I'm back from a really long day. I of course did the four-mile jog, then had to skeedaddle to see the reading of Sleepless in Seattle. I'm not going to write about it in the notes, but I can say here in the privacy of our discussion board that it was really not good. These people think if they can get a "branded" title that they're home free. Well, no, that's not the way it works and I'm not sure how many flops have to happen before these writers along with the film studios stop shoving these movie adaptations down our collective throats. The songs were boring as can be, all in the Jason Robert Brown or classic Broadway style but without any uniqueness - and some of the shoddiest lyrics I've ever heard, filled with near rhymes and banal thoughts. When Barry Pearl gets the only laughs in the show (he's great - but it tells you something that he's basically got five minutes of stage time - and his laughs are directly out of the film) you know you're in trouble. The first act ran under forty minutes and seemed like ninety. The second act ran about thirty-five minutes.
Some good folks in the cast - Brandi Burkhardt was Meg Ryan, Marissa Jaret Winokur was Rosie O'Donnell, Robert Torti was Tom Hanks (and seemed too old), and my pals Jane Noseworthy and Rebecca Johnson were in it. My old friend Joel Zwick directed it, and he did a very good job - no staging at all, but he kept the pace up. I would be shocked if this went any further, although the usual cheerleaders were there whooping it up as much as they could. However, I know how these things work, and if someone is putting up more than half the dough then the Pasadena Playhouse will produce it. I've truly had it with these movie adaptations, and when people point out that many classic Broadway shows came from movies, I just point out that it wasn't about "branding (Lord, how I hate that word) - the classic musicals never used the name of the film. Anna and the King of Siam became The King and I (and one could argue it was based on the book and not the film), Liliom became Carousel (one could argue it was the play and not the film), same with Green Grow The Lilacs (Oklahoma!), and on and on. You don't really see adaptations of movies that kept their real title until stuff like The Goodbye Girl and that era. Needless to say, Promises, Promises was not called The Apartment - today, however, it would be. Off to the couch to sit like so much fish. I had a bacon cheeseburger for dinner - first food eaten all day - at six-thirty.
