iTunes Exclusive Episode Bright Star

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Welcome.
This is number 393.
So close to another milestone stay with us.
My name is Rob.
I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast and I like a little banjo every once
in a while.
Especially if it's played well.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode joining me across the desk as he tends
to do from time to time is my co-host and a man who appreciates the banjo as much as
I do here's Chad.
Welcome, sir.
Again, when it's played well.
I want it to play well.
Can you hear yourself okay?
It's a little better.
A little lighter.
A little better.
There we go.
Okay, yeah.
That's better.
Rounding out the dais is the official fact checker of this show.
And a man I'm sure we'll have some kind of a Montana banjo joke.
You may know him as Fondongo but his mama name him Don Ford.
I'm going to calm Don Ford.
Welcome, sir.
What were about to talk about this?
They should have had me with a beolar out there.
I don't know.
I think they did pretty well on their own.
No, I want to kill them.
You got that right.
It's a bit vague.
Broad jump?
Kilder.
Whenever we do one of these, it is to review something.
This is no exception.
But we're in this particular episode.
We're going to be handling a stage production because we do those every once in a while too.
It is time to talk bright star.
Before we start this whole thing.
Yes, sir.
We got big Cindy Evans.
Everybody at ATD pack of the wind spear for the invite on this.
You are correct, sir.
We love them all.
We love our vendors.
They give us a chance to see things in advance so we can talk to you guys about them.
This is not just for people in the Dallas, Fort Worth area because it is here until June
the 24th.
However, this is a nationally touring company.
People all over the country and sometimes all over the world because you have other
continents that have their own touring company as well for this.
This was created by Steve Martin, a very up-and-comer.
He's a kid with a dream.
You might have heard of him.
Dallas native Edie Bracel.
You might remember her with new Bohenians back in the day.
As you said in your written review shot at www.dachlubhousepodcast.com, that's our website.
Kind of fitting that when it comes to Dallas, it plays at the wind spear because Edie Bracel
is a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, which is right next to the wind spear
opera house.
I didn't know that.
She and Nora Jones both went there.
Steve Martin was born here in Texas.
I did not know that.
He has a connection here too.
All right, so here's what she needs to know about this.
This takes place.
It time jumps a little bit, a little bit of the 20s, a little bit of the 40s.
We are centered on, you want to say two characters, but it's really about one.
Yeah, but Alison Murphy played by Audrey Cardwell, and she plays both her lack of a better
term present self and her past self, her younger self and her older self.
Where she is the editor-in-chief of a small magazine, that's a very, very popular, small
but popular because it's a literary, yes, it's a literary magazine, and she's very, very
particular about who she brings on.
What's going on?
Where's my music?
I like to say.
There is my music.
She's very highly respected.
Her opinion is very highly regarded, but she's very tough.
The Asheville Southern Journal, right.
On the other hand, you have Billy King, played by Henry Gottfried, and he is just coming home
from the war, a young man early 20s, and he is an aspiring writer, and he wants to be
published in this journal.
So he ventures his way there with just a dream and a wish to see if he can get published
in this magazine.
Now, during this entire time, you've got Alice remembering her life story, so that's where
the time jump comes from.
Right.
Something she dealt with, just young love, disapproving parents, kind of universal themes.
Yes.
Most people can relate.
Yes.
And then it goes from there, because I don't want to go any deeper, because there's a lot
of things to this, and we'll just start talking about our thoughts in general.
Okay.
I want to say, first of all, I think both of you will agree with me on this.
From a technical standpoint, this is outstanding, really well done.
You have the band, which is not in the pit.
They're in a log cabin, per lack of a better term.
That rotates and moves around, because the cabin that they're in also works as scenery
for some of the actual scenes in the musical as well.
It's kind of utilized black box style.
I kind of put it in my written review at www.thecopastpodcast.com.
That's our website.
That's our website.
A frame of a barn or mini, mini shed, because it's not a wooden shed.
It's not the whole shed, but it's like the corner posts, the frame basically.
So you can see through there, but you can tell it's like a wooden shed, a wooden
barn, but it's the frame so you can actually see and hear the people playing the instruments.
It's like they had a barn raising and he's like, nah, good enough, and it works, especially
because it keeps them the way it's set up.
They stay contained so that they're all together, but the acoustics still work.
Well, did you see who was responsible for this, by the way, who was responsible for the
set design?
One Eugene Lee.
Does that name mean anything to you?
It sounds familiar to me.
He has been the production designer for Saturday Night Live since 1974.
Well done, sir.
