| re: The worst Best Musical ever? | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 03:33 pm EST 01/30/21 | |
| In reply to: re: The worst Best Musical ever? - Chazwaza 02:48 pm EST 01/30/21 | |
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| There is truth there, and I can think of some shows where the second act truly turned a show around or provided some element that was lacking in the first... though the only musical that comes to mind where I almost left at intermission but stayed and was blown away by Act 2 is "The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World". And all of the examples that you cite are ones in which the second act is a radical departure from the first act in some way, and I would say with both "Grey Gardens" and "Song and Dance", you're really talking about two one-act musicals that have been stitched together because they share characters and tell a linked story, but also stand on their own (and with "Grey Gardens", I would love to see the show be just the second act, as most of the first is filler). I think people who leave midway through have an obligation to acknowledge that they left mid-way through, and have an obligation to do research to see if the second act would have changed their assessment... in most cases, presuming a reasonably intelligent theater goer, we can know from that work whether the show actually continued to do what it was doing, or did something different. And we can certainly talk about it based on those terms. But if you sat through the first act and the writing was shallow and the jokes were stale and the music was trite, then by all means, get thee gone before you suffer through another hour of it. I also feel this way about movies - when watching from home, I'll often stop a film 40 minutes in and read the synopsis on Wikipedia to see where it's going and if it will do anything that's worth my time... and the answer is usually "no". |
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| Previous: | re: The worst Best Musical ever? - Chazwaza 02:48 pm EST 01/30/21 |
| Next: | re: The worst Best Musical ever? - Chromolume 09:02 pm EST 01/30/21 |
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