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9 Days, 14 Shows, 14 Reviews

Posted by:	ashleylm 10:53 pm EDT 05/10/15

The remaining 10 shows, with my reviews of The Visit, Hamilton, Finding Neverland, and Hand to God appended at the bottom. Show #5: The New York Pops 32nd Birthday Gala The New Golden Age Basically like your kid's recital, if every single performer at your kid's recital was freaking awesome. Alan Cumming, Victor Garber, Rachel York, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Laura Benanti, Sutton Foster, Margo Seibert, James Snyder, Rob McClure, Kelli O'Hara, Bebe Neuwirth, Queen Latifah, and an unschedle but recently-made-available Renee Fleming all performed. I love this stuff because it makes me feel like a bit more of a New Yorker than a tourist--like when I'm in town for the Easter Bonnet Competition. And my first time at Carnegie Hall! How lovely to see people dressing up (not me, but I didn't know and I didn't pack my tux anyway). Bebe was the best of a brilliant bunch since she gave me goose bumps. Unrated by me because you can't compare this to a book musical. Show #6: Dr Zhivago Oh, I was so hopeful after enjoying Finding Neverland that perhaps this season's duds would turn out to magically appeal to me regardless, but it was not the case. I have not read the book or seen the movie. I cannot imagine anyone would be interested in these characters (I hesitate to call them that ... figures, perhaps?) without have enjoyed prior acquaintance. Rocky last season was new to me, and I thought the characters were very well drawn and worth rooting for. Neither the good doctor (whose main character trait appeared to be leaving to practice medicine in a war zone for some reason) nor the fetching nurse (whose main character trait appeared to be long blonde hair) were remotely human in terms of behaviour, not from what I witnessed. The most interesting and sympathetic people on stage were apparently villains. Much of the action, dialogue, and even the performances (from one ensemble member in particular) were actually risible. I don't think I've found a bad show actually funny in its badess since Lestat and unfortunately those moments were all too rare. I won't give away the plot in case you haven't seen the movie which I must now watch to find out how they made any of this seem compelling or rational. The score was all right without ever topping that level, and the lyrics were mostly ho-hum and sometimes worse. The projections simply did not work (see "risible" above) and the actor playing the Doctor looked hot and got progressively undressed throughout the show but refused to take his shirt off all the way, which would have gained half a star at least. The best looking part was the top of Act One and the top of Act Two, and nothing else matched it, sadly. 1.5/5 stars. Show #7: It Shoulda Been You You all basically called it. Sitcom-y, game efforts from the talented cast, but not much there there. Seemed more successful than Zhivago since it mostly met its meagre aspirations. If you like chair movement (not movement on chairs, but people pushing chairs around to convey a sense of "this is a different place even though the basic set will not budge one bit") you will love this show. Me, I thought "gosh, this looks cheap." The plot makes very little sense and should have been set in the past or perhaps some foreign country. Nice to see Buffy and Angel mentioned in a song lyric, but that might be the only time I perked up. Great wasted cast. The score is inoffensive and not much more. There is the required "I will sing really loud" song that gets the audience going, and an attempt at a comic ballad at the end, but mostly they run into one another without a lot of differentiation and none will have you clamouring to get the cast album so you can wear it out. So, my second wedding musical (A Catered Affair was first) to disappoint. Have there been others I can't think of? 2/5 stars. Show #8: An American in Paris First, wow, Robert Fairchild, what a find (I don't follow Broadway) and he can really sing and he's cute and he's a heck of a dancer. Can't remember the movie (saw it when I was 7-ish) so don't know how close this was to the original, but there's not much plot there and I always feel sorry for the perfectly nice slightly-older rich lady who never seems to make it to the end with the handsome but uninteresting hero who throws her aside for the pretty but character-free younger ingenue. So you're not going to be riveted by the events on stage, or tied up in knots with suspense of any kind. Luckily there is some good dancing (I like the choreo better than some on this board) and interesting visuals (these projections worked, I thought) but overall a bit lackluster. I will just have a fit if this beats Fun Home at the Tonys. I vastly preferred On the Town for people wanting some mid-century music with good dancing attached--OTT had a variety of numbers, upbeat, infectious, funny, charming, etc., but AAIP is really just ballad after ballad with