Also for the tonight show with Jimmy Fallon and late night with Seth Meyers.
So you guys got scared on the wall.
Exactly.
Again, from a technical standpoint, the lighting is very well done.
The transitions here are brilliant.
Yes.
How they're able to just kind of move one set out, move the other one in, just keep it
moving.
And the barn goes from one side to the next, back and forth, that's absolutely.
And then the slight indication of certain scenes of sunrises and sunsets by raising the
curtain and seeing the mountain rage and changing the lighting behind the backdrop of
the mountains.
The lighting was beautiful.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
But now, what's up with the other side of it?
Because...
For what you do, the band...
Oh, the band's amazing.
Right, solid.
The band is absolutely amazing.
Absolutely amazing.
I put you get in my written review at www.thecobasplacast.com.
That's our website.
There's my shout out on all the music goes to the band, not to some singer.
The singing, I thought, was okay, it was good.
It wasn't going to...
There's nothing that really put me to tears, but the band itself, that music was incredible.
Absolutely amazing.
I found that more enjoyable than the singing.
And from what I understand when this was on Broadway, on the off occasion, the playwrights
themselves would join.
Oh, absolutely.
And in this particular company, it is conducted and directed by P. Jason Yarsho.
I want to give a shout out there.
And a lot of people understand, you hear banjo and you're just like, whatever.
The banjo is a very, very difficult instrument to play.
Yes, it is.
I tried it.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's a very...
It's a very...
I mean, there's a very select few that are very, very good at it.
And a couple of them are celebrities.
You have Steve Martin.
Ed Helms from the office is actually a very, very good banjo player as well.
And you can tell, I mean, if you didn't know Steve Martin was involved, you would
know by the end of it just musically.
Right.
Story-wise, different deal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's my thing.
Act two, I think is much better than act one.
If we had just ended at the break, this would be a completely different review for me.
Yeah.
Because there's a lot of story to tell here.
And because of that, the first act really dragged for me.
It did.
And it was also...
When you see, and I think all three of us have mentioned this, I haven't finished working
with Don's review yet, but by the time you hear this, it'll be up at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
We're getting better.
You put Steve Martin's name on something, and there's a certain level of perceived humor
that comes with that.
Yeah.
A level of mirth and lightheartedness that you were just act one, not so much.
There was some comedy in there.
I mean, the comedy, I gave my acting shout out.
I'm not going to try to say his last name.
I know who you're talking about.
Borm and Cran.
Borm and Cran.
That's what I said.
That's what I said.
No, that's not what you said.
But I'll close it up.
No, he used my shout out when it comes to acting because he had so much to do the acting
itself.
His character is a supporting role as employee at the journal.
He owns that role because he originated that role on stage.
He's kind of the male who's kind of feminine in a way, but it has a kind of sass to him.
He sassy.
Yeah, he sassy.
Not even that.
He had so much to this play when it came to acting.
He was my favorite shout out.
Not the leads.
Him.
He definitely brought the much needed lightheartedness to the proceeding.
Yes.
Outside of the obvious, because Cardwell crushes this.
Yes.
Absolutely crushes this.
And nobody can touch her.
For me, it was Caitlin Davidson who plays Lucy.
When she gets to have the chance to have her number in the second act, she's amazing.
That was a poor me another round or whatever, yeah.
I thought that was probably one of my favorite numbers.
It's just called another round.
Another round.
That's probably my favorite number in the entire production.
Yeah.
Because especially considering just for the sake of the narrative that we're trying to play
out here, the number right before it was called heartbreaker, and not the pat men
at our show.
Let's be clear on that.
And you really needed that lightheartedness after that end.
Yeah.
I mean, there's just, there's such, I mean, after act one, it's just such a downer.
Well, for me, I thought this storyline drag, there's a payoff that's I'm going to say
you're split free, but there's that big payoff at the end of why you understand why
it went this way.
But still, it's like, okay, we're going to take a trip from Dallas to Denver, but we're
going to actually have to go through, let's go through Illinois, then by rad it, let's
go down to Florida, then let's go up to Wyoming, and then let's go to Hawaii, then Alaska,
then finally get to Denver.
Why am I going to call Wyoming?
Because I didn't want to take, you see, I got to give a brother an option, but you know,
but I didn't want to say the M state, because I was a dare at the beginning of the thing.
I'm not going to save the state that I grew up in.
Every Montana.
I'm not going to save.
But you know, I'm not going to save my life.
But again, when it comes to the storyline, the smartest man alive, so I'm saying, some
people can see you coming.
You and I are both, I'm like, please don't tell me I said, I think we know where this
is going.
