Paint Your Wagon - Everyman Liverpool

[stevej678]

Part of the new season at the Liverpool Everyman.

America is restless.

The land is giving up its bounty.

And in California, the glint of gold sets pulses racing.

As a nation goes in search of riches, Ben Rumson stakes his claim. A dusty scrap of wilderness becomes a heaving Gold Rush outpost – a town with 400 men and just one woman, where no one knows how long the boom times can last.

Following last year’s unforgettable Fiddler on the Roof, the same creative team invites you to join the Everyman Company for a sensational foot-tapping hoedown. With songs including Wanderin’ Star and I Talk to the Trees, it’s a star-spangled celebration of love in a world that doesn’t know where it’s heading, and a party with you at its heart.

Tickets went on sale at 11am this morning.

Returning from last year's Everyman company are Richard Bremmer, Patrick Brennan, George Caple, Zelina Rebeiro, Keddy Sutton, Liam Tobin and Emily Hughes. Joining them are Emma Bispham, Nathan McMullen, Paul Duckworth, Golda Rosheuvel, Marc Elliott and Nadia Mohamad Noor.

[musicalmarge]

I hope it’s better than Fiddler was. I hate to say I was bored stiff and it would help if they cast people who could sing. Fingers crossed...

[Deleted]

Nov 13, 2017 11:12:06 GMT stevej678 said:

Tickets went on sale at 11am this morning.

Returning from last year's Everyman company are Richard Bremmer, Patrick Brennan, George Caple, Zelina Rebeiro, Keddy Sutton, Liam Tobin and Emily Hughes. Joining them are Emma Bispham, Nathan McMullen, Paul Duckworth, Golda Rosheuvel, Marc Elliott and Nadia Mohamad Noor.

Boom. Booked.

The thought of him in a cowboy hat is already getting my nethers in a tingle.

[martin1965]

Ffs can someone do the ice bucket on Ryan!
Wondered when thread for this would emerge. Rare revival for this considering its Lerner&Loewe. Will be booking

[mallardo]

If topicality means anything in a musical, Paint Your Wagon is VERY topical in at least one of its plot threads - the character Julio (who gets to sing the beautiful "I Talk To The Trees") is a young Mexican man openly shunned by the regular folks to the point where he's not allowed to live in the town. Fortunately for him - and us - he gets the girl.

[musicman]

The Everyman has done it again, creating a wonderful production of this seldom produced show. From the opening number of wandering star with effective use of lanterns and the whole ensemble you knew you were in capable hands. Patrick Brennan repeats His Tevye success with another outstanding role as Ben rumson, Emily Hughes puts in a fine performance as his daughter Emily and Marc Elliot is pitch perfect as Julio. These are all backed up by a fine ensemble.
Highly recommended.

[BurlyBeaR]

Can you choose your own seats at the Everyman?

[david]

Yes you can B.B !

[theatremadness]

Mar 6, 2018 19:08:04 GMT BurlyBeaR said:

Can you choose your own seats at the Everyman?

If you can't, I guess it's Everyman for himself...

[BurlyBeaR]

Taxi 😕

[Pennywise57]

Before opening this thread I genuinely didn't realise this was a real thing and naively thought The Simpsons writers made it up. I guess you learn something new everyday.

[lou105]

My parents had the LP and it was one of our regular Sunday lunchtime choices!

[Deleted]

I remember seeing this at the pictures. All I can remember about it was Lee Marvin singing Wand’rin’ Star, although I knew at the time that it wasn’t what anyone could call proper singing exactly. But nobody seemed to have a better explanation. I thought all musicals were like this and it turned me off film musicals for years. (I still haven’t seen many of the classics.)

I’ve just been reading about the film on Wikipedia. (Where else?) Apparently Jean Seberg was in it. I saw a really bad musical about her once at the National. It was really, really bad.

The other song I knew (but had forgotten it was featured in this film) is They Call the Wind Maria. It’s sung by a character with the rather unflattering-cum-unfortunate name of Rotten Luck Willie. Which I thought I might have remembered.

But nope... I didn’t. 

I wouldn’t mind seeing the stage version, if ever it came down.

[tonyloco]

Guess who saw it in Sydney in the mid-1950s?

It would have been a direct restaging of the original Broadway production and I don't remember much about it except that I was also getting to know the standard operatic repertoire around that time and I was shocked to hear that the opening number – 'I'm on my way' – was a straight lift of a musical phrase from Act 1 of Puccini's 'Tosca'. As far as I know Lerner and Loewe got away with it although some fifty years early, Puccini's publisher Ricordi successfully sued the writers of the popular song 'Avalon' claiming that it was based on the aria 'E lucevan le stelle' from Act 3 of the same opera.

Apart from that plagiarism, the score is attractive and I often played 'I talk to the trees' in my repertoire of background piano music and it usually got some kind of recognition from the punters.

But my most memorable recollection of 'Paint Your Wagon' is Spike Milligan on the Goon Show singing:

I talk to the trees,
That's why they put me away!

[TallPaul]

Mar 6, 2018 21:46:22 GMT @caiaphas said:

I wouldn’t mind seeing the stage version, if ever it came down.

You could always come up.

Just for you, I've checked, and Cote even have a restaurant in Liverpool. How times change!

[Mr Snow]

OOOOOOh we are in Liverpool 5th of April.


Right in the middle of a 6 week break? How does that work for them?

[Deleted]

Mar 7, 2018 10:52:06 GMT TallPaul said:

Mar 6, 2018 21:46:22 GMT @caiaphas said:

I wouldn’t mind seeing the stage version, if ever it came down.

