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The Movie "Once"

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Front-Ranger:
I checked this out of the library and saw it last night. The low-budget movie ran in 2006-7 and earned an Oscar. Now, I hear the original stars (who were not professional actors) are adapting it for a Broadway production!! Definitely worth looking in to!

It's not just a long music video, although I loved how the entire songs were played in the movie instead of just snippets. It's also a commentary on multiculturalism and on the newest generation's (the Millennials?) difficulties with communication, lowered attention spans and interpersonal skills in these days of sexting and porn on demand.

While watching, my son made the comment that people are mystified when he holds the door open for them. Afterwards, he seemed very energgized about his future. A great movie to watch with your teen children.

Front-Ranger:
Oops, forgot the link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/

Aloysius J. Gleek:



--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 07, 2012, 02:32:47 pm ---I checked this out of the library and saw it last night. The low-budget movie ran in 2006-7 and earned an Oscar. Now, I hear the original stars (who were not professional actors) are adapting it for a Broadway production!! Definitely worth looking in to!

It's not just a long music video, although I loved how the entire songs were played in the movie instead of just snippets. It's also a commentary on multiculturalism and on the newest generation's (the Millennials?) difficulties with communication, lowered attention spans and interpersonal skills in these days of sexting and porn on demand.
--- End quote ---




Lee, I saw the (very brief) New York Theater Workshop production the night after the positive review posted below. It will definitely be on Broadway in 2012, maybe in the Spring. I really, really liked it--'He' was terrific, amazing singer, amazing actor, amazing accent; 'He' could be a big star.  'She'--hmmmm. Not so much. Musically, She's ok, Her acting, hmmm, overly eccentric, Her accent, sorry, awful, fake-y bad. Hate to say it, but--if they change Her, the entire production will be a huge hit.




http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/theater/reviews/once-the-musical-at-new-york-theater-workshop-review.html?pagewanted=all



Theater Review | 'Once'
A Love Affair With Music,
Maybe With Each Other
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: December 6, 2011


Once
Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti portray the Guy and the Girl in this musical at the New York
Theater Workshop, inspired by the movie of the same title.



Steve Kazee, standing at the microphone, with other members of the "Once" cast.


Charm is fragile. What’s enchanting in one context, subjected to stress, exaggeration or self-consciousness, can seem soppy or strident in another.

That’s the big problem faced by the talented creators of “Once,” the gently appealing new musical that opened on Tuesday night at the New York Theater Workshop, and it’s one they’ve only partly resolved. For if ever there was an example of delicately balanced charm, poised to go flat or splat, it is the 2006 Irish movie that inspired this show.

Written and directed by John Carney, the movie “Once” was a low-budget, low-key venture in which a Dublin guy and girl — identified as only Guy and Girl — meet cute (he fixes her vacuum cleaner), make music and almost make love. Both composers (who play songs by the musicians who portray them, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), they achieve creative consummation by making a most promising demo tape. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, “Once” is now a cherished cult favorite, a sort of “Brief Encounter” for the scruffy folk-pop set of the 21st century.

Dangerous clichés are always lurking just beneath the surface of this film, ready to pop up like emoticons in a text message. Only the steady, understated naturalness of the performances, much of which were improvised, keeps the movie from coming down with that bad case of the cutes that often afflicts rom-coms.

Musicals — especially those with aspirations of making it on Broadway, where the stage version of “Once” is now headed — are a different animal from films, even films that spend half their time singing. Subtlety, for instance, has never been considered an asset in musicals. Whimsy, on the other hand, is often allowed to run wild.

In translating “Once” into three dimensions, the playwright Enda Walsh (whose superb “Misterman” is currently at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn) and the director John Tiffany (“Black Watch”) haven’t steered clear of what were probably inevitable excesses. The script is now steeped in wise and folksy observations about committing to love and taking chances, most of which are given solemn and thickly accented utterance by Girl (played by Cristin Milioti), who is Czech.

Guy, played by Steve Kazee, has been transformed from a shaggy nerd into a figure of leading-man handsomeness, while Girl has turned into a full-fledged version of what she only threatened to be in the film: a kooky, life-affirming waif who is meant to be irresistible. And supporting characters who were allowed scant screen time have been scaled up to become the sort of winsomely wacky background figures you find in fluffy screen fare starring Julia Roberts or Kate Hudson.