dance music in between. That said, I enjoyed the book scenes, particularly anything with Veanne Cox or Max VonEssen, they just aren't earth-shatteringly interesting or funny. If offered free tickets, I think I'd prefer to watch the dancing in this than sit through the lengthy earnestness of The Visit, so this gets 3.5/5 stars. Show #9: The King and I I was worried--between my inability to intrepret sounds into speech, and Ken Watanabe's supposed inability to produce sounds resembling English, this could have been hard for me to judge. And yes, there were many, many, many times that I had no idea what he was saying, in terms of specific word choices. However, his acting left me completely convinced as to the meaning of his words and his attitude towards what he was saying. And if we're dealing with trade offs, I'd rather have that than the other way around! Kelli O'Hara was great (I thought this part suited her more than some of her recent roles), Ruthie Ann Miles knocked it out of the park, and the design was certainly pretty enough for me. I'd never seen it before, not even the film, so was surprised by how Book of Mormon it was (yes, I know, the influence ran the other way) and how cleverly BOM used that influence. So now I retrospetively like another show even more. 4/5 stars. Show #10: On the Twentieth Century For me, pretty much perfection. I wouldn't have changed a thing. Was giggling hysterically throughout, and I'm a 49 year old man, so I sacrificed my dignity for the sake of the show. Took me until after the show to re-remember that it was written for Madeleine Kahn, it seemed so perfectly suited to Kristin Chenoweth. What an absolute treat. Oh, and there's an elevator that takes you to the empty 5th floor washrooms, and a bar with no one in line, and an outdoor terrace overlooking 42nd St. Just saying. 4.5/5 stars (.5 off for not being brand new, hence lower difficulty) Show #11: Fun Home I'd seen it Off-Broadway and am willing to award it every superlative one can think of. It wasn't just my favourite show last season, it was my favourite of many, many seasons, and I think (hope, trust?) it will deservedly pop into the history books as one of the all-time greats. I would rather feel something than think something, and I'd rather be moved than laugh (love doing both, of course, hopefully at the same time, and even more love doing all three!) and this was the rare opportunity to be amused, but also be moved to tears and to thought. Everyone is giving the same great performance I saw earlier, except young Miss Lucas has gone herself one better and improved, something I wouldn't have thought possible. I think it's one of the great performances, period, and she's just a kid. Unbelievable. I will forever now be putting people into two categories. If you didn't really care for Fun Home, then you're permanently lumped into a particular pot and I will hold it against you always and suggest you see things like whatever the next Mamma Mia will be and steer you away from the truly good stuff because you clearly can't appreciate it ;-) 5/5 stars, easily. Show #12: Something Rotten This is an interesting one. It's skillful, it's funny, there are some good performances and enjoyable songs (I liked "Welcome to the Renaissance," how can you help it, and "Will Power" particularly), but it so often seemed like there was another, better show either buried underneath it, or yet-to-emerge if only there'd been more time. Here's an example. Shakespeare often (in real life) wrote women-dressed-as-men (played by men-dressed-as-women-dressed-as-men), so when those tropes appeared in SR, I wondered if they were going to influence Shakespeare, or become a "thing," or ... anything, really, a little deeper ... but nothing really came of it except an excuse for minor gay jokes. There could have been something rich and interesting there that never happened. This sense of absence-of-something-better occurred throughout. I was particularly disappointed by the musical-within-a-musical because that for me was going to be the most interesting part--what would an Elizabethan musical be?--but instead it was a bit dreary and expected and a chance to mock current musicals without actually mocking or being clever. And the crowd Ate It Up. Standing Os at the end of songs. I mean, I like a good MacDonald's burger sometimes, but I don't go on and on about it on Yelp. And what irked me the most was that I was being irked about a really enjoyable well done show, that nonetheless isn't as good as its audience thinks it is. I don't think it's pitched at theatrical cognoscenti and the great unwashed won't enjoy it ... I think the great unwashed are thrilled they can "get" the insanely obvious references. You don't have to be Peter Filichia to have heard of Fiddler on the Roof or recognize "And I am Telling You." 3.5/5 stars. Show #13-14: Wolf Hall Another interesting, worthy show that just didn't grab me. I'm terribly interested in the plot, but somehow neither the book nor the series nor the play has been as