Pipe Dream review

Pipe Dream Review - Broadway musical

At the heart of the musical is a small novel ‘Sweet Thursday’, written by J. Steinbeck as a continuation of ‘Cannery Row’. Producers C. Feuer & E. Martin turned their attention to one of the characters of the first work and decided that the story of his participation can be converted into an interesting musical. When they turned to the proposal to the writer, J. Steinbeck wrote a sequel. Having been refused by F. Loesser, to which producers have addressed previously, C. Feuer & E. Martin asked to focus on creation of piece O. Hammerstein with R. Rodgers. Partners began to doubt in their abilities – before they have composed only family shows. Yet the authors did an adaptation of J. Steinbeck’s work. They decided not to indicate that Suzy was a prostitute – in a musical, girl turned into a little tramp. Subsequently, the writer showed dissatisfaction with such a change, although acknowledged that the creators have had the right to do so.

For pre-sales of the Broadway show, about 1.2 million dollars were gained. After the premiere, the audience’s interest has dropped dramatically. Musical on Broadway lasted less than a year. The staging failed to avoid failure, despite the changes made in the course of the season. After the closure of the show, for 1 year died two leading artist of this production – W. Johnson & J. Tyler. H. Traubel said that this musical was cursed. Criticism of the Broadway production was mainly neutral and negative. Due to the failure, the producers have decided to abandon the national tour and transferred the production in London. Further performances were extremely rare. The musical was never filmed, though such plans existed. Lovers should be played by actors, and other characters – by heroes of puppets of Muppets show.

S. Regan, director of a London staging, decided to emphasize the true essence of place named Bear Flag Café. The suits of girls showed that they worked in a brothel. According to many critics, it is the silence by the musical creators about this fact dramatically reduced the tension of love story between a biologist and a little tramp. Very often, the audience did not understand the hesitation of man during establishing relations with Suzy – they did not realize that the girl was working in such a place. Modern productions have shown the viability of this piece, despite the fact that this work is considered as of today the most unfortunate work of Hammerstein & Rodgers.
Last Update:July, 06th 2016