Home Sweet Homer
Home Sweet Homer | |
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Music | Mitch Leigh |
Lyrics | Charles Burr Forman Brown |
Book | Roland Kibbee Albert Marre |
Basis | Homer's Odyssey |
Productions | 1976 Broadway |
Home Sweet Homer is a 1976 musical with a book by Roland Kibbee and Albert Marre, lyrics by Charles Burr and Forman Brown, and music by Mitch Leigh.
Originally called Odyssey, it is one of the most notorious flops in Broadway theatre history. Loosely based on Homeric legend, it focuses on Odysseus and Penelope, awaiting his return to Ithaca.
Background
The show was designed as a vehicle for Yul Brynner, who was anxious to duplicate his success in The King and I more than two decades earlier. The original book and lyrics were by author Erich Segal, and a fairly modest production with a small cast began a national tour in December 1974 at the Hanna Theater in Cleveland, Ohio.[1] The musical was titled Odyssey at that time.[2]
The tour was plagued with problems from the start. Both Brynner and co-star Joan Diener frequently were ill and missed performances. In April 1975, the two, together with Diener's husband Marre and Brynner's wife Jacqueline, filed a $7.5 million lawsuit against Trader Vic's in Manhattan, alleging shortribs they ate there shortly before the start of the tour were poisonous and had left them "ill, weak, and infirm."[3]
In each city, the show received consistently bad reviews, and when it reached Los Angeles, Segal asked that his name be removed from the credits.[1][4] Marre, whose career ranged from hits like Kismet and Man of La Mancha to unsuccessful shows like Cry for Us All and Shangri-La, not only revamped the book and lyrics, but fired choreographer Billy Wilson and took over the musical staging as well.
In August, an unhappy Brynner sued to terminate his contract but backed down when he was threatened with a $1 million countersuit.[3] By November, the producers decided to close the show at the end of the tour and forgo a Broadway opening. Brynner threatened to quit if they did not proceed to New York City as planned.
Production
The musical, now an extravagant production retitled Home Sweet Homer, opened officially at the Sunday matinee on January 4, 1976 at the Palace Theatre after eleven previews. The closing notice was posted as soon as the curtain fell.[1] In addition to Brynner and Diener, the cast included Martin Vidnovic and Russ Thacker.[5]
The producers spent all of the show's capitalization by the time it opened in New York. Because of the postponement of the Broadway opening $250,000 of group sales had been cancelled.[6]
Musical numbers
The show was without an intermission.
The musical numbers from the 1976 Broadway production are as follows:
- "The Tales" - Penelope and The Suitors
- "The Future" - Penelope
- "The Departure" - Odysseus and Dekati Evdomi
- "Home Sweet Homer" - Odysseus
- "The Ball" - Nausikaa and her Handmaidens
- "How Could I Dare to Dream" - Odysseus and Telemachus
- "I Never Imagined Goodbye" - Penelope
- "Love Is the Prize" - Odysseus
- "Penelope's Hand" - Antinous
- "He Will Come Home Again" - Telemachus
- "Did He Really Think" - Penelope
- "I Was Wrong" - Odysseus
- "The Rose" - Penelope
- "Tomorrow" - Antinous and The Suitors
- "The Contest" - Odysseus, Telemachus, Antinous, and The Suitors
- "He Sang Songs" - Penelope and Odysseus
The musical numbers from the 1975 Broadway previews are as follows:
- "The Sorceress" - Penelope and The Suitors
- "The Departure" - Odysseus and Dekati Evdomi
- "Home Sweet Homer" - Odysseus
- "The Ball" - Nausikaa and her Handmaidens
- "How Could I Dare to Dream" - Odysseys and Telemachus
- "I Never Imagined Goodbye" - Penelope
- "Love Is the Prize" - Odysseus
- "Penelope's Hand" - Antinous
- "He Will Come Home Again" - Telemachus
- "Did He Really Think" - Penelope
- "I Was Wrong" - Odysseus
- "The Rose" - Penelope
- "Tomorrow" - Antinous and The Suitors
- "The Contest" - Odysseus, Telemachus, Antinous, and The Suitors
Notes
- ^ a b c Calta, Louis. "After Year's Tour, ‘Homer’ Dies Quickly on Broadway" The New York Times, January 8, 1976
- ^ " Home Sweet Homer " castalbums.org, retrieved November 8, 2017
- ^ a b Mandelbaum, Ken. "Homer" Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops, Macmillan, 1992, ISBN 0312082738, p. 32
- ^ Suskin, Steven. Home Sweet Homer Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway's Major Composers, Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 019974209X, p. 334
- ^ " Home Sweet Homer Broadway" Playbill (vault), retrieved November 8, 2017
- ^ Culwell-Block, Logan. "22 Broadway Musicals That Closed on Opening Night" Playbill, September 8, 2017
References
Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops by Ken Mandelbaum, published by St. Martin's Press (1991), pages 31–33 (ISBN 0-312-06428-4)
External links
- Home Sweet Homer at ibdb.com
- v
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House of Odysseus |
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Other monarchs and royals |
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Gods | |
Suitors | |
Others |
- L'Odissea (1911 Italian)
- Ulysses (1954 Italian)
- The Return of Ringo (1965 Italian)
- Nostos: The Return (1989 Italian)
- Ulysses' Gaze (1995 Greek)
- Sans plomb (2000 French)
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
- Keyhole (2012)
- The Return (2024)
- The Odyssey (1968)
- Ulysses 31 (1981)
- The Odyssey (1997)
- Mission Odyssey (2002-2003)
- Odysseus and the Isle of the Mists (2007)
- Star Trek: Odyssey (2007)
- A True Story (2nd century AD)
- Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699)
- The World's Desire (1890)
- Ulysses (1922)
- The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1938)
- The Human Comedy (1943)
- Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions (1998)
- Trojan Odyssey (2003)
- The Penelopiad (2005)
- The Lost Books of the Odyssey (2010)
- Circe (2018)
- "Ulysses" (1842)
- The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel (1938)
- The Cantos (1962)
- Pagan Operetta (1998)
- Current Nobody (play)
- Cyclops (play)
- Ithaka (play)
- Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (opera)
- The Golden Apple (musical)
- Glam Slam Ulysses (musical)
- Home Sweet Homer (musical)
- Odysseus, Verbrecher (play)
- Penelope (play)
- "Tales of Brave Ulysses" (song)
- "The Odyssey" (song)
- Jar with Odysseus and Elpenor (c. 440 B.C.)
- Odysseus on the Island of the Phaecians (c. 1635)
- Telemachus and the Nymphs of Calypso (1782)
- The Sorrow of Telemachus (1783)
- Odysseus at the Court of Alcinous (1816)
- The Apotheosis of Homer (1827)
- Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829)
- The Sirens and Ulysses (1837)
- Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses (1891)
- Ulysses and the Sirens (1891)
- Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896)
- Ulysses and the Sirens (1909)
- Odyssey: The Search for Ulysses
- Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey
- Telemachy
- Nekyia
- Trojan Horse
- Suitors of Penelope
- The Odyssey
- Old Man of the Sea
- The Apotheosis of Homer
- Contempt
- Cold Mountain (novel)
- Cold Mountain (film)
- Homer's Daughter
- Parallels between Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey