1,494 posts
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Post by Steve on Oct 2, 2024 17:25:03 GMT
I was there last night and I found her using the ipad really annoying. . . I think it was the fact she was holding it up all the time and interacting with it and sometimes obviously reading lines rather than just glancing at it. 😄 I agree. The moment that bothered me the most last night was when she was up close with Oliver Tompsett's Sam Wheat, towards the end, and she had the iPad stretched out in her left hand behind her. Instead of looking in the face of Tompsett, who she was talking to, she had to look over her left shoulder to read the iPad, then look back at him, then look over her left shoulder again. It was inadvertently comedic in the absolute wrong way, as if I laughed at that, it would mean disrespecting Tompsett's brilliant performance.  |
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Post by normasturban on Oct 2, 2024 17:39:47 GMT
What bothered me isn’t the iPad itself necessarily but the gloating that the cast were sent up on the stage to deliver a product changed at premium prices without giving the cast a proper rehearsal. It’s madness.
When we first started getting these concerts in London, quite a few involved minimal staging and scripts but since then we’ve had a run of wonderful semi staged productions (Love Never Dies, Side Show, Something Rotten! to name a few) that it just feels like a slap in the face. Not fair to the cast either.
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1,494 posts
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Post by Steve on Oct 2, 2024 17:49:59 GMT
What bothered me isn’t the iPad itself necessarily but the gloating that the cast were sent up on the stage to deliver a product changed at premium prices without giving the cast a proper rehearsal. It’s madness. When we first started getting these concerts in London, quite a few involved minimal staging and scripts but since then we’ve had a run of wonderful semi staged productions (Love Never Dies, Side Show, Something Rotten! to name a few) that it just feels like a slap in the face. Not fair to the cast either. Although I admit I didn't pay the top prices, I actually felt it was VERY high production value for one of these concerts, as I suggested above. Your comment about our expectations of these concerts being sky high is well-taken, with "Witches of Eastwick," "Something Rotten" and "Love Never Does" being spectacularly good in my recent recollection. What I suspect is that these high expectations, which I imagine were known to the UK cast members, who probably took a lot of their own time to get off book and match them in a fully-staged performance, were apparently not communicated to our American Guest, who probably didn't realise that an audience might expect SO much from a one-and-done event lol. It was a shame because she has a GREAT facility for comedy, in her absolute excitable OTT exuberance, and the amount of laughter she was getting was obviously much reduced by us watching the distracting scrolling on the iPad, as the scenes felt off without her interacting more face to face with the cast, rather than face to book to cast to book to cast to book. Oh well.  |
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19,774 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 2, 2024 19:10:12 GMT
I think people are allowed to have an opinion on whether it’s satisfactory to have actors on book regardless of whether they saw the show or not. It’s something that’s happened at other concerts and the impression given is that some actors don’t regard concert performances in the same way as fully staged shows. I think it’s extremely poor. I think that comments that the cast have only run through it once are poor too and suggest that nobody involved has committed the time and resources to making sure the performance is as perfect as it can be. And the prices they were asking!!! Of course people are allowed to have opinions on having actors on book whether they saw the show or not. But I think I should also be allowed to point out that it's telling that the ones shouting the loudest weren't there. ie, they haven't seen the extent of it, the context in how it was done, nor the balance of the actor's overall performance and how it affected the overall show. People are quick to jump on the negative, so my point is that overall the reviews for this concert (by people who did see it at whatever price they paid) are very positive. I’m not sure the balance of opinion in the reviews of people who actually saw it is on your side. It sounds like it was a lovely show apart from the glaring anomaly of one actor who sang it wonderfully but didn’t know her lines. That’s like me going to see POTO and coming out with the conclusion that it was all wonderful except for Raoul who was on an iPad. Totally wrong. It would probably be cheaper for a ticket at POTO too. Professional actors at pro gigs at pro prices not knowing lines… come on. It’s a disgrace. |
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Post by sophie92 on Oct 2, 2024 19:51:05 GMT
I just want to clarify that it was stated the cast did only one run-through with the band (which I would imagine is not that unusual for these one-off concerts), not that they only had one run-through of any kind.
Was the tablet a little distracting? Yes. Did it affect my enjoyment? No, not really. As another poster has said, we don’t know if the expectation to be off book was set out, or if other cast members did it of their own accord. And yes, Moya understudied the role on Broadway, but it was over a decade ago. I’m sure some performers would be able to pick the lines back up quickly after such a long time, and some wouldn’t.
All that aside, Oliver and Lucie were both wonderful - I could listen to the pair of them sing that score forever, stunning vocals. I thought David Seadon-Young was great too. I had a lovely evening revisiting this show.
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Post by erik24601 on Oct 2, 2024 23:06:19 GMT
I just want to clarify that it was stated the cast did only one run-through with the band (which I would imagine is not that unusual for these one-off concerts), not that they only had one run-through of any kind. Was the tablet a little distracting? Yes. Did it affect my enjoyment? No, not really. As another poster has said, we don’t know if the expectation to be off book was set out, or if other cast members did it of their own accord. And yes, Moya understudied the role on Broadway, but it was over a decade ago. I’m sure some performers would be able to pick the lines back up quickly after such a long time, and some wouldn’t. All that aside, Oliver and Lucie were both wonderful - I could listen to the pair of them sing that score forever, stunning vocals. I thought David Seadon-Young was great too. I had a lovely evening revisiting this show. One rehearsal with the band is normal for full productions let alone concert performances where people are paying a hefty ticket for a semi-staged show. In my opinion, as someone who didn’t it but is going on what I think should be expected, each cast member should be off book, and enough rehearsal should be in time to not require an excuse or apology. This is not a charity ‘throw it together’ gig, this is a performance where you are asking people to purchase a ticket at a premium, expecting a polished performance. |
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