CARRIE: Ripe for Resurrection?

Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:40 pm Post subject:

I've been following this over at Broadway World. I'd like to say this is completely unexpected but I've always had a feeling they'd rework the material at some point. I'm so excited!

Sutton as Ms. Gardener, hmmm. Interesting.

Marin would make a wonderful Mrs. White!
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:28 am Post subject:

Granted, I have only heard her in Passion and Ragtime, I'm surprised you think Mazzie is well suited to the role. I wonder how she will do "Eve was Weak", BUckley was so fierce. Mazzie comes across as 'tame'.
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:35 am Post subject:

Have you heard Barbara Cook's performance as Margaret? She gave a beautiful and haunting rendition that was much different from Betty Buckley's psychotic rage. Even though Marin Mazzie did demonstrate a strong belt in Kiss Me Kate, and I wouldn't completely underestimate her ability to give a Betty-inspired performance, my guess is that she will lean toward Barbara Cook's interpretation.
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Let the record show that I loved
Carrie long before it was brought
back to become an obnoxious fad.

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:51 am Post subject:

Hopefully a studio recording (or in person if it is showing next year's season since I'm trying to save...but a revival can come together that quickly, if it happens at all) will do more justice to a 'Cook'-style interpretation. After hearing Buckley's performance I found Cook's boring (but any 'nuance' would have been lost on the bootleg clip on saw on YouTube)
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:08 am Post subject:

I know where some Barbara Cook clips are located on youtube but I haven't watched them for myself. My source is the Mendelbaum footage - is that the same? I ask because what I've seen of Barbara Cook was gorgeous... Evening Prayers for example could move me to tears, as opposed to Betty Buckley who screamed the whole song (until the high G, which she whimpered). But then I always prefer more subtle character choices, so I'm sure I lean toward the way Babs did it anyway. I see Betty Buckley as taking after Piper Laurie, but Barbara Cook as being the broken, tormented soul in the novel.
_________________
Let the record show that I loved
Carrie long before it was brought
back to become an obnoxious fad.

Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:42 pm Post subject:

Oh. When I mean I've heard her I was only referring to "Eve was Weak"...I guess I could imagine Mazzie singing the other songs.

How do you think the other songs should be handled? ("In", "Dream On", "Out for Blood" "Wotta night" etc..)? Is there anything that can be saved?
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Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:11 pm Post subject:

In isn't a terrible song. The only thing I would change about it is Miss Gardner's section in the middle. Since she ends up being the character who is kind to Carrie and leads her to believe in herself, I don't like that she goes on for several bars saying "Shame on you, overweight's a sin / Keep those bodies, keep those bodies, keep those bodies thin." Especially if Carrie is going to be pleasingly plump as in Linzi Hately's case. That's inconsistent. Just cut those few bars and it's fine.

Dream On could use lyrical adjustments. "Silver lace with a blue-gray bodice" isn't clever enough to be used twice. "Six foot three, and he's in his forties" is too far out there, these are popular high school girls, not May-December gold-diggers. Carrie's verse needs to be a combination of the Stratford and Broadway versions. The Broadway version suggests that Carrie feels unloved by Margaret, which doesn't do justice to the nuances of their relationship; the Stratford version is lame when it gets into having a twin and foreshadowing the prom dress. A winning combination of the two would be, "Why'd they laugh when they know I'm trying? Momma says everybody sins. Saints and angels above me! Momma's home and her song awaits me. Momma's there when the nightmare ends. Momma says that she loves me. Sometimes I dream that I could be strong. Maybe I'm wrong, but sometimes I dream I belong." And as I said earlier, the scene needs to be reworked so the girls are either simply changing without showering, or wearing towels with the showers implied... the pink body suits were pathetic. Either way, I don't know why Linzi Hately was showering wrapped in a bedsheet, but that was bizarre and does not need to be repeated.

I don't think Out for Blood is too bad, but it needs cleanup. The parts with all the guys telling Billy to get a blow job in exchange for killing the pig are forced, lose those. It would benefit from less abstract staging, let's put Chris in some normal clothes instead of a Solid Gold Dancer from Hell getup, and put some shirts on the popular guys.

Wotta Night would be a lot less irritating if it were spelled What a Night. I don't have a lot of dance appreciation, so I would just as soon cut a lot of the dance break. But it isn't too offensive.

