Tom Hanks may well be poised to win a Tony Award this Sunday for his Broadway debut in “Lucky Guy.” But almost every critic mentioned him in reviewing the new stage musical of “Sleepless in Seattle,” which opened a world premiere engagement at the Pasadena Playhouse last week. Hanks, of course, starred opposite Meg Ryan in the 1993 movie directed by the late Nora Ephron (who has had a posthumous hit in “Lucky Guy”), on which the musical is based. Alas, according to some of the reviewers, the show simply failed to reignite the special chemistry that made this one of the most enduring of romantic comedies of recent history. Though the musical received some positive notices, the influential ones were noticeably downbeat.
“A stage musical that can best be described as pointless in Pasadena,” carped Robert Hofler, writing in Variety. “‘Sleepless,’ the movie, ran on the fumes of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan’s charm… If ever there were characters who had no need to sing, they are Sam of Seattle and Annie of Baltimore.”
Echoed by Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times — “‘Sleepless in Seattle’ left me too worried about the state of the American musical to get too goosepimply about romance” — the harsh assessment comes after a seven-year development process in which the project went through three directors and an equal number of songwriting teams. Sheldon Epps, who is also artistic director of the Playhouse, brought the musical to fruition following a delay of almost a year during which songwriters Ben Toth and Sam Foreman were brought in. Jeff Arch, who co-wrote the screenplay with David S. Ware and Ephron, penned the stage adaptation. Attempting to make the central roles their own are Tim Martin Gleason, as the bereaved Sam, and Chandra Lee Schwartz, as Annie, the journalist who is touched by his late-night call to a radio show. The catalyst for their fateful meeting at the top of the Empire State Building is Sam’s son, Jonah, played in the musical by the young dynamo Joe West.
The musical’s problems point to the difficulties in the current and ever-growing trend of film-to-musical stage transfers, especially when the source material is as iconic as “Sleepless,” a movie that grossed about $125 million domestically. Given that only one in four shows recoup their investment, it’s understandable that theater producers are attracted to such branded material. But the stage musical adaptation of “Ghost,” a film that grossed over half-a-billion worldwide, was an expensive box-office failure. Despite some dazzling special effects, there was no compelling reason to revisit, at the steep price of a Broadway ticket, a story that had been told so effectively onscreen. Add to that the iconic stature of the film performances and you’ve got any number of pitfalls.
“Rocky, the Musical,” which opened in Hamburg, Germany, earlier this year, is under the same duress. It has since announced a Broadway opening in the spring of 2014 and you can be sure that the creators — book writer Tom Meehan, director Alex Timbers, and songwriters Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty — are strongly aware of what they are facing. While the critics in Germany gave the production a warm reception and Sylvester Stallone has registered his delight with the show, “Rocky, the Musical” has a bigger target on its back than, say, the one on Apollo Creed.
Image: Photo by Jim Cox