But a merciful reversal occurs when “Once” breaks into music, which is often. Characters become less adorably overwrought and more genuinely conflicted, with distinctive personalities instead of standard-issue ones. The songs (written by Mr. Hansard and Ms. Irglova) soar with rough-edged, sweet-and-sad ambivalence that is seldom visited in contemporary American musicals. (And yes, the score still includes “Falling Slowly,” which won the Academy Award for best song.)

The subliminal choreography, by Steven Hoggett, has a fractured individuality. Without overstating itself, it looks as weird as these people feel they are inside. In song, “Once” delivers an original interior view of its characters. And some of the numbers are as fresh and unexpected as anything seen in New York since “Spring Awakening.”

As anyone knows who saw “Black Watch,” a collage portrait of a Scottish Army regiment in Iraq, Mr. Tiffany and Mr. Hoggett are masters of surprising stagecraft. “Once,” designed by the inventive Bob Crowley, turns its stage into a meticulously authentic-looking pub, the kind of place where people gather not so much to forget their sorrows as to expatiate on them, in drink and in song.

The production has a prologue of sorts in which the audience is invited onstage to mingle with cast members, who play their own instruments and are (quite satisfyingly) their own orchestra. Classic drinking numbers are performed casually but spiritedly, setting up a world in which the wall between song and speech is porous.

What follows doesn’t always sustain that aura of permeability and spontaneity. Once you’ve accepted that a fellow as good-looking as Mr. Kazee is a nebbish, Guy is a touching presence, whose self-doubt is as evident as his singing talent. But all the other characters have been rewritten into states of high, and rather generic, idiosyncrasy. (The generic part surprises me, since that is one adjective I would never have applied to Mr. Walsh as a playwright.)

Billy (Paul Whitty), a piano store owner, is a lovable blowhard who regularly throws his back out demonstrating martial arts moves. The bank manager (Andy Taylor) who gives Girl and Guy a loan is built up into a twanging, semi-closeted country-and-western fan.

Girl’s mother, Baruska (Anne L. Nathan), is a folkloric bulldozer of advice. And Girl’s Czech roommates (Will Connolly, Elizabeth A. Davis and Lucas Papaelias) have all been assigned distinguishing eccentricities, which they wear like oversize lapel buttons. Mr. Papaelias’s character, a natural-born mimic, is the only one I truly enjoyed, though all the performers — who also include Claire Candela, David Patrick Kelly, Erikka Walsh and J. Michael Zygo — work honorably within the broad outlines that have been drawn for them.

But it’s with Girl that I had the most problems. Not with Ms. Milioti, who gives what is, under the circumstances, a restrained performance, but with her character as a catalyst.

Guy, who begins the show suicidal, asks her at one point if she isn’t an angel who’s been sent to put his life in order. And that really is her function here, far too conspicuously.

She has a habit of saying inspirational things that make you want to hightail it to the nearest bar (though not the one onstage). “These songs need to be sung for you, for me, for anyone who has lost a love and still wants to love,” she says to Guy. (If that was in the movie, it kindly passed me by.) She also tells him that he is “wasting your life because you’re frightened of it.”

But when she sings, in a haunted voice that brings to mind the Bjork of the movie “Dancer in the Dark,” she becomes a fully realized human being, both mysterious and accessible. In the first act, Girl has a number in which she puts words to music written by Guy that I can’t stop thinking about.

Ms. Milioti performs the song (with Ms. Davis and Ms. Walsh) using ritualized gestures that suggest a soul quietly wrestling with its own sadness, and I thought of the ethereally tormented women painted by Edvard Munch. Unlike most musicals, “Once” is most at home in the depths; it’s on the surface that it feels out of its element.


ONCE

Book by Enda Walsh; music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova; based on the motion picture written and directed by John Carney; directed by John Tiffany; movement by Steven Hoggett; music supervisor/orchestrations by Martin Lowe; sets and costumes by Bob Crowley; lighting by Natasha Katz; sound by Clive Goodwin; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis; vocal supervisor, Liz Caplan Vocal Studios. Presented by the New York Theater Workshop, James C. Nicola, artistic director. At the New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, East Village; (212) 279-4200; ticketcentral.com. Through Jan. 15. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes.

