End Of The Rainbow
by Peter Quilter

Name: End Of The Rainbow
Brand: Peter Quilter
SKU: 9780413775320
Rating: 3.6 (56 reviews)

End Of The Rainbow Book Cover — End Of The Rainbow Cover

Highlights

Small Cast

Female

Male

120 mins 1960s Strong Role for Leading Woman (Star Vehicle) Interior Set Period Costumes British

Awards & Recognition

Olivier Award Tony Award

Nominee: Three 2012 Tony Awards, including Best Play Nominee: Four 2011 Olivier Awards, including Best Play

Synopsis

Musical drama of Judy Garland's "come-back" concerts

Christmas 1968: with a six week booking at London's Talk of the Town, it looks like Judy Garland is set firmly on the comeback trail.

The failed marriages, the suicide attempts and the addictions are all behind her.

At forty-six and with new flame Mickey Deans at her side, she seems determined to carry it off and recapture her magic.

But lasting happiness always eludes some people, and there was never any answer to the question with which Judy ended every show: "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why, oh, why, can't I?"

End of the Rainbow is a savagely funny drama featuring a glorious ensemble of Judy Garland hits and infused with the glamour and the melancholy of stardom.

"Every note she sings, every racket she makes, every tear she sheds, every joke she cracks, every pill she pops - is conveyed with alarming honesty.

This knockout portrait of a living catastrophe should not be missed."

What's On

Published to tie-in with the premiere at the Sydney Opera House in July 2005

Press Reviews

"After watching the electrifying, intense production that opened on Monday night at the Belasco Theater, you feel exhilarated and exhausted. In other words, you feel utterly alive. That's what comes from witnessing acting that is this unconditionally committed, not to mention this sensational – in every sense of the word... End of the Rainbow is a lurid account of the twilight of an all-too-mortal goddess on the eve of destruction and is revealing in a way that tell-all bio-drama seldom is... Every chapter of Garland’s history is alive: she is foul-mouthed, flirtatious, hypersexual, childlike, unedited, manipulative and supremely self-conscious as she makes love and war with Mickey and Anthony. She has a strong sense of herself as a human tragedy on a world stage, but her sense of humor, of the absurdity of it all, is just as sharp. Some of her zingers are appallingly funny... And then she sings. And all those disparate, desperate elements coalesce into a coherent, riveting whole."
— Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"There are moments in the theatre when you lean forward in your seat, with shivers racing down the spine, and realise there is nowhere else on God’s earth you'd rather be. End of the Rainbow is one such occasion... One of the greatest musical performances I have ever witnessed."
— Telegraph

"Every note she sings, every racket she makes, every tear she sheds, every joke she cracks, every pill she pops - is conveyed with alarming honesty. This knockout portrait of a living catastrophe should not be missed."
— What's On