Yeah, I'm like, you know, but again, even from a technical aspect, some of those turns
are done very, very well.
The very end of act one, I thought that was really well done, very, very well done.
The Chuchu.
Yes.
Yeah.
But here comes my issue.
All right.
I loved the music, easy killer, if I was listening to just a CD of the music, totally
on board with this, it just didn't really gel with the stage production storytelling
for me.
It really didn't fit.
Some of it seemed, how do I even say it?
Not proper, the right tone of music, that's part of it, but even the songwriting itself,
I maybe I expect more from people like Steve Martin and Edie Brickell than I got.
Lyrically, I think it was a little too simplistic, it was a little hokey.
Was it to that country fair style music?
No, but that doesn't bother me.
No, because that fits where they're living.
Right.
That's just a short one.
Yeah.
But lyrically, I just think it was a little bit too simple, yeah, with the people that
you've got involved.
I mean, and he's got Grammys to his credit, several, and she's, you know, as accomplished
a songwriter as there is, involved in a production of this little and married to another one.
Yes, exactly.
And it's got some of that kind of work.
Because for those you don't know, Edie Brickell is Mrs. Paul Simon.
Exactly.
Did you know that?
Yeah, you didn't?
No.
Wow.
Okay.
I don't keep up with every celebrity marriage.
No, that's what I'm saying.
You're not as ingrained as some of this stuff is Chad and I, because I've been spending
the last several years scratching my head going, how the hell did that happen?
But, um, she called them out.
I knew about the wild love of Julia Roberts.
But yeah, it's just, I was thinking, I'm listening to this stuff lyrically and I'm like,
this is very sing-songy children's programming level lyrics and stuff.
I'm like, they can, I think this deserves better.
But, vocally, the women across the board, I thought crushed it.
Oh, absolutely.
But the guys.
And I'll tell you a very underrated in this production.
And I think if she had more screen time, I would be totally okay with that.
And this is Alice and Bryner Dardine that plays her mother.
Yeah.
Wow.
What a powerhouse.
But here's my other thing about that.
Actually, I'm, I'm going to con you this thing.
I'm going to let you finish because I know where you're going with this.
Because I've read your review currently located at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
Don, you gotta let him do the thing.
Get you giving the thing.
Dang.
Back off.
Oh my god.
Someday.
Someday?
Yeah.
But I know where you're going with this and I kind of have a bit of a counter to it.
So I want you to go ahead and make the point you're fixing to make.
Okay.
I didn't, I didn't put it all in there because we've just, or at least I've discussed a great
length and several occasions.
What I like to call the Annie effect, where you've got she okay.
You're welcome.
I didn't thank you, but go ahead.
Where they try so hard.
They being the performers on stage at the end of given time, during any given number.
Try so hard to retain this fake accent that they're trying to portray as what part
of the, which we also addressed in Matilda as well.
Exactly.
That it bleeds over into their singing performance and I'm sorry, but for the most part,
when somebody sings, their accent kind of goes away for the most part, not in every
case, but for the most part.
Adele does not sound like she sings and how she talks.
Ozzy.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Or he's coherent.
You can always understand her.
She's got a very thick, company accent, and that does not bleed through in her singing.
Brother, it doesn't.
Absolutely not.
So, I don't really think that, and these are grown men doing this, the women I never really
picked up on that, especially the older men, and that's one of the things that just
drove me nuts.
I'm like, you're trying too hard to make that accent work while you're singing when you're
delivering dialogue fine when you're singing back off of it a little bit.
Here's my counter to that, because after I read your review, I really kind of thought about
because I had already written mine, and there's an interesting point counterpoint here between
the two reviews.
Because for me, I thought the men were great performers.
My fault in that lies more in the material they're given.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because, especially in a number like a man's got to do, I knew you were going to go here.
Yeah.
I'm watching the performance, and I'm like, you are a great performer.
This is not helping show people that.
Yeah.
So, for me, I don't blame the performer as much as I blame the material.
Absolutely.
I agree with that.
I've got to agree with you.
But again, if I'm just listening to the material by itself and an isolated chamber, I would
enjoy listening to the soundtrack.
It just doesn't fit with the storytelling for me.
Don, thoughts on that?
I kind of agree.
Because here's my thing.
This is not the worst production I've seen this year.
No.
No.
It's not at the top of my list, but it's not the worst thing I've seen this year.
Oh, no.
No.
And that's where I get trapped.
Yeah.
Because I'm going to one extreme to the other.
It's kind of explained because I really love certain things, which is in my review again.
