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*UPDATE* – 7/19/2009
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Me Ol’ Bamboo and Posh were too slow. Posh is kind of understandable for the actor, but the only excuse for Bamboo is that they dont have enough offstage chorus people covering vocals for the exerting dancers. I mean I just saw the 83 year old Dick Van Dyke do it at tempo without the choreography, so do they really even have an excuse? And they modified the roll off choreography that Potts leads slightly (Laura noticed it and I agree with her).

Truly Scrumptious was too fast. They also didn’t do the talking intro for it (you’d had to be called somethig lovely like toot sweets).

I actually heard Lord Scrumptious (who is double cast as Baron Bombast) be angry at Potts for his invention ruining the factory with the dog whistle.

The kids steal the show everytime.

It’s still very cute (Hushabye Mountain is beautiful!). And the choral finale of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is still pompous.

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*UPDATE* – 7/13/2009
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Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can comment more thoroughly on what I like/dislike about the adaptation.

I appreciate the new songs (Teamwork and Samba) and appreciate being able to hear all the prettiness instead of being interruted by comedic dialogue. I mean I’ve got no problem with comedy, but “Doll On A Music Box/Truly Scrumptious” is very pretty and the movie only hints at it’s loveliness because Dick Van Dyke is hilarious. Same with Posh – with Grandpa using it as a time transition (but one that didn’t take nearly as long as the movie – observation, not complaint), you get to savor the lyrics ad enjoy his eccentricities. I also liked the extended Hushabye Mountain where Caractacus is energized and singing the song brimming with hope that he can raise the 30 bob and buy the children their car. I like Teamwork reprise, but I love the Hushabye Mountain duet.

I like the tweaked opening that has Caractacus defending his children from the junk dealer (albeit with his own eccentricities).

The movie draws a hard line (via special effects) between fantasy and reality that bends but never breaks while the musical chooses to never enter (leave?) the realm of fantasy which is a slightly better choice in my mind: everyoe wants to see the car fly, so why not just make that the reality of the show!

AND THE CAR FLIES!

It wasn’t clear to me that Caractacus didn’t make any money from Toot Sweets until I saw the movie…and it was a one line of dialogue fix! Just have Lord Scrumptious say, “Ring for the police!” and now we know he’s unhappy with a small pack of dogs runnig across his factory (obviously the best dog-related chaos you can show on stage, but I’m just saying it wasn’t completely clear).

The spies were very funny.

Chu-chi Face is much darker in the movie because the Baron really doesn’t like his wife…delightful fun in the movie but just kid of *meh* in the musical.

I love when new writers honor the old guard by taking instrumental music from the source material and turning it into a full blown song (the example here being The Vulgarian Anthem).

And I didn’t know this wasn’t a Disney film because it was the Sherman Brothers. But the Sherman Brothers are always charming and a brilliant songwriting team because they write for characters…it doesn’t matter if melodies are similar…the characters are all different.

And it’s much easier to have a toymaker be a deus ex machina than have the entire cast stage a full scale rebellion.

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Absolutely delightful. It brought Laura back to many happy memories of watching the movie and singing the title song over and driving her parents crazy…and we happily skipped downthe stairs singing “pretty chitty bang bang” and having a wonderful time. What can I say…her giddiness is infectious!

I wasn’t particularly fond of the Act 1 finale…I mean it was amazing to watch the car fly, but the chorale arrangement of the title song seemed rather pretentious (while Laura was overwhelmed with giddyness by the flying car, she does agree that it’s a little pompous).

What kind of toymaker can just repeal a royal decree and depose a baron just for being evil?

Very polished preview. Only one stop per act. Really good caliber performances from the leads…even by non-high school standards.

Obviously they can’t say f***. The big problem song obviously is La Vie Boheme: They can say masturbation but they can’t say erection? They can’t say dyke. They jumped a section with lyrics right before the talking interlude…marijuana?

Roger is phenomenal and this is his first onstage performance ever! He’s a sophmore varsity football player and he’s got a really good voice.

