For all its faults though, it's a great production. Inventive staging, exciting choreography and a powerhouse cast with brilliant voices. The main actor was mostly effective although was a bit OTT at times for my taste. Everyone else was pretty faultless.
3*
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270 posts
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Post by littlesally on Aug 30, 2016 18:31:50 GMT
Really liked the SP production but finally listened to the recent studio cast recording. It is breathtakingly beautiful!
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Post by Mr Snow on Sept 1, 2016 11:35:44 GMT
First Post. So pleased to have found this forum
Delighted that the chance to see this came up but almost lost the will to live by the time he got to college. Thankfully second act much better.
Can’t help but think Sondheim learnt the most from this and as for an earlier poster, Merrily came to mind.
Finally did no one else wonder who R&H thought their audience would be? It’s not the stay at home on the farm types it’s the badass city dwellers who want fun and not a lecture!
Pleased to have the opportunity to be there and great Kudos to everyone involved with this production, but it’s a rarity for a reason. The plot stinks and time has not been kind.
Ps Is it to much to point out it was Hammerstein who loved life back on the farm and Rogers who kept a flat in the city for his philandering? Was the former trying to get a message over to the latter?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2016 8:34:58 GMT
Well. The gentleman is a dope is right. I suppose you get a bit of a payoff at the end but you spend the majority of the show thinking just how stupid this guy is for staying with this horrid, utterly dislikable wife. Some nice tunes in it and a fair bit of ladder action going on. Some of the dance routines are very good and there's the entertaining russian roulette moments of "will one of the cast knock out someone in the front row?". Nice cast, Dylan Turner and Katie Bernstein standing out for me.
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1,103 posts
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Post by mallardo on Sept 4, 2016 8:50:48 GMT
I suppose every show reflects the time in which it was written as much as the time in which it's set, but Allegro seems an extreme example of that. I think it can be seen as something of an allegory - Joe's journey from small town to big city standing in for the emergence of America as the richest and most powerful country in the world following WWII and having a lot of doubts about it. Isolationism is no longer possible but what will a leadership role in world affairs bring with it - what values will be lost?
I'm not saying that was in Oscar Hammerstein's mind when he wrote it - for him it probably reflected his own personal battle with the travails of success - but I believe it's there in the narrative and perhaps accounts for some of the (to us) naïve and downright corny storytelling. It's trying too hard to be an everyman tale, to make a larger point, and the result is to make it too simple.
That said, I went with it all the way and found myself totally caught up in Joe's over-familiar story. I loved the score - with the exception of The Gentleman is a Dope I'd not heard any of it before - which, from the very first chords sounded exactly like a Rodgers and Hammerstein show. If the show had been a success and the songs had been heard more I don't doubt that a few of them would have emerged as standards.
But most of all I loved Thom Southerland's production, inventive and illuminating and making the best possible case for the piece. He's such a phenom in the fringe musical world I keep wondering when he's going to get his chance at a big West End production. Of course, if and when that happens he'll have to deal with his own "travails of success", bringing the whole thing full circle.
I thought the cast was exceptional, top to bottom. I loved Gary Tushaw's Joe - I thought he was perfect - and Leah West and Katie Bernstein and, especially, Joe's parents, Steve Watts and Julia J. Nagle. Ms Nagle has the show's 11 o'clock number, "Come Home" and she nails it.
It was fascinating to see an R & H show one actually didn't know - and emerge wanting to see it and hear it again. Congrats to all involved.
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241 posts
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Post by justafan on Sept 7, 2016 14:30:25 GMT
Anyone seen this recently? is it still around a 22.10 finish? 😀
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241 posts
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Post by justafan on Sept 7, 2016 16:08:51 GMT
Thanks
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