It sounded like a great idea. Take a beloved film, add some hotshot creatives, and throw in one of the most stellar casts to hit Broadway in years. But what could have been a scintillating delight of a musical is instead an abysmal mess, every bit as soporific as the famed Valium-laced gazpacho at the center of its frenzied plot.
I refer, of course, to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the unpardonable, untenable disaster of a musical that opened last night at New York's lavishly refurbished Belasco Theatre.
Again, it really should have worked. Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 film has become a cult classic. David Yazbek supplied the wonderfully tuneful and witty scores to both The Full Monty and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Jeffrey Lane's book for the latter show is funny and fresh. And Tony-winner Bartlett Sher could seemingly do no wrong after his twin triumphs directing The Light in the Piazza and South Pacific.
And then there's that cast: triple divas Sherie Rene Scott, Patti LuPone, and Laura Benanti, matched with the vocal and comedic prowess of Brian Stokes Mitchell and Danny Burstein. On paper, this show was a blockbuster in the making.
So, what happened? I blame Bart Sher. I personally felt that his award-winning work on South Pacific was overrated, but at least that production had some sense of cohesion and focus. Not Women on the Verge, at least not when I saw the show a few weeks back. Sher seemed to be at a total loss with this material, demonstrating no flare for comedy whatsoever, not that the lame, lifeless material was doing him any favors. It really makes me wonder: Who green-lighted this mess? The show had numerous high-profile industry-only workshops under the auspices of the august Lincoln Center Theater. How was it that someone saw this show in raw form and thought it looked produceable?
As I tracked the show through its preview period, it seemed clear the members of the creative team were at a total loss. All we kept hearing about, at least at first, were the technical difficulties they were having with the set. Well, the set (designed by Michael Yeargan) is one of the most pointlessly complicated atrocities I've ever encountered, an eye-numbing barrage of moving panels, digital projections (by Sven Ortel), and a dangerous-looking glass monolith of a skylight that stagehands had to come onstage to nudge into place at the performance I saw.
To cover the Rube Goldberg-ian set changes, the show features an off-putting number of complicated crossovers between scenes, with supposedly comic business that never received a single laugh, at least not from me. So, it appears that the production staff were so concerned about working out the mechanics that they seemed to lose track of the fact that the show itself wasn't working. (Hear that, Julie Taymor?)
Later in previews, the staff seemed to realize that the show needed more help than the set, but at that point it was probably too late. The show I saw was, in my estimation, unfixable, with no redeeming qualities except for the game and professional cast. The changes that did occur have apparently amounted to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. For example, when I saw the show, the number "Madrid" opened the second act, but now it's become the opening number. Well, "Madrid" is a dull, generic song that's meant to establish time and place, but bears little specific relation to the rest of the show. When I heard they were making this the opening number, I knew they really didn't have a clue as to how to fix the show.
So, what could have been the musical event of the season has instead revealed itself as an awkward lumbering bore.
You bring up an interesting point: "Later in previews, the staff seemed to realize that the show needed more help than the set, but at that point it was probably too late."
I just don't get this? Why is it too late? Why won't producers push back the opening a week or two and get a good solid couple of weeks of tweaking a show to perfection. That extra money spent could mean a more profitable show in the long run.
Posted by: Jay | November 05, 2010 at 12:47 PM
Jay, the only thing that would have fixed this show would be closing it outright and completely rewriting it from scratch. As I say in my review, there was nothing worth salvaging, IMHO. It wasn't a question of working out the kinks.
The big mistake here was opening the show cold on Broadway. If there had been an out-of-town tryout, or a developmental run at a regional non-profit, they might have noticed that the show just wasn't working. They might have then taken the time to rewrite as much as possible, or just given the whole thing a miss.
Posted by: ccaggiano | November 05, 2010 at 10:05 PM
OMG Chris! We were in NYC a couple weeks ago and caught up with Beth Grant who was there at the same time. When we were seeing Angels, she was seeing Women and she was ... you know, kind about the show when talking to us. But she *did* go on for a bit about the unnecessary set maneuvers. Something about a couch? Anyhow, I never quite cared for the film in the first place, which I know everyone but me loves. So, Patti-be-damned, I'm consciously skipping this one.
Posted by: Scot Colford | November 06, 2010 at 01:17 AM
I saw this at the Wednesday matinee and I have to say - I didn't see the outright disaster you did. Yes, there are problems, and the biggest problem is right in the centre of the show (the character of Pepa tends towards having a lot of introspective ballads and Sheree Rene Scott's performace is too sane for the farcial shenanigans that the plot takes - I really can't tell if it's the performance or the writing), but there's comic brilliance and verve in the show as well (Laura Bernati's performance in particular is a solid gem). Brian Stokes Mitchell's song from the second act about the three women in his life (YEsterday, Tomorrow and Today) is possibly too late in the show to explain why this guy is capable of seducing three separate women, but it works solidly anyway.
I've seen outright worthless disasters and this isn't one of those. This is something far more intriguing, a "not quite right yet" show. It reminds me a little of "Witches of Eastwick" (which also sabotaged its leading ladies with dull ballads) which had great material for the supporting cast.
Posted by: Simon | November 19, 2010 at 03:59 AM