30 hi-quality cordless mics! Fancy LED footlights and high end lighting throughout!

Really good show! Check it out before the protests shut it down!

Yay!  We got Brian Benoit (the original Trekkie Monster, et al.)!  I was lucky enough to see him AND John Tartaglia when I first saw the show in Vegas (before it was trimmed down to 90 minutes), and it’s awesome that he loves doing the show so much that he’s now on the national tour.  Great production.  Obviously I can (and will) complain about things, but first and foremost, I had a great time!

Why didn’t the orchestra play the final hit of “My Girlfriend Who Lives In Canada”? Rod was even sitting there waiting for it?!?!?!

Why were lyrics cut from “Schadenfreude”?

Straight-A students getting B’s? Ex-es getting STD’s? Watching tourists reading maps? Seeing doormen taking naps? CEO’s getting shackled? Watching actors never reach the endings of their Oscar speech?

Brian and Christmas Eve didn’t say that they sold all their wedding gifts for money…

Why didn’t the ensemble get a bow? I mean I can understand from a certain point of view how they’d essentially just be viewed as glorified techies that help the show run smoothly, handling puppets, etc.  But one of the ensemble members came up to the Third Tier with a Nicky puppet during “The Money Song” and I thought it was a really impressive and immersive thing to do (I suspect there was also a puppet/ensemble member on the Second and First Tiers).  So why didn’t they get a bow?  Because they’re glorified techies and techies don’t get bows.  But at least they’re also understudies and will probably get their chance in the spotlight.

Great individual performances, horrible combination.

Great sounding tracked orchestra. Oscar was a real piano player with bad hair (not period hair I mean), and also played weird interludes during the barfly scene. Speaking of that scene, Abner Dillon wasn’t heavyset with a handlebar mustache, so he was a cobra and a hick instead of cobra and a walrus….boo! Although the theatre was well used because they had a balcony set piece for Dorothy’s hotel room. And speaking of the balcony, they cut the doctor scene at the top of Act 2 and opened with Sunny Side (To Every Situation)…what the deuce! And the worstest part is after Sunny Side they ran up to the other balcony where they could have done the damn doctor scene!!!! WTFH!?!?!?!!!! Just doesn’t make any damn sense…

Oh! And they mixed up Shuffle Off To Buffalo! Traditionally, Bert Barry gets married to Anytime Annie and Maggie Jones plays the sarcastic older woman saying “Matrimony is baloney”, etc.  But for whatever reason, Bert marries Maggie and then Annie who doesn’t look like she has the age/experience to say marriage is crap, says marriage is crap!  It just doesn’t make any sense.

The tap dancing was good…Peggy Sawyer was good…Billy Lawler was good…

Billy’s character in “Pretty Lady” got shot which is the traditional ending which I heartily approve of…but there were just so many annoying things…

A+ for the cast, D- for the technical

Maybe it was that day’s performance…maybe the economy forced their hand…or maybe they shelled out way too much money for the cast (most of whom did the show on Broadway, in Las Vegas, or both) and had to hire a deficient tech crew that hobbled together a set out of spit and bailing wire (MacGyver they ain’t)* and forgot half their cues…I don’t know!

The most disappointing thing about this production is Ulla’s “tidy up” gag. Near the end of Act 1, Max and Leo hire a hot Swedish girl as their secretary/receptionist. They instruct her to tidy up the office. When everyone comes back for Act 2, the entire office and furnishings are painted white, and when asked when she did all this, Ulla says intermission. At least that’s what happened on Broadway, in the movie adaptation and every national tour…not here…Ulla hung new curtains and flowers…and that’s it!!!!! It’s like they didn’t even put any effort into it!!! And it was so disappointing after such a fantastic Act 1!

Also: weird jump cut during Heil Myself; the Keep It Gay scene was just a little too long for Laura’s and mine pace sensibilities; the cat sound FX in Never Say Good Luck On Opening Nifht was NOT Mel Brooks; the tilted-mirror-schwastika in Springtime for Hitler was an epic failure;