Sunday, February 17, 2008

Little Women, the musical

**Little Women WHO ENDS UP WITH WHO spoilers**


So... my sisters and I saw Little Women, the musical last night.

It was very good.

But I have a few minor quibbles:

The beginning was very confusing; the play started with Jo complaining to Professor Bhaer over a rejection letter. He walks off stage and she starts singing. A chair is pushed onto the stage, the rest of the March girls sit around it, Jo sits down in the chair, and I guess the whole thing switches to flashback, then switches back to the present in the second act.

They didn't show any of Amy's time in Europe. Mr. Lawrence mentions that Laurie met up with her and Florence, then later she comes home grown up, lovely, severely overusing the word 'dear', and engaged to Laurie. They made Amy and Laurie out to be the ridiculous couple. While they were singing their cutsie little song about how they came to be engaged, Laurie was sneaking Jo these "Hahaha, look at me now!" looks. It was funny, but annoying.

The songs were just average. The lyrics were pretty forgettable, and I didn't like the way they hardly ever rhymed.

And that's all for the complaints.

The characters: Mr. Lawrence was more cranky than he is in the book but it worked, and Aunt March wasn't cranky enough, just snobby and annoying. Laurie was very funny, Amy was rather selfish, Jo was passionate and Beth had the sweetest voice, being Beth. The cast was really good, and they had a funny script.

I admit I was very glad that the play ended happily, with a few laughs, because I was very much afraid that I was going to come out of the theater with red eyes.

I almost did anyways, because there's something so amazing about listening to the screaming and cheering of people around you who probably never read the book, but appreciated the story, the characters, and the actors all the same. Everyone knew who to scream for, too. Hehe.

9 comments:

Elenatintil said...

Hey Delaney! Like the blog!

It does sound rather confusing that they started off with Professor Bhaer. I suppose they were trying to be original- since every other version starts the way the book does- with Christmas.

All this makes me wonder what you'd think of our film version of Little Women...

Laura said...

HUrray! you finally saw it! :D
I'm glad you liked it.
The beginning sounds very confusing!
Hmm..it seems like most plays/movies I've seen make Amy out to be a ridiculous girl/woman with no sense of anything... :(

Delaney said...

I wonder if LMA knew how many Amy-enemies she was going to make...

Elenatintil said...

Actually, I like Amy. In our film version, she was my favorite character to write because she is so funny! Kristen Dunst did a beautiful job of portraying her in the Winona Ryder version.

Anonymous said...

Not to mention the multitudes of Mr Bhaer-enemies. Poor old fellow.

How about Meg? Was she not quite memorable enough to be mentioned in your write-up?

Anyhow, sounds loverly (on the whole, and taking one thing with another, you know); glad you enjoyed it. :D

*agrees wholeheartedly about Songs That Don't Rhyme*

Delaney said...

I like Amy; she's my favorite of the March girls, actually. But so many people hate her because she burned Jo's story and stole Laurie away from Jo. :P

Oh, Meg was good, but there was nothing extreme about her, so I couldn't think of anything to write about her.

Elenatintil said...

Hmm...Meg does tend to get a bit lost. In our version we had the story end when she got engaged to Mr. Brook, so it wasn't too bad. (Of course...I was playing Meg...AND I wrote the script...so it figures!)

Hmm. I don't think Amy "stole" Laurie away. I mean, Jo made it VERY plain that she was not interested. And Amy was really better for him anyhow.

Delaney said...

So you didn't do the whole story? Or you left the proposal till the end? I wish I could see it. :)

I wasn't really saying that she did steal him, I was just saying that a lot of people seem to think that way.

Amamora said...

Sorry I haven't been on here Delaney! I've been real sick lately, so I haven't been online much. :( It sounds like it was an o.k. play, you don't have that many complaints, :) so that has to mean something!