| PARADISE SQUARE (Minor Spoilers) | |
| Posted by: student_rush 03:02 pm EDT 03/18/22 | |
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| Last night's PARADISE SQUARE was a packed house, albeit heavily comped. It should be pretty interesting to see weekly grosses for this first week. Some scattered thougths: The show is extremely average, aspiring to be some mixture of "Ragtime," "Les Mis," and (tonally, aesthetically, geographically) "Newsies." The movement by Bill T. Jones is often a highlight, but can't compensate for a million different fractured storylines. Act One is fairly solid, but Act Two squanders basically every plot point that has been previously introduced: deaths, pregnancies, financial woes ... little to no pay off across the board. Weirdly, specific bits of information provided to essentially differentiate characterization are forgotten about or disregarded so that, in the end, there's little that defines most of these characters other than 1) their proximity to the central saloon and 2) their relationship status to others. It's overtly clear that the three credited book writers are all looking to speak to different story lines, and the directing/producing team hasn't clearly settled on what is most interesting to this narrative. The performances are varied but mostly compelling: AJ Shivley acquits himself the best, in fine voice and fantastic Irish dancing. Matt Bogart, radiating charisma, is entirely wasted. Joaquina Kalukango is extremely competent but has no distinct personality (more a writing issue than performance). Most of the antagonists are cartoons (John Dossett is literally just doing his 'Pulitzer' from "Newsies") and the stakes - despite themes of slavery, forced military conscription, murder - are silly, presented in the safest possible staging (let's build a barricade in slow motion!) that echoes most high-school productions of "Les MIs." Short of a few "feckin'" curse words, this show could be mounted by youth groups all over the country as written ... this is how these artists choose to depict an incredibly challenging moment in history that resulted in the deaths of 119 people? Certain lines are ridiculous: the term "ass-face" makes a super weird appearance, one character says "they were living in a future yet to be realized" (yes, that's how time works). The score is serviceable in the moment but no ear worms. The eleven o'clock number is titled "Let It Burn" ... that would be like writing an Act One finale called "Fighting Gravity." The scenic design is interesting (if, again, too similar to "Newsies") with an attractive exposed orchestra in the pit. More to say when more people have seen this: I was happy to go (for free), but would not recommend this to legit ticket buyers. |
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