re: Metropolis by Joe Brooks

[Josh Freilich]

Has anyone ever heard of this before? I'm listening to the CD for this right now.
It sounds great.

Why didn't "In My Life" sound like this?

[sicetergo]

IT might sound all right. But it was tedious in the extreme to sit through in the theatre. Interesting staging and set but just didn't work.

[mrkringas]

The staging was amazing... or at least a good friend who is older than I tells me often!

Plus the songs "Bring on the Night/Only Love" are simply gorgeous.

[tophertilson]

It really was one of those, "Wow, I can't believe how much talent and effort went into this monstrosity" kind of experiences. Stunning and awful all that the same time. I'd say it was the English CARRIE, but then I never saw WHICH WITCH or THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK or FIELDS OF AMBROSIA (where everyone knows ya).

TT

[Feathah]

Wasn't there recently some talk about reviving this?

[doodlenyc]

http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=6197

"Brooks also composed the music and co-wrote the lyrics for Metropolis: The Musical, which was staged at London’s Picadilly Theatre, and is now being readied for a New York premiere next spring to be directed by Richard Foreman.

BWW search is so easy.

[Mr Roxy]

It will get the same reception In My Life did. The CD is great so we will see this if & when it opens as we both liked In My Life

[thez914]

"Brooks' "You Light Up My Life" is the most successful single record in the history of recorded music, selling more than seven million copies and staying at number one in the county for more than three months; total record sales of albums and singles of the song exceed 15 million. It received the Academy Award for Best Song, as well as winning the Grammy, Golden Globe, American Music, and People’s Choice awards."

Wow. What went wrong?

[Mother's Younger Brother]

I enjoy the recording of Metropolis too, almost in the "guilty pleasures" vein. But in all honesty, it does sound like a mess of an overblown show.

[BSoBW2]

If people disliked the repetition of power ballads in RAGTIME, then METROPOLIS would seem to be unbearable.

I love it, of course!

[Mr Roxy]

I remember getting the double CD years back for $ 5 at the Flea market

It is really a great score. Would love to have seen it but fear if it opened here it would be a B & B production & the critics would crap on it unmercifully

[tazber]

I love the music, but I really hope they don't do this here b/c I can't imagine it would be well received. I never saw it, but it seems cumbersome to stage.
Fave song- "The Sun".

[Deena Jones]

I agree, most of the music is lovely but "Futura's Dance" is truly an embarassment!

[BSoBW2]

And the ELITIST'S DANCE is SECRETS from IN MY LIFE.

I also enjoy THE SUN.

YOU ARE THE LIGHT is so corny in so many ways, but fits so well.

[Borstalboy]

OMG YOU GUYS!! I can't believe you want to see a revival of this. The story is trite beyond words (it was Lang's visuals that made the movie a classic, not the story) and the music is such dated eighties pop-eretta I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to do it.

[leefowler]

I saw it London. Fiasco.

[lildogs]

I saw it when i was in college....eek! The most memorable moment was when the heroine got "shot" by a gun that failed to go off...one of my friends whispers, "She's dead....they killed her" like the Mayor of Munchkin City.

It was really tedious as previously stated and actually kinda ugly considering how pretty the film is.

[Deena Jones]

I saw it in London and thought the set was pretty amazing. I was 16 though...

[Jimmcf]

It is strange...I listened to this for the first time in many years last week...there are some good momeents, but for me there is only 1 reason to listen at all: Judy Kuhn.

[Pgenre]

The set was by none other than Ralph (CARRIE) Koltai. 'Nuff said. IT WAS ABSURD!

A Good Nightmare Comes So Rarely,
P genre

[SeanMartin]

One of the tensest nightly moments was when the stage floor moved while an elevator was coming up through a hole in it. The tolerances were somewhere between 1/16 and 1/32 of an inch, and they did this every night *without* computers.

If they were to revive it, I would hope that they would rewrite the book to reflect the newly restored version of the film. There's a lot in the story that got lost when the first American distributors slashed it down to 90 minutes.

[Josh Freilich]

Thinking about it after listening to the entire thing...
You're right; it IS a mess. And the '80s synth-orchestrations do NOT help things...

A little too much power ballads in this, you're right. And "Nothing Really Matters" needs the pop stripped out of it. That way it sounds like CARRIE. Sounds better as a kind of baroque-ish gavotte, so that matches the elitists' nonchalance.

[Annas_Priest]

Josh Freilich WINS FOR USING THE SEARCH FUNCTION!!!

[devonian.t]

Yep, I saw this, and Carrie it wasn't- it was just dull.

The set was massive- even the house curtain seemed like a massive iron wall with the title engraved on it. The trouble was it was one of those designs that painted itself into a corner- after the initial setting with masses of tubes and valves of a giant boiler room, the amount of stage space was limited.

The choreography was very dated- which was a problem for a futuristic story!

The performers were committed, but they had to deliver a heavily and repeatedly re-written script which sounded like plotting by numbers. As a result, there were glimmers of loveliness, but overall, the whole thing felt like it wasn't ready for public viewing.

However, it was a masterpiece compared to Which witch at the same theatre!

[tazber]

What ever happened to lildogs?

[Dollypop]

Is this the show that was set in a subway? If so, I saw it in Poland a few years ago. That production was a rousing mess.