Profile for marknyc

I saw "West Side Story" on Valentine's Day, and I wanted to take a few days to compose my thoughts before I posted.  

First, the good: I'm happy the score was not tampered with (I'd heard crazy rumors about hip hop being added, etc).   What a relief to hear the score exactly as written (minus a few instruments and some cuts).  Second, the singing was beautiful - everyone delivered the spine-tingling notes of the score beautifully.  It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q1W7x6UfeM

Saw it last night and had mixed feelings.  The cast is great, of course.  But it was strange to hear all the exposition about how great SA was and then to see nothing of the actual show. 

Crucify me, but I felt Audra was miscast - it felt like an opera singer doing jazz, and she didn't do it as well as she did as Billie Holiday.  Billy Porter's solo in Act 2 was the first time I felt I was hearing these songs the way they were meant to be heard.

Glove

While the show was great, particularly the dancing, La Chanze was clearly struggling vocally.  Everyone I was with agreed on that point, and everyone I asked later also agreed.  This was more noticeable in the first act than the second, but even in Act II, she was still spotty.  Her acting was great, but her singing (particularly her low notes) was a real problem.  I'm crossing my fingers that this wa

I learned my lesson about BWW preview threads after reading dozens of raves for "Gigi" and then wasting money on a poor show.  Same thing seems to be happening here. DAS is not a bad show, it's just...meh.  In 1968, when the nostalgia craze was in its infancy, this must have been a lot of fun - I don't think there had ever been parodies of WB musicals before. (And I'm sure Bernadette was amazing.) But in the last 47 years, this idea has been done to death, and

In 1958, pedophilia (like homosexuality or Presidential affairs) was not discussed or even acknowledged, so it was possible to have 70-year-old Maurice Chevalier sing the song.  In 2015, we're far too aware of child sexual abuse to allow the same th

Of course, a film must be adapted for Broadway - but if you are going to change important scenes, the changes must be at least as good as the original.  This ending was far weaker than the film's moving final scene (which was far better than the original 1948

Saw this last night.  Enjoyable, but with some significant drawbacks.  Interesting that the women, especially Victoria Clark and Dee Hoty, are great, whereas the men are lacking.  Corey Cott is too callow as Gaston, and Howard McGillin brings little to the role of Honore, especially when he's competing with the ghost of Chevalier.  But nothing can explain the change to the ending.  The film's final scene is perfect - one of the best in all musical films, I think.