captivating as I wanted it to be. 3/5 stars. And that's it! My previously-posted reviews of Shows 1-4 reprinted below: Show #1: Hand to God In line with my expected reaction: really liked it, very very funny, surprisingly dark at times (darker than expected, even when forewarned), and appreciated that there was more going on than just a foul-mouthed puppet. Had not expected to laugh quite so much. Yes, it slightly runs out of steam in Act Two, but only in comparison to Act One (which is ALL steam all the time), not in comparison to othe plays. Impressive performances from the entire cast, and the sets (which I don't remember hearing about) were just terrific. Easy to see why this garnered the reviews it did. 4.5/5 stars. Show #2: Finding Neverland About 1,000 times better than I was expecting based on comments here and reviews (and I'm no pushover for dreck: I can recognize that Lestat was horrible, Wonderland aimless and bombastic, and Bullets Over Broadway wasteful and inert.) Was it perfect? No, but I'm not about to limit my theatre-going to perfect--I like going to the theatre more than once a year! I laughed, I cried--so it worked for me on an emotional level. I thought the sets/projections/effects were marvelous and moving (in both senses), particularly the incredible dream/nightmare, and the penultimate scene--amazing. I felt the Mia Michaels choreography was not a good fit for the time period (the initial number of dancing Victorian party-goers particularly did not sit well) but worked better in later numbers, and was pleased to see the return of the Dream Ballet! Performers did a good job, and the score was serviceable throughout, and better than that a few times--not up to Wicked's level, which is sort of the gold standard for the critically-maligned popular favourite. Ultimately it was about 3.5/5 stars for me, which isn't bad. Sort of a Newsies level of generally entertaining throughout, with some one thing standing out as even better (visual effects for Neverland, aggressively dynamic young dancers for Newsies). Of course, now I have my fingers crossed that Dr Zhivago may not be the nadir of civilization after all, so expect great disappointment on Tuesday. Show #3: The Visit I was predisposed to like The Visit having loved the recent The Scottsboro Boys, and while it has much to recommend it, I couldn't fall in love with it. The choral singing is exquisite, and some of the songs lovely. I'm afraid I might be a bit of a plot whore, because it felt like very little happened, and I wanted more, more, more (compare to Hamilton where I would have been content with less!) The plot consists of an expectation, an expectation dashed, an option, and then waiting for the option to be chosen or not. And that's really ALL that happened, unless your idea of an exciting plot twist is a drive in the country. I enjoyed the costuming, the lighting, the movement, the performances, really everything but the story itself. It wasn't too dark for me, it was too slight. If it had been condensed down to 1 hour and paired with something else it would have seemed much, much stronger-perhaps someone has musicalized Albee's The Sandbox? 3/5 stars. Oh, and Donna McKechnie was in attendance--don't know if standbys usually watch the show, but it was a treat just to see her standing and smiling. Now if only someone could write something for both of them together! Show #4: Hamilton Hamilton on the other hand is such an embarrassment of riches that it is difficult to know where to start. Much of it was worthy, and I could sit back and think "this is good, but it's not grabbing me." But oh, the stuff that grabs is so incredibly good that it more than justifies the waits in between. In particular most of the material assigned to the very strong women, or where they sang lead against the ensemble, were thrilling. I have a slight auditory processing disorder, so it is difficult for me to understand the most rapid-fire rhythmic dialogue, and I was grateful that the diction from most actors was so clear and strong as to allow me to catch most of it. Rap will probably never be my thing, but I enjoyed Hamilton immensely despite it. I thought Andy Blankenbuehler's choreography killed 9 to 5 dead, but his work here is stunning. The match-up of his choreo to Miranda's music is perfect (compare to Mia Michael's quite interesting choreography for Finding Neverland that nonetheless jarred with the tone of the score). Bradley Cooper was in the audience, and several other in-the-biz types where I vaguely felt I should recognize them but didn't. All the performers were incredible--the amount of lyrics, harmonies, dance and other staging they had to remember is considerably more than in the average show. Particularly good were Philippa Soo, Renee Elise Goldberry, Jonathan Groff, and fun to see Thayne Jasperson featured so prominently and with such a lovely voice for someone so known as a dancer. 5/5 stars, rounded up from 4.8 because that would be silly.

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