| The Life...and the Death of Encores | |
| Last Edit: StageStruckLad 04:20 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
| Posted by: StageStruckLad 04:17 pm EDT 03/19/22 | |
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| Well, if Billy Porter's revision of THE LIFE didn't actually kill Encores, I'm afraid it put Encores in critical condition. Last night's show was by far the worst Encores production in the past 29 years and was also one of the worst musicals I've ever seen...and I saw METRO! I don't blame the performers, many of whom were excellent. I place ALL the blame on Porter. His inept rewrite of the book drained 99 percent of the humor from the show, and in place of humor he inserted countless lectures from the narrator about social injustice. I didn't disagree with any of the points Porter was making, but THE LIFE was not improved by these additions. Did we really need to have the cast put on masks of Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan (or was it Donald Trump Jr.--it was hard to tell) and lecture us about trickle-down economics? The new and vastly inferior orchestrations, with their bass heavy funky 1970s beat, made all the songs sound alike. The sound design was the worst I've heard at City Center and also too loud. I was sorry to see a man in the front row cover a speaker with his coat during the second act, but I understood his pain. He probably should have just moved to the back of the theater, where there were many empty seats after the intermission. And were the original orchestrations by Don Sebesky and Harold Wheeler too much fun for Porter and Company? And why was "Why Don't They Leave Us Alone," one of THE LIFE's most enjoyable songs cut from the show? If someone wants to fund a new company to present rewritten P.C. versions of musicals for today's delicate sensibilities, I say go for it. But Encores is decidedly not the place for rewritten or re-imagined or re-anything versions of classic musicals. For almost three decades Encores has presented musicals that have great scores and sometimes great, good or troubled books. But the whole point of Encores is to hear the scores with their original orchestrations. Anything other than that is not Encores. I think that new artistic director Lear deBessonet has made a big mistake with her new Encores mission to include one rewritten show every season. And I really disagree with her statement "Almost zero shows written before the 21st century have a worldview and politics that sit well with a contemporary viewer." So her solution is to rewrite those shows to make them palatable to today's audience? I guess that's the same thinking that gave us a rewritten "Shipoopi" in THE MUSIC MAN. I really hope the Encores board comes to their senses and jettisons this policy. If there is an Encores audience talk-back for THE LIFE, I also hope someone berates them for this new direction. Bring back Jack Viertel! At least he loved old musicals. |
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