| SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS - smart enough to be silly | |
| Last Edit: singleticket 10:10 pm EST 11/25/17 | |
| Posted by: singleticket 10:00 pm EST 11/25/17 | |
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| A very pleasant surprise. A musical for both children and adults that entertains children and reaches into some very fearful places in the adults and raises us all out of our collective anxiety. It almost feels like a depression musical but the uplift is rather sly and, let's face it, sorely needed. There's three presiding talents, I thought. The first is Tina Landau whose direction is delightful and appealingly theatrical, especially in the way she puts her very talented and endearing ensemble to use as kaleidoscopically shifting characters. But the theatrically never becomes meta, it doesn't comment on itself, we're always inside the imagined world of Bikini Bottom or inside the characters' heads. Kyle Jarrow's book begins with a deceptive simplicity and then enters deeper emotional territory. He follows the original cartoon's basic plot formula which is blessedly less about morality and more about mirroring society. And I think he succeeds at this formula admirably. It's one of the best books of a new musical I've seen in a long time. The third presiding genius is the costume and stage designer David Zinn... the brilliance is not about the overall aesthetics of the show which, like the score made up of individual songs, is rather haphazard. Zinn's stroke of genius is the way he uses the materials that weave their way through the show. They are mostly made out of the kind of flotsam and jetsam you might find at the bottom of the sea but they also have a double meaning of junk that is also causing the threat at the heart of the story's conflict. And then they do triple duty as scenic elements that turn into mountains, volcanoes, Papal crowns, etc. It's really quite brilliant. The downside: The length was not challenging for me but it was a bit much for the six year old I saw it with. She was in ecstasy for the first act. Then during the intermission she needed (demanded) a snack but the line to the concession stand was a mile long. The result was a slightly squirmy and pouty second act viewing. But I think she liked the show very much. Another downside is the sound mix. I enjoyed the individual songs and didn't much mind the absence of a unifying musical idea in the show since the book and direction and overall artistic design more than unifies the show however I felt the orchestrations as well as some dialogue got lost in the sound design which felt a bit mushy to me. But overall, a very smart and charming new Broadway musical. Highly recommended. |
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