Re: Mack and Mabel (Re: BOUNCE off-Broadway)

On Apr 24, 6:46=A0pm, New****tsRe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Steve New****t) wrote:
> From: ElBo...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (robert=A0armstrong) Making the character nicer
> does not contradict the show's assertion that Mack has "man" issues, and
> can appear thoughtless and emotionally unavailable in ways that
> frustrate the women in his life, especially while he's working at
> building a business. The songs that refer to Mack's personality such as
> Wherever He Ain't and I Won't Send Roses, and the plot points such as
> Mabel's leaving him in disgust or Mack's final too-late promise
> --------------------------------
> Now, right there's where you lose me-- because the *exact* opposite was
> true in real life. Why do they have to keep connecting his fictional
> romantic indifference to her downfall?

No, in the '74 Broadway production it just happens suddenly that
Mabel, after she leaves the Sennett studio, turns to other things and
gets involved in the drugs and murder. Change in the show's overall
tone is discomforting.

Part of the revision I recall was, when Mabel's drug addiction is
first mentioned out loud, the insertion of a line that it was probably
the hectic work schedule with Sennett that made her turn to drugs
*before* she left his studio.

Don't get the impression either way that Mack destroyed her by
neglecting her. Mostly the show says they were starcrossed. Yes, the
love relation****p was probably fiction.