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| re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' | |
| Posted by: Jax 01:45 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' - Chazwaza 11:01 am EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| My point was to simply say that, like CAROLINE, it's very unconventional and has major talents involved. That may please some critics, but I'd wager that a show this messy and self-indulgent is headed for a short run regardless of the notices. And I think that the SF Chronicle notice is a kind of tip off. You can barely tell what the play is about and what it's trying to accomplish from reading the review. But the writer, clearly wanting to be part of the in crowd, throws her hat in the air in the first paragraph. I think some ticket buyers may have an issue with her. Audiences can respond to a new kind of musical, i.e. FUN HOME, HAMILTON. This ain't it. | |
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| re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' | |
| Posted by: showtunetrivia 06:15 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' - Jax 01:45 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| De gustibus, Jax. I also saw it in LA, and while I think it needs work, I found it brilliant--the most original show in years. I'm sorry you found the opening twenty minutes boring; to me, though that was slow-paced (as not part of the musical-within-the-musical), it was utterly essential for everything that follows, which built upon it beautifully. It's not just the events in the lives of the producer and the writer (morphed later into the musical), but the way those twenty minutes conveyed the differences in the cultural outlooks and expectations of two very different countries in 2016--at the time of a major political shift for one and potential opportunities for the other. People realize that this is a work of satire (and, yes, George S. Kaufman is in my ear even now), but it's also a work of science fiction. We jump from 2016 to a Chinese musical written 50 years after those events to the 50th anniversary of that musical. That's a lot to ask of a comfortable audience, out for a fun night of theatre. That kind of socio-political projection is generally the province of the best science fiction writers, the ones who make you think about our own world while considering their future scenarios. For my part, nearly two months later, I'm still mulling over Hwang and Tesori's choices. That they did all this within the context of a musical--and a musical riffing magnificently on THE KING AND I (the foreigner in a strange land, encounters with the governing class, an impossible romance, a tear-jerker ending, and especially the misrepresentation of historic facts decades later!!!)--thrills me. And, good lord, Tesori's score! It's pastiche, but one of the most daring imaginable: if a future Chinese songwriting team absorbed various forms of American music of the early 21st century and presented their songs in the manner of a Broadway musical, an effective "vehicle of delivery" for their message. Listening to it, I was thinking of how Rodgers adapted Asian musical themes for THE KING AND I, SOUTH PACIFIC and FLOWER DRUM SONG. Props to SOFT POWER's producers for springing for a huge orchestra so it sounds like a Golden Age musical should. Is it as good as HAMILTON or FUN HOME? Of course not. Is is right for Broadway? I highly doubt it. It demands too much from the audience, the satirical message can be too blunt and repetitive, and the structure--while perfect for the material--is just plain weird for most people. But I'm so glad I was well enough to attend it and delighted that such talents as Hwang and Tesori tackled something so unique. And at next year's Science Fiction World Convention, I intend to nominate it for Best Dramatic Presentation. Laura |
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| re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' | |
| Last Edit: WaymanWong 01:21 am EDT 06/25/18 | |
| Posted by: WaymanWong 01:14 am EDT 06/25/18 | |
| In reply to: re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' - showtunetrivia 06:15 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| Laura, I couldn't agree with you more. At a time when so many new shows are jejune jukebox musicals or safe stage adaptations of hit movies, ''Soft Power'' is a real original. Hwang and Tesori's satirical look at China and America spoke to me and made me think and laugh a lot. Kudos, too, to Conrad Ricamora, Alyse Alan Louis and the rest of the Asian-American cast. ''Soft Power'' won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I drank it up with glee. | |
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| re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' | |
| Posted by: Jax 09:05 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: S.F. Chronicle: 'Soft Power' is 'daring' and 'deserves to have a long, rich life' - showtunetrivia 06:15 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| Glad you enjoyed it so much. But, to clarify my disappointment with it, I felt its relationship to THE KING AND I was an idea, not something that the show realized. Yes, if you read the articles and publicity before the show you could say, "Ah yes, it's a reversal of THE KING AND I, this is how Orientals feels when their culture is represented by U.S. musicals." Regular audience members walking out might be more likely to say "WTF?" Unlike CLYBOURNE PARK this show did not effectively dramatize its cultural reversal. It stated it and expected to be applauded for it. And I'll add a personal caveat: I'm tired of cultural appropriation. I like to think of it as a melting pot. Works better that way. One final thought: in it's insistence on cultural appropriation as a dominant theme, the show slipped at times into a kind of anti-Americanism. I'm no Trump flag waver, but it felt smug and it irritated me. I don't think it was a mistake that the song that got the most applause was "Democracy." That's something we do far better than China. |
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