No, really. It sucks. Don’t waste a single cent or an iota of your time on it. My friend and I who went to see it last night walked out at the intermission. I’ve never done that before. Never. As an introduction to the earnest suckiness of it all, I present unto you Anne Rice’s bio from the Playbill (she is credited for the Source Material):
The bio of an artist such as Anne Rice (b. 1941) can only be truly understood in the context of the author’s personal testimony – her vast body of work. Each beloved character, iridescently animated and virtually manifested before our eyes, witnesses its creator’s experience in triumph and in sorrow in searching for some semblance of Happy Peace. From the pangs of Louis’ utter solitude to Claudia’s untimely demise to Lestat’s wickedly bedazzling smile, the author’s life permeates each page with such ardor that one could only blush at being so exposed. But Anne Rice gives herself – her life in full – as a gift to the world in every spellbinding chapter, every carefully turned page, every meaningful word; mere footprints of a life lived in art. A native of New Orleans now residing in the California desert, she is the author of 27 books, which include The Vampire Chronicles, The Witching Hour, Cry to Heaven, and Violin. Rice’s latest novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, is the beginning of her literary contribution to Christian art.
I just… and there’s… and she… *sigh* I wish I could get back the hours I’ve spent reading her books. Sure, some of the early ones were entertaining, but her writing’s just gotten so bloated, and too full of her own self-importance, that the stories themselves are long past left at the wayside.
Which was a part of my problem with “Lestat.” Not only was the music entirely unmemorable, and giggleworthy, with songs such as “Beautiful Boy,” “The Thirst,” “Make Me As You Are,” and “The Crimson Kiss,” but it was all played with such a dreadfully serious sense of earnestness, such high-mindedness, like no one ever stopped the creators and said, “Hey. Uh… you guys know you’re making a vampire musical, right? Vampires.” Because you have to admit that there’s going to be a level of campy, and if you go with it, then maybe you end up with some light entertainment. But if you’re convinced you’re making A.R.T. then you end up with dreck.
In my opinion, at least.
I wish I’d had a better experience with vampire musicals. But even Dracula was more fun to see. Hell, we made it through the whole thing, so it must have been. I think part of it, even for a fan of vampire entertainment such as myself, is that the medium of the Broadway musical is just too in-your-face for the genre. In a movie, or on tv, it’s a lot easier to ignore the behind the scenes pyrotechnics and special effects. On the stage, it’s harder to be blind to the wires and the trapdoors and the giant screens behind the actors showing video footage of blood cells.
Oh man, I have to go lie down now. It’s all too, too much.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen on stage?
Oh! Oh! And I almost forgot how, in one scene near the end of Act I, one of the characters kept begging, “Release me. Release me!” and my friend and I were like, “Yes, please! Release me!”
yikes!! Well, you had a feeling it would be bad – mockable even… but wow, this sounds like it will fall among the ranks of “carrie, the musical” _ Glad you guys salvaged the remainder of the evening, even though you had to recover – did you drink heavily??
I got a couple of chapters into Interview with a Vampire and decided not to read any more Anne Rice. It’s one of the very few times I’ve left a book unfinished (Stephen R. Donaldson is another case, though I forced myself to read at least one complete novel before abandoning one).
Like Avo, I couldn’t make it through IwaV.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything on stage that was all that awful, but I don’t do a lot of live theatre. The worst movie I ever saw (and the only one I was ever *really* tempted to walk out on) was “Nightfall,” adapted (grotesquely and loosely) from the Asimov story, and starring David Birney. I still cringe at the thought of it, and no doubt Isaac Asimov defied his own atheistic beliefs in order to return from the dead and send his own corpse spinning madly at the travesty.
Jekyll and Hyde – the Musical was pretty high up there… Although Sebastian Bach managed to redeem it a bit with his over-the-top theatrics and “Look ma! I’m on Broadway!” sense of fun. (He even posed with me after the show. The shot consists of him pointing to my now ex-boyfriend and shouting “Who’s THAT dude?” Classic.)
Kenny Rogers Christmas Spectacular was pretty crappy too. There wasn’t even free chicken.
I once saw an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In once scene, Quasi throws a rafter down from the cathedral and kills one of the villagers. Everyone starts to run, when one guy shouts: “You fools! You have nothing to fear from a wooden beam!”
I would have paid good cold money if one of the other villagers sheepishly said, “All due respect, but that thing just killed Murray.”
