Arthur Bicknell Career Retrospective: Moose Murders
| Feb |
| 20 |
| 7:30 pm |
Review: ‘Moose Murders’ good for silly laughs
JEFF SPEVAK • D&C STAFF MUSIC CRITIC • FEBRUARY 21, 2010
Moose Murders
| The Most Notorious Flop in Broadway History is Now a Moose-ical.
SOLD OUT!!! ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY a limited number of walk-up seats are available on a first come, first serve basis Read New York Times article about this production HERE Of ‘Moose’ and mirth: an Arthur Bicknell celebration at MuCCC
THE REVIEWERS RAVE! “…the worst play I’ve ever seen on the Broadway stage.” Frank Rich, The New York Times “…as close as I ever hope to get to the bottomless pit.” John Simon, New York Magazine “…would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas.” Brendan Gill, The New Yorker “A cast of non-professiona– most barely even amateuR– actors.” Campbell Robertson, The New York Times “This is what theater will be like after the apocalypse.” Karen Winer “Takes a crowbar to the zeitgeist.” Richard Estell |
see NY Times review of the 2008 revival here
Mr. Bicknell will be present to talk about his life as a playwright. A Post-Cap/MuCCC Production. Directed by Spencer Christiano.
What do you do if you have the biggest failure in Broadway history? Mount a career retrospective, of course. Twenty-seven years later.
Arthur Bicknell was a young, promising off-Broadway playwright when, in 1983, his agent sold his unfinished play “Moose Murders” to a Texas oilman who wanted to mount it on Broadway as “something nice” for his wife. In six weeks. The million dollar production, a sum unheard of for a non-musical at the time, made theatrical history in the worst possible way. (Usual quotes.) Bicknell, who had two off-Broadway successes prior to “Moose”, saw his career destroyed. Drunken divas, technical staging nightmares and re-writes that were, to say the least, up to the minute, hacked to death his lifelong love of the theater. Until….
Exactly twenty-five years to the day after the premiere of “Moose Murders”, a troupe of amateur everythings in Rochester, New York mounted a loving, non-kitsch revival of the Moose which they had turned into a post-modern musical that garnered the attention yet again of the New York Times in a front page Arts section article on the nature of failure, the theater, and the Moose.
Playwright Bicknell’s delightful and theater affirming experience with the Rochester group led him to write a new play expressly for this company. And so on Friday, February 18th at the MuCCC theater in Rochester, New York, “What is Art?” will have its world premiere.
“Moose Murders” will be reprised for one night on Saturday, February 19th with its original (”non-professional, in fact, barely amateur” according to the New York Times) cast and on Sunday, February 20th, one of Bicknell’s true successes, “My Great Dead Sister” will be performed 30 years to the day of its New York premiere.
“Not unlike the mysterious and benign figure who offered Judah Ben-Hur a gourd full of water on his way to the galley ships,” analogized Bicknell, “John W. Borek has sated my thirst for respect and inspired me to return to my theatrical homeland—overgrown now with weeds and dead leaves, perhaps, but still there, it turns out. The race continues!”
Photo by James Rajotte for The New York Times
Two locals add songs to turn Broadway bomb into camp JEFF SPEVAK • STAFF MUSIC CRITIC • D&C FEBRUARY 11, 2010
One of the oddest theater stories of the millennium soon returns in a weekend dubbed “What is Art?” Each night revolves around readings of three plays by Art himself, Arthur Bicknell, at the South Wedge theater MuCCC. What is Art? will debut on Feb. 19, followed by Moose Murders on Feb. 20 and My Great Dead Sister on Feb. 21. continued…..
Anthony Lovenheim Irwin, left, and Joe Fox-Boyd wrote music for the revived play Moose Murders. (PHOTO BY ANNETTE DRAGON)
