I hope that I don't leave out words that should be there this time. :(
Variety summarized the New York critical response to Prince's 1987 revival thus: five enthusiastic, seven favorable, two mixed, and five unfavorable. And the original won awards and had a long run but it got very mixed reviews. Variety did not classify nearly as many reviews of the original, but it ranked those it did cover as four favorable and two unfavorable. I've just re-read a bunch of the original reviews, and it was certainly not universally hailed, not even close. The original West Side Story is often remembered as having gotten somewhat mixed notices, but I'd say that it got a much more favorable critical response than the original Cabaret.
I do think that the 1987 production was problematic in various ways, including rewrites that didn't work all that well, but then I don't think the Mendes-Marshall version works all that well. I'm not sure that I would have felt the original worked all that well, even as I'm sure I would have admired many aspects of it. |
