Closing!!! 'Betty Blue Eyes' Musical in London

Betty, Reece Shearsmith and Jack Edwards
(all production photos: Jane Hobson/London News Pictures/ZUMAPRESS.com)

It's probably unfair to include 'Betty Blue Eyes' in my series of posts featuring the failure of stage musicals adapted from feature films. For one thing the creators did not use the same title of the film. The musical is based on the 1984 film "A Private Function". For another it's not like producers are banking on the popularity of the film to attract theatergoers. It only grossed $2.5 million in the U.S. back then.

'Betty Blue Eyes' at the Novello Theatre
(photo credit: trickboxtv.com)

However this musical is opening in London and it is based on a British film that starred the likes of Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, Liz Smith and Pete Postlethwaite. At the 1985 BAFTA (British Oscars), the film won three awards for best actress (Maggie Smith), Supporting Actor (Denholm Elliott) and Supporting Actress (Liz Smith). It was also nominated for best film and original screenplay.

But what should have signaled the likely success of the musical was the man behind it: British producer Cameron Mackintosh who has presented 'Les Miserables', 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'Mary Poppins' in London and Broadway. Mackintosh is known for his careful hand in choosing and producing projects.

Betty the Pig

'Betty Blue Eyes' opened on April 13, 2011 (previews from March 19, 2011) and last week it was announced the musical would close on September 24, 2011 after a run of six months at the Novello Theatre in London's West End.

The story concerns a small Northern English town in 1947 where the inhabitants are experiencing food rationing in the United Kingdom. Some town businessmen decide to raise a pig, illegally, to serve at an elite banquet to celebrate the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip. But the pig is stolen by a local chiropodist and encouraged by his wife. Meanwhile a food inspector is determined to stop the illegal activities.

Reece Shearsmith (on bicycle) and the company

Sarah Lancashire (center)

From Michael Billington's review in The Guardian: This witty and delightful adaptation strikes me as better than the original (film). It would be unfair to say that a silk purse has been made out of a sow's ear but the show's creators preserve the satire on small-town snobbery, greed and racism from the Alan Bennett-Malcolm Mowbray movie script while sharpening the storyline and using music genuinely to enhance character.

In news reports Mackintosh said "It is very curious - after such amazing reviews and positive word of mouth, no-one knows the real reason why Betty couldn't find a bigger audience. We have been consistently been playing to just over 50 percent but it just isn't enough to cover the costs. Of course I'm disappointed but I'm not despondent, I am enormously proud of Betty. I know that she will have her day and another life."

George Stiles (music) and Anthony Drewe (lyrics) composed the score. They are credited with augmenting the original score of 'Mary Poppins' with additional songs for the stage version that premiered in London and still running on Broadway. The musical's book is by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman. A musical cast recording is planned for release on iTunes and on CD. Though the show lacked a major star, one interesting piece of trivia is that Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue provided the voice of Betty the Pig (on stage an animatronic creation). More info at bettyblueeyesthemusical.com.

Closing!!! 'Catch Me If You Can' Musical To Close in NYC

The marquee and the cast at the opening night curtain calls
(photos credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd)

Three musical adaptations of a feature film that opened this past Broadway season have been struggling at the box office. 'Sister Act' and 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' are not yet ready to give up their theaters just yet. But producers of 'Catch Me If You Can' announced the musical will close on Septembver 4, 2011 after 32 previews and 170 performances. The production opened at the Neil Simon Theatre on April 10.

The show budgeted at $13 million was nominated for four Tony Awards (musical, orchestrations, sound design) and won the best actor award for Norbert Leo Butz in the role of Carl Hanratty, the detective on the hunt of the young con man Frank Abagnale, Jr played by Aaron Tveit. Musical is based on the 2002 Dreamworks film that starred Leonado DiCaprio and Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg.

Despite the talents of Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics), Terrence McNally (book), Jerry Mitchell (choreography) and Jack O'Brien (director) most of whom collaborated on the hit 'Hairspray' the musical failed to attract audiences. The musical was developed in Seattle in 2009 and though changes made  for the Broadway production, the decision to keep Tveit as narrator of a story told through a 60's era television variety show was retained.

From my review of of the show: "Make no mistake -- I do not dislike this musical. Just the variety show device. Good songs are there and good performances keep the show entertaining. But this musical could have been something great." Click HERE to view more production photographs and read the full review.

