| I agree completely about the original production being the best. I've enjoyed many productions since, but none as much. I'm always reminded, and was again at NYTW, that the show wasn't just cast with kids, it was written for kids. That was the conception. So many of the lyrics, and all of the transitions sound like kids - Frank's high school classmates, who, as originally conceived, follow him from the graduation ceremony, watching and commenting on his life. It worked beautifully. Since the graduation has been eliminated, but the transitions remain, I always wonder who these people are, and why they are following Frank around, admonishing him. Of late, they appear before the movie premiere party, so they're not his recent, Hollywood friends Some productions find a way of integrating them better than others, but they never make much sense to me. And at NYTW, especially in the first act, they seem completely out of place. |