Aw, jeez, Nightfall! I’d managed to forget all about that abomination for years, and now it’s dredged up again! (By the way, Silverberg’s expansion of the short story into a novel was unnecessary. Don’t bother reading it if you haven’t already. Asimov got it right the first time.)
I didn’t answer Kate’s question because I don’t go see stage plays. The last thing I saw was… I don’t know… a high school production back in ’79 or ’80 of The Hobbit with what’s-his-name… Dave something… starts with an “H”… one syllable… as Gandalf.
Dave as Gandolf!?!
Are there video tapes of this?
For me…worst movies are still:
Fight Club, Pearl Harbor, Mission Impossible and Titanic
Man, I told you guys to quit picking on Kenny!
I once saw a production of Phantom of the Opera that my parents bought tickets for because they thought it was the ALW version (bless their hearts). It was TERRIBLE. My favorite part was when the Phantom almost knocked over the giant styrofoam gargoyle he was hiding behind during a rooftop scene. He literally had to grab it and set it back in place.
***Dave…
You are perhaps the only other human being, remaining alive, who knows that movie.
I share your pain, brother in agony.
Anyway, KT, worst thing I saw on stage was a local production of “Miracle on 34th Street.” It actually would have been BETTER is all of the actors were bad: the man playing Santa was pretty good, but was surrounded by a sea of mediocrity at best, awfulness at worst. At one point, a stagehand forgot to remove a prop (a wagon) after a scene change, and the actor playing the psychiatrist went into a five-minute ad lib about how his office resembled the set of some amateur theatrical performance (he said this while casting angry glances offstage). The thing was, the wagon was way off in the corner. I hadn’t even noticed it until he went on…and on…and on…
Cats. I just don’t get it. Of course I saw it when I was 12 or so, and should probably see it again.
You know, a coworker warned me not to watch Nightfall, and looked at me like I was some kind of idiot when I came into work and told him I had sat all the way through it. But it was Asimov! I had to see it! Br-r-r-r-r-r.
Oh, and sorry, bd, but I doubt if any videos were made. VCRs were expensive, and I’m sure cameras were more so. If you ask nicely, though, I expect Dave will say “Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!” for you.
A number of people came up to the thatre director after the show and asked who the man was that played Gandalf. Dave had such a rich, resonant voice that they were surprised to learn he was a student. (Or maybe he had been left behind several times and was actually 27 years old; I’m not sure.)
As I recall, Dave actually provided the group with the melodies for the songs, all of which sounded very much like the Rankin-Bass TV movie version.
Overall, a pretty darned good production, even if it did sound as if Smaug was bragging that his armor was like “tin foil steel”! 🙂
I hope I haven’t embarrassed Dave too much. (I was aiming to embarrass him exactly the proper amount. Did I succeed?) Just don’t ask me about Alice in Wonderland, okay?
Eh. No prob. I enjoyed playing Gandalf. 🙂
And, no, no videos available. If there are snapshots, they are locked deep in my parents’ photo albums … And I’d either forgotten or never known that my deep, resonant voice had made such an impact. 🙂
(And despite the context, it really wasn’t a bad play — for a tiny high school “theater.”)
Oh man, the worlds of mediocrity I could unlock for you if I started getting into middle school and high school theatre. College, less so, but even there, I’m sure we could come up with a few winners. And by that, of course, I mean losers. Just because we were in a theatre group doesn’t mean it was always good theatre.
Oooh, Cats. It doesn’t matter *how* good the production is, it’s gonna suck.
The plot: “Where’s Mister Mistoffelees?”
“Where’s Mister Mistoffelees?”
“Where’s Mister Mistoffelees?”
“Oh, THERE he is!”
That’s it. Ain’t no more.
My friend and I walked out after 20 minutes.
But we are having a good time with the cheesiness — every time we see each other now, we hug and whisper, “My beautiful wolf killer….”
*giggles*
Critics pour scorn, cliches on NY vampire musical
In a review headlined “Vampires, the musical kiss of death,” The Washington Post’s Peter Marks said the fixation with singing vampires had to stop. “Give the bloodsucker a ballad, and it’s his show that joins the walking dead.”
“The only thing distinguishing this musical from its late, unlamented predecessors is that the lead vampires play for the, er, other team,” he said. “‘Lestat’s’ contribution to art and equality is demonstrating that a gay vampire with a two-octave range can be just as dull as a straight one.”
The New York Post’s verdict was “Bloody Awful” and Newark, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger said it was “just deadly.”