WITH: David Abeles (Eamon), Claire Candela (Ivona), Will Connolly (Andrej), Elizabeth A. Davis (Reza), Steve Kazee (Guy), David Patrick Kelly (Da), Cristin Milioti (Girl), Anne L. Nathan (Baruska), Lucas Papaelias (Svec), Andy Taylor (Bank Manager), Erikka Walsh (Ex-Girlfriend), Paul Whitty (Billy) and J. Michael Zygo (Emcee).

Aloysius J. Gleek:



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-07/rowdy-bar-brooding-ballads-fuel-charming-once-jeremy-gerard.html



Rowdy Bar, Moody Ballads
Add Charm to Broadway-Bound ‘Once’
By Jeremy Gerard
Dec 6, 2011 10:00 PM ET


Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti in "Once," a new musical based on the 2008 film, and now possibly
bound for Broadway. The film was awarded an Oscar for its plaintive song, "Falling Slowly," also
featured in the stage production.



A fine party is underway when you enter the New York Theatre Workshop to see “Once.” Feel free to join in.

The bar onstage is open for business and patrons on guitars, fiddles, drums and accordion are outdoing one another with anthems to the woeful miseries of love soured.

None is more scorching than “Leave,” a cri de coeur delivered by a strumming singer who takes over center stage.

A young woman approaches, asking if he has written this wrenching tune.

Soon we’re in a music shop (suggested merely by rolling an upright piano into the middle of the open pub setting). After a bit of Mendelssohn to prove her chops, Girl -- as she’s called -- has begun playing a melody snatched from the pocket of Guy (no other name, either).

“Falling Slowly” is the soulful, Oscar-winning ballad at the wounded heart of “Once” that helped a $150,000 indie film take in more than $20 million at the box office in 2008.

Like most of the music in this stage adaptation, “Falling Slowly” has never sounded more ethereally resonant. Or more Irish: “Take this sinking boat and point it home,” the song’s narrator urges a distant lover, “you’ve still got time.”


In Tune

As Guy and Girl, Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti are perfect vocal complements to each other. Whenever they’re joined by the rest of this remarkable ensemble, the music is gorgeous.

A recent Czech emigre to Dublin, Girl encounters Guy just as he has decided to throw in the towel. His girlfriend moved to New York and his music is getting him nowhere, certainly not out of the vacuum-repair shop he runs with his widowed “Da.” Girl is so taken with his songs that she arranges a one-shot, 24-hour recording session to make a demonstration disc.

They fall in love, but she’s still married to the absent father of her little girl and Guy has unfinished business with the woman who left him behind.

This happens to parallel the true story of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who wrote the songs for the movie (and added more for the show). They bristle with desire sublimated by circumstance into art.


Moving On

If you miss it in the East Village, don’t worry: “Once” will surely follow through on plans to move to Broadway by spring. Before then, I hope that book writer Enda Walsh will trim the gratuitous slaps at Josh Groban and “Riverdance.”

Too frequently, the show careers into Tweeland, especially when the otherwise efficient director John Tiffany turns things over to Steven Hoggett, credited with “movement” that resembles a parody of modern dance.

These quibbles are eminently fixable. The inviting pub setting and working-class clothes are by Bob Crowley, the sensuous lighting by Natasha Katz. This is one show where having actors play instruments actually makes sense. “Once” charms us with a rare combination of intelligence, warmth and musicality.

Through Jan. 15, 2012 at 74 E. 4th St. Information: +1-212- 279-4200; http://www.nytw.org. Rating: ***

What the Stars Mean:
****        Do Not Miss
***         Excellent
**          Good
*           So-So
(No stars)  Avoid
 
(Jeremy Gerard is the chief U.S. drama for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are their own.)

To contact the writer of this column:

Jeremy Gerard in New York at [email protected].

Aloysius J. Gleek:


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/once-more-falling-slowly-once-043731205.html



Once more,
falling slowly for "Once"
By JOCELYN NOVECK
Wed, Dec 7, 2011


Steve Kazee, left, and Cristin Milioti are shown in a scene from "Once,"
performing at the New York Theatre Workshop in New York.


