Candide Archives - TheaterScene.net

Candide

Book review: “Sense of Occasion” by Harold Prince

November 16, 2017

The first 26 chapters are the original text of "Contradictions" with each followed by “”Reflections,” where Prince variously corrects, expands upon and ruminates about that portion. After concluding with the tribulations of the 1974 revival of "Candide," the next 19 chapters are new additions that detail all that came after. There’s also a comprehensive appendix of facts about all of his shows and an index. [more]

Candide (New York City Opera)

January 10, 2017

Linda Lavin, padded and badly bewigged, comes across more like a Jewish yenta than the victim of the vagaries of Eastern European warfare. She has only one song, “Easily Assimilated,” a silly attempt at seduction, which is a shame. This character had several numbers in the original, including one that actually referred to why she is “missing the half of my backside.” Lavin is a star, but is ill-used here. [more]

92Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists Series: Panning for Gold: Great Songs from Flop Shows

June 27, 2014

The evening's genial host, artistic director and writer lyricist David Zippel explained that the purpose of the event was to rediscover "hidden gems" from shows that suffered through "the Broadway rollercoaster of failure." [more]

A Fable

June 1, 2014

Playwright David Van Asselt's is set "Somewhere, almost anywhere, below the equator." It feels like an academically imagined recreation of something that would have played at LaMaMa in 1967 for a thesis project. Debatably borrowing from Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, The Living Theatre, Candide, Urinetown and The Cradle Will Rock, it's a wearying odyssey. [more]

Souvenir

November 28, 2005

Using Foster Jenkins' legacy as a jumping off point, the piece, subtitled a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins tells this brave character's story through the eyes of Cosme McMoon (Donald Corren), a frustrated composer who spent many years as her competent, long-suffering accompanist. Souvenir could also be subtitled, "A memory play." This two-character study opens in 1964, with McMoon performing in a Greenwich Village piano bar, on the anniversary of Jenkins' death 20 years before. Unable to concentrate on the keyboard, McMoon chats with his audience, digressing into memories of his collaboration with the infamous, improbable soprano. [more]