You could always come up.

Just for you, I've checked, and Cote even have a restaurant in Liverpool. How times change!

I thought you’d never ask. I’d be delighted, but I would have to insist on my own room with ensuite. I don’t share rooms and am too old to beggar about bobbing in and out of bathrooms with a towel wrapped around. 

Cote sounds fab too. And as it’s not every day I make it to Liverpool I might even go for the à la carte rather than the cheapskate menu I usually have.

[stevej678]

Mar 7, 2018 12:46:54 GMT Mr Snow said:

OOOOOOh we are in Liverpool 5th of April.


Right in the middle of a 6 week break? How does that work for them?

The same cast are performing each show in the new season in a main block of dates and then in rep at the end of the season.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry but I want the person responsible for costumes (or particularly wigs) to be taken down to the docks and publicly flogged on the old This Morning weather map for the crime of putting that on the head of the delicious Marc Elliott. I mean, seriously wig person. Have you no shame?

[notmymuse]

I caught this at the matinee today. I’ve never been to the Everyman before and it’s a nice theatre. Not particularly big, although there was much drama before we started with more people sitting in the wrong seats or having attended the wrong performance than I have ever known.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to make of this. For a Lerner and Loewe, I’m surprised this isn’t staged more often. It ran for a fair while in its day and had a good few famous songs in it - in fact, the score is generally very strong. I’d not seen it before so couldn’t pass up the chance of ticking a classic off my list.

On reflection, I really enjoyed this. I think If you take it on it’s own terms as a rep piece, with the strengths a cast that’s also performing A Clockwork Orange and Othello can bring to it, you’ll really enjoy it. The acting was just great, and not a dodgy accent in sight. After some of the hammy acting I’ve seen in the West End over the last couple of years, the cast were very strong indeed as actors. They were believable, nuanced and human.

The strange thing is doing a musical with a rep cast when most of them would never be cast even in a fringe production of a musical in London. Marc Elliot had the strongest voice by some way, and sang fine, but none of the rest of the cast appeared to be trained singers. They could hold a tune but I’d expect the same quality of singing from any decent Am Dram company. And the same on the dancing front - few of them were decent movers, and many were obviously struggling.

I can only think this is a choice of the director. In a way, like the Les Mis film, people singing like ordinary folk has a air of authenticity about it in a funny way. In the same way, people of all shapes and sizes dancing like normal folk is also more real, in a way. So it works, but don’t expect to hear beautiful MT voices soaring over the theatre. But the rep element really adds something. Most solo numbers involve many ensemble members, and few of them are off the stage for long at any point. It kept the production fast moving and interesting.

The libretto is also odd. Looking at the original cast, the film and the Encores revival, the songs performed seem different, as do elements of the plot (in some pretty big ways). I think they made changes to give the women more agency (which is a very good thing, given what happens even in this version), and to add more comedy, which was also welcome. But I think Julio’s ostracism is underplayed and there’s little violence like other versions have. The residents of this frontier town are remarkably well behaved.

So it’s very worth seeing and is really performed with heart and spirit. I’d like to see another cast of MT performers sing the heck out of it, but I doubt they could stage or act it better.

[stevej678]

I saw the penultimate performance of the show's initial run on Saturday and after approaching it with very little idea of what to expect, I have to admit I hugely enjoyed it. Although the Everyman is local to me, this was actually the first time I'd been there. The whole place seemed a hive of activity and I was really impressed with the auditorium itself - not the biggest in terms of capacity, but a pretty large (trapdoor-filled) performance space nonetheless, with the audience seated in the round with four or five rows in the stalls, and a tiny circle of two rows of seating at one end, curving round two corners.

I completely agree with notmymuse about the nuanced, hugely likeable performances. Patrick Brennan oozed charisma as Ben Rumson, while Emily Hughes radiated charm, spirit and vulnerability as his daughter Jennifer, with a perfectly pitched performance from Marc Elliott alongside her as Julio. The real strength of the musical is probably its score and songs such as Wanderin' Star were given the full foot-stomping, showstopping treatment. I Talk To The Trees is an ear-worm I've not been able to get out of my head since! This could easily be a musical where it's only about the score, however I thought the Everyman company really succeeded in bringing the sense of community very much to the fore too. If there were characters here which could easily be two-dimensional, it says a lot for the strength of the performances that I found myself increasingly invested in them over the two hours 40 minutes I was in their company. The time absolutely flew by.

If there's a few rough edges here and there, that only adds to the appeal of the whole thing. I thought the cast multi-roled very effectively and while there might not always have been attempts to hit the big notes in certain numbers, the cast could certainly all comfortably deliver a tune. Emily Hughes in particular had a lovely tone and twang to her voice, while Zelina Rebeiro shone in the big song and dance numbers in the ensemble. It was also lovely to be approached by Zelina in the audience of Spring Awakening last night, introducing herself and thanking me for my tweet about the show and her performance on Saturday. It's a small world!

Overall, I thought Paint Your Wagon was an infectious, raucous, joyful piece of theatre staged and performed with huge aplomb. At times it was hard to know where to look, there was so much happening around the stage. I'm certainly tempted to take a second look when Paint Your Wagon returns for shorter runs over the summer, while I've also booked to see the Everyman Company's The Big I Am, an adaptation of Peer Gynt, later in the season on the strength of this production. The Everyman has certainly struck gold with its 2018 company and their take on Paint Your Wagon. If you're a fan of the likes of Fiddler on the Roof, Calamity Jane or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, then this is a must-see before it rolls out of town on 14th July. It's a uniquely authentic take on a rarely-performed, effervescent musical treat.