Though investors are expected to lose their entire investment, a national tour will launch at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence, Rhode Island in the fall of 2012.

Closing!!! 'Umbrellas of Cherbourg' in London

Another stage musical based on a feature film posts a closing notice. 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' the stage musical is based on one of the most romantic musical films of the 1960s. Released in 1964, the film of the same name is noted for being a French film that is a musical that is all sung. Starring Catherine Deneuve the film was nominated for five Oscars including Best Foreign Language Film. It also received a nominations for writing and for "I Will Wait For You" from the film's soundtrack.

Story is about a twenty-year-old French auto mechanic named Guy Fouchier (Andrew Durand) who has fallen in love with 17-year-old Genevieve Emery (Carly Bawden), an employee in her widowed mother's chic umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Genevieve vow to remain lovers. After discovering she is carrying Guy's child she must choose between waiting for his return or accepting an offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.

In The Guardian, Michael Billington wrote:
Suspiciously thin would be my verdict on this stage version adapted and directed by Emma Rice for Kneehigh. The Michel Legrand score still offers its fitful pleasures, and the bittersweet ending is retained; but it seems an oddly gratuitous translation of a highly successful film into theatrical terms.

What is lost are the very things that made the film so original. One is the way in which the fluid camera movement matched the seamless recitative of the Legrand score: take that away, and you are left with a show that, with the exception of "I Will Wait For You," seems strangely lacking in musical or dramatic highlights. The other missing ingredient is the candy-colored artifice of the film, in which even the wallpaper matched the characters' costumes.

Watching the stage version is like seeing a Technicolor film rendered in black and white: Les Brotherston's set, with its partitioned steel structures, seems determined to evoke the reality of Cherbourg, whereas the point of the story is that it is a romantic fairytale.

A previous stage version was presented in London in a different short-lived production at the Phoenix Theatre in 1979. The song "I Will Wait You" has been recorded by many artists including Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin, Tony Bennett and Liza Minnelli.

The producers of the show cite economic reasons for the early closing. The musical opened at London's Gielgud Theatre on March 22, 2011 (after previews from March 5) and will close on May 21, 2011. Show was originally booking to October 1, 2011. More info at umbrellasofcherbourg.com.

Closing!!! 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' in NYC

Belasco Theatre marquee (image: playbill.com)

Another musical based on a movie closes. The pedigree of the new musical 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' had hit written all over it. No doubt Lincoln Center thought so and was probably seeking a long run to fill the coffers of the not-for-profit organization. Lincoln Center produces a musical now and then and among them were the hit revivals of 'South Pacific' (2008) and 'Anything Goes' (1987) as well as the dance musical 'Contact' (2007). All three extended well beyond the announced limited engagements.

The company (all production images: Paul Kolnik)

Then there are the creators: composer David Yazbek ('The Full Monty', 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'), writer Jeffrey Lane (also of 'Scoundrels), director Bartlett Sher ('South Pacific', 'Light in the Piazza') and a design team attached to a string of major musicals.

Next the performers have garnered 17 Tony Award nominations and 4 wins: Patti Lupone, Sherie Rene Scott, Brian Stokes Mitchell, De'Adre Aziza, Laura Benanti, Danny Burstein and Mary Beth Peil. Let's not discuss the addition of American Idol first season runner-up Justin Guarini to the cast.

Patti Lupone & Sherie Rene Scott

Finally the source material is one of Spanish director and writer Pedro Aldomovar's first films to gain popularity in America and an Oscar nomination for foreign language film. The breakout star of the 1988 film was a young Antonio Banderas.

It didn't hurt the film had a screwball story. Described by amazon.com: A woman's lover leaves her, and she tries to contact him to find out why he's left. She confronts his wife and son, who are as clueless as she. Meanwhile her girlfriend is afraid the police are looking for her because of her boyfriend's criminal activities. They talk to a female lawyer, who turns out to be the lover's new lover, and everyone's path keeps crossing each other's in a very complicated and confusing manner.

Nikka Graff Lanzarone, Laura Benanti, Justin Guarini

Where most recent musicals based on a movie had a source that was widely popular, New York Times reported before the show's opening:
The $5 million show is a rarity: a new musical based on a foreign film from two decades ago that is probably not widely known among the tourists who are the backbone of Broadway box offices. And the show is opening in New York without the traditional out-of-town tryout used by every other new musical now on Broadway ('Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark' was yet to play its first preview) to test material to make corrections.

