I found the book shortchanged in that, other than Harold and Marian, no one's characters go beyond a quick sketch (not that they're deeply developed in the first place ...), but you'd really never know about the whole Tommy/Zaneeta thing without paying close attention and the Marcellus/Harold relation is pretty much "Greg!" "Marcellus! You're here?" "There's a pool table!" and we're into "Trouble."
I thought the most "egregious" of the dance sequences were "Trouble," "Seventy-Six Trombones," and "Marian the Librarian," where the River Citizenians are almost immediately dancing in unison, with no needing to be persuaded by Harold. I wouldn't have minded them so much had there been some storytelling or development, but they're big production numbers from the get-go, unlike Onna White's lovely character-based work in the movie (and, I assume, in the original). |