Where is that?
www.theclapastbottcast.com.
Apparently.
You got it there.
You got it there.
I'm happy for you.
You got it there.
I'm happy for you.
I got on three wheels.
I love the music.
I loved the set, but the singing was good, but the band was better, which kind of puts
me down a little bit.
The best thing we have where the story, like I said, it takes so long to go around and
get to the point.
There's a lot of storytelling here, which is a lot of what was happening.
Let me ask because you, and please don't take this the wrong way, but you are not a fan
of the time jump.
Not as bad as you as something.
I like the time jump.
I mean, here's the thing.
But I'm talking in general.
You're not a big fan of time.
No, no, no, no.
I can't.
But how did this, was this, because there's been productions that we've seen where you've
kind of gotten lost in the time jump that we've talked about.
How does this rank in that particular category for you?
On this one here, it's kind of the point where I was keeping up on it.
Okay, this is our past.
Here's current day.
Here's the pastor's current day, and I could go through that.
But this one is saying, why are they constantly doing this story and bringing this in?
What's the point?
What's the payoff?
They're taking way too long to get there.
And there is, I mean, there is a payoff, like you said, there is a payoff.
But I totally see where you're coming from, where there's a lot of where is the chase
and how can I cut to it?
Yeah, exactly.
So, and again, I've seen worse productions.
This just, it seems...
And you gotta give it that it is based on a true story.
Huh?
Huh?
Okay.
What?
This could be new information to me.
Inspired by a true story.
Totally missed that.
Well done.
All right.
All right.
Well done, done.
The judges have approved your opinion there.
By a true event.
Did not know that.
I wonder what the totally missed that.
So I could kind of understand why they told the story and it's not, hey, this is not true,
but of course, they probably have their liberties on what really happened to the artistic
license was taken, I'm sure.
Yeah.
It's a big time on this.
But just to tell the story, and this thing is about, not counting the intermission,
about two hours and 15 minutes.
So it is kind of getting up there on the time and to tell that story in two hours and
15 minutes is kind of long.
Anything else we want to talk about?
Focus on final analysis.
Yeah.
All right.
The way we do the final analysis on this show, we're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs
down.
We're not going to give you numbers, letter grades, banjo strings, anything like that.
Up to two questions.
Question number one is, would we see this production again?
Now this is going to be different from our movie reviews because if the answer is no,
we're still done here.
But if the answer is yes, instead of asking when you would go, I ask.
Where would you want to sit?
Because the closer you sit, the more important, the more expensive the ticket is, et cetera,
et cetera.
Thomas, start with you.
Would you see this again?
Uh, yeah, I would.
All right.
How far are you going to go to do it?
I would do the second level seats.
So you're right there on the edge in the middle.
I would say the fourth level, but to the second level.
All right.
Would you see this again?
No.
You would not see this again.
No.
Wow.
Oh.
It was just too many things wrong with it, in my opinion, just a little too heavy-handed
and a little too clunky for me.
So that's what you have to say.
Wow.
A little delayed on the buzz.
Yeah.
I've got to rearrange the buttons.
Struck godly.
At least you got him right.
Here's my thing.
This is a tough call for me.
It was hard for me, but I just had to have to.
I'm going to say I would see it again.
But I don't know that I would pay anywhere in your top dollar, because I'd like to see
it again just from the standpoint of knowing what I know now, going back and watching it
again, because I guarantee you there's details that I missed as the story was going.
And I can explain that a little bit when we get off there, because it's a potential
spoiler.
All right.
We've got the WinSphere Opera House through June 24th, and it may be coming to a city near
you.
It is called Bright Star.
Born this whole thing?
Yes, sir.
Again, we have Cindy Evans, everybody at ATT Pack and the WinSphere.
We love our vendors.
They take care of us so much.
They don't see stuff.
So we can talk to you guys about them, so you can spend your entertainment dollar in the
best way.
Let's do the plugs.
All right.
Visit our website, the aforementioned www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
Find out everything you need to know and some stuff you don't.
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I am Matt Chad in PG69.
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Also email me at Don at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Email Don for information on how we can come to a live show for you like we're going to
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We love doing live remote shows and hanging out with the empire.
You can email me, questions, comments, concerns, somebody to go pound sand.
I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com.
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Incidentally, I think the final stop is after this stop here.
Oh, so it's almost over.
Yeah, I think it's going to Raleigh and I think that's it.
Okay, well, I'm sure they'll do another two.
Yeah, it's running through July 1st.
So until next time for Don for Chad and the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed.
Pretty parmer.
You could really use her in this, I'm just saying.