The biggest problem is Do Me a Favor. It's just a poor song, especially Tommy's part and the bridge with the chorus - "Do me a favor. (What's on your mind?) Do me a favor. (So now you need me?)" And "This girl's desperate, come on and save her, baby baby baby baby do me a favor" is right up there with Noah going all the way back to the Protozoa. Also, it needs to be less dancey. In the original, it was just Billy/Chris and Tommy/Sue rotating around the chorus doing a bizarre jig. NOT EVERY BAR OF A SONG HAS TO BE A DANCE STEP. That is key.

The apologies and Unsuspecting Hearts scene, and later the It Hurts to be Strong scene, would both make more sense in the locker room than in the gym.

Carrie's house needs furniture, and the image of the house being full of religious images is popular enough that it wouldn't kill them to at least incorporate the Last Supper tapestry.

Bringing all the "cars" onstage for Don't Waste the Moon is too gimmicky. The scene could just as easily take place anywhere else, it doesn't have to be at a drive-in. Or, if they want to keep that aspect, just have the couples sitting on picnic blankets or something.

Lose the ivory stairway to Heaven at the end. Just let Carrie arrive back at home. Make what happens more clear. In Stratford, it wasn't clear why Carrie died because the stabbing was too subtle to be seen from the audience even if you were watching for it, and on Broadway it wasn't clear why Margaret died because Carrie didn't do anything visual to her. And unless Sue is more fleshed out and the exchange she has in the book with the dying Carrie is worked in, there's no reason for her to console Carrie at the end. Why have a survivor if she doesn't have anything to sing about?
_________________
Let the record show that I loved
Carrie long before it was brought
back to become an obnoxious fad.

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:11 pm Post subject: CARRIE Cast Announcement

Playbill has reported the cast for the Carrie reading:

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 5:40 am Post subject:

Also, about half a dozen songs have been cut, with about ten songs newly written for the project. Which songs are gone has not been announced yet...

I'm hoping Out For Blood and Wotta Night got cut.
_________________
"I LOVE incarceration,
I could lock up a platoon,
I'll be strapping up an inmate,
Very tightly, very soon.
So wave one bachelor goodbye,
She'll be your bride- she'd rather die
Than have her daddy ossify
In my sordid saloon..."

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:50 am Post subject: And...

Presumably with Diana DeGarmo as Chris, the role will be less of a dance role than when Charlotte d'Amboise played it.

Later days
David
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:06 am Post subject:

Speculation is that the whole show will be much less "dancey," as that's one of the most criticized elements of the original production.
_________________
"I LOVE incarceration,
I could lock up a platoon,
I'll be strapping up an inmate,
Very tightly, very soon.
So wave one bachelor goodbye,
She'll be your bride- she'd rather die
Than have her daddy ossify
In my sordid saloon..."

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 3:12 pm Post subject:

Whose speculation is that?

Less dancey would be a blessing, but I fear they might cast a bunch of those eighteen-year-old ensemble hoofers I hate, and fall back on it. You would think Chris wouldn't dance as much played by Diana, but she will still have quite a bit of dancing to do since John Arthur Greene is Billy. You know they're gonna dance the hell out of him, and Chris is always joined at the hip with him. Though since this is only a staged reading, we don't need to worry about the dancing until and if we find out it will be moving to the stage.

I wonder who Phillip Hoffman is going to be. Hopefully they're not adding the principal to the show - leaving Miss Gardner as the only school adult is one of the most sensible choices the show made. SHIT - I'll bet they're working in the courtroom/police frame story from the book, and he's some kind of detective. That sucks. Flashbacks and jumpy timelines in live shows are so tacky and gimmicky in the first place, and in this case it will be yet another distraction from the real story. They needed to simplify, not add!

Jennifer Damiano as Sue was pretty predictable, but I think she's a good choice. She will also guarantee interest from her Next to Normal fans.

Matt Doyle as Tommy? Ugh. I was hoping they would turn away from the generic pop crap since the discrepancy between the glory of Carrie and Margaret and the bubble gum pop of the teenagers is infamous for being the show's biggest problem.

I really hope they ditch Do Me a Favor, but I'm betting they won't since it's the showy "triple threat" (BIG quotation marks) number.
_________________
Let the record show that I loved
Carrie long before it was brought
back to become an obnoxious fad.

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