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TURN OFF THE DARK on a smaller scale

Posted by:	Epenthesis 09:58 pm EST 12/02/13
In reply to:	Big Fish - What happened? - Drew288 05:18 pm EST 12/01/13

The creative team could envision dazzling moments of stagecraft in the property, but failed to perceive (or were too quick to assume they could repair) serious shortcomings in the narrative. All the striking choreography and scenic/costume design could not conceal the fact that nothing particularly interesting happens all evening--the fantasy sequences amount to very little, but the real-world sequences (which make up the bulk of the parts of two of the three leads) are for the most part deadly. It doesn't seem to me that the show was inspired by much other than a desire to exploit a salable property, even if the property in question was less audacious than an action-based comic franchise. Perhaps if the creators had kept looking they might have found something better suited to musicalization--the same season saw FUN HOME, another loosely plotted memory play about parent-child relationships, score a distinctive critical success. What that show has in spades is passionate characters who take decisive action in consequential ways. BIG FISH hurts for the absence of people like that.

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