Brian Stokes Mitchell, Nina Lafarga, Justin Guarini

The review from Variety:
The recipe for gazpacho is scrawled large across the curtain. Like the dish in question, the new Almodovarsical is refreshing, peppery and palate-cleansing, but it is still, in the end, cold tomato soup -- invigorating and highly spiced, but not satisfying enough for a full meal or a full evening's entertainment. Tuner is blessed with some delicious performances and any number of items of interest, but the result can be summed up as a women (and men) on the verge of a coherent musical.
Part of the problem is all those characters, played by all those musical-comedy luminaries, unable to step back into a supportive ensemble when necessary. (The design team) produce a visually fascinating show. But Lane and the talented Yazbeck, in an attempt to stay true to the film and provide songs and scenes for each of their nine featured principals, have spread their story so thin that audience interest soon deflates.

Sherie Rene Scott

'Women..' opened at the Belasco Theatre on November 4, 2010 (previews from October 8, 2010 after being delayed twice) and closed on January 2, 2011, three weeks earlier than the scheduled January 23 closing date, for a run of 30 previews and 69 performances. A cast recording of the musical is scheduled for release on May 10. More production photos below the video.

Closing!!! 'Love Story The Musical' in London

Michael Xavier and Emma Williams in 'Love Story'

This is the second post about movies adapted into recent stage musicals and then failing to match its source material's success. This time its 'Love Story the Musical' or is it 'Love Story on Stage'. The press materials indicate the show is based on the novel by Erich Segal on which the film was based. But do you think this musical would exist if the movie was never made?

The following reviews were from the show out-of-town run before arriving in London. From Michael Billington's review in The Guardian:

"Wipe away your tears with Love Story tissues," urges a sign behind the marketing counter. But I wouldn't anticipate a great sales boom. This 110-minute chamber musical, with a score by Howard Goodall and book and lyrics by Stephen Clark, based on the Erich Segal story is so decorously tasteful that by the end, there wasn't a damp eye in the house.

Everyone, if only from the 1970 film, knows the story. Jenny, a poor Italian girl, meets Oliver, a rich boy, at Harvard, marries him and then dies. It could be moving if it weren't for the air of cold calculation, emanating from Segal's original, that surrounds the enterprise: it seeks a deep emotional response to people we hardly know. Starting with Jenny's death, Clark's lyrics ask, "What can you say about a girl who made you proud to be her friend?" Since Jenny doesn't appear to have any friends, the question seems redundant. And Oliver is worse than a cipher: he seems a jerk.

A review by Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail was more favorable:

Anyone in need of a really good blub should get down to Chichester, where Howard Goodall has set to music Erich Segal's 1969 American weepie Love Story. The screen version's theme tune makes a brief appearance, but composer Goodall makes the show his own: classical, popular airs, faultlessly sung by a small cast, performed by a piano and a string sextet.

Going without a break saves the spell being broken. And spell is what it feels like, with Emma Williams and Michael Xavier as two Boston students, Jenny and Oliver, whose young marriage is shattered by her leukaemia.

'Love Story' opened at the Duchess Theatre on December 6, 2010 (following previews from Nov. 27) and shutters February 26. Unlike 'Flashdance the Musical' which closed two weeks ago, 'Love Story' leaves behind a cast recording of the score which can be purchased from amazon.co.uk.

More production photos after the trailer video. (All production photos Alastair Muir.)

Closing!!! 'Flashdance The Musical' in London

The marquee at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

With musical producers continuing to sift through movie archives for the next theater hit, let's say goodbye to the latest one that made it to Broadway or the West End in London but failed to attract audiences. The casualty is 'Flashdance the Musical' based on the 1983 Paramount film starring Jennifer Beals. The production features songs from the movie soundtrack augmented by new numbers.

Two days before its first preview performance on September 25th, my taxi ride took me past the Shaftesbury Theatre where workers were finishing the marquee.

The show officially opened on October 14, 2010 and will close on January 15, 2011. The question is would I have seen this show if it was playing during my recent London visit. I probably would place it on my list but it would not be a priority.

This 'Closing!!!' post could be a regular feature if forthcoming shows fail. Set to open this season are musical versions of the films "Ghost" and "Love Story" in London and "Catch Me If You Can" on Broadway. Presently playing in New York is the musical adaptation of "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown".  Let's see how these productions fare.

In the meantime here's the trailer for 'Flashdance the Musical'. Click on 'read more' below for production photos.