NEW YORK (AP) — Once upon a time, a little indie movie was made for $150,000 about an Irish street musician and a Czech flower-seller in Dublin. Its breezy, improvisational feel, pleasing folk-pop songs and melancholy romance touched the hearts of countless fans, and the film raked in $20 million.

As if that weren't enough, the movie's two stars and composers, 18 years apart, fell in love during filming, adding to the lore. Oh, and they won the 2007 original song Oscar for the hypnotic "Falling Slowly," bringing many to tears once again with their moving acceptance speeches.

That Cinderella of a movie was, of course, "Once," now being lovingly revived at off-Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop to eager audiences, many of whom fell for the film — not slowly, but fast — and are ready to fall yet again. And the fairy tale continues: On opening night Tuesday, producers announced a move to Broadway next year.

Just how die-hard "Once" fans will feel about the inevitable story adjustments the creative team has made in the current production remains an open and subjective question. How faithful does a film-to-stage adaptation need to be? Discuss.

But one thing is clear, despite a few flaws: The sweetness, the charm, and most of all the deceptively addictive songs by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are all still there, ready as ever to claim the heart.

Add to that some lovely, original staging by director John Tiffany and choreographer Steven Hoggett (both of whom were behind the terrific "Black Watch" from the National Theatre of Scotland), not to mention excellent orchestrations by Martin Lowe.

The inventiveness of the staging hits you even before the play starts. Walking into the theater, you confront a stage full of musicians — they are also the acting ensemble — playing Irish tunes in a tavern. There are fiddlers (a couple of the best-looking ones you've ever seen), a bassist, a piano player, people drumming on cabinets. It's loud and lusty and joyful, and you can join in onstage — the tavern's bar is ready to serve you real drinks.

Now for a quick story recap, if you haven't seen the film (but hey, at only 88 minutes, you really should): The main characters are Guy and Girl. He's a Hoover vacuum cleaner repairman who sings in the streets in his spare time. She's a Czech immigrant who sells flowers by day, cares for a young daughter at night, and grabs precious minutes to play the piano at a music store.

They are brought together by a love for music and a slowly burning attraction, with personal lives full of obstacles to their romance. Over a short period, they transport each other to a different place, emotionally and professionally, and one of the story's nicest elements is its refusal to tie things up neatly at the end.

In the film, Guy was played by the red-haired, gravelly voiced Hansard, Girl by the winsome and soft-spoken Irglova (only 17 at the time). Neither had acting experience, and many scenes were improvised to fit loosely around the songs.

That freewheeling feel is almost impossible to recreate on a stage — particularly when the production is aimed eventually at a much larger one, on Broadway — and wisely, the creators aren't really trying to do that. And so the scenes (the book is by playwright Enda Walsh) are more structured, and snappier, if sometimes overly forced.

It's also hard to recreate characters who are loved, especially as, in this case, the original leads infused much of their own personalities into the roles. The production confronts the problem by not mimicking the originals. Cristin Milioti as Girl, particularly, gives the role a much feistier, zingier, sometimes comic dimension. (Milioti, who has a beautiful singing voice, has said she purposely didn't see the film when she got the role, to avoid imitating Irglova.)

As Guy, Steve Kazee has a terrific voice as well, much more theatrical — understandably — than Hansard's, and the matinee idol looks to go with it.

The more significant departure from the film is an emphasis on comedy, with the addition or enhancement of several characters for that purpose. Billy, for example, is the music store owner — a character barely seen in the film — and here he's an oafish, lovable giant type, with lots of corny Irish humor thrown his way, not to mention some broad physical comedy that occasionally threatens to overshadow the play's subtler charms.

Other comic characters — sometimes overly so — include a bank officer with a (really bad) song in his heart, and a bunch of kooky flat mates for Girl, who learn English from a soap opera and later become the backup band as Guy and Girl embark on a mammoth recording session.

"Once" lovers will know how the story ends, but we won't spoil it for those who don't. Except to say that of all the songs in the show, some from the film and some not, none resonate with more power and simple emotion than "Falling Slowly."

And so, as first Guy begins a reprise of the song, then Girl joins in, and then the entire ensemble, you're probably not falling slowly by that point. Swept up in the music, you're probably just gone.


Online:

http://nytw.org

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