Profile for Cadriel

Let's see...the musicals I own on DVD (live performances only, in alphabetical order): Chess (in Swedish, PAL format; will not play on most US DVD players or TVs, except on personal computers). Once you get over the fact that, well, it's in Swedish, it's masterful (at least for the first act). The production, especially Robin Wagner's sets and Lars Rudolfsson's direction, is fluent and amazing, and only overstated in the act 2 "Ni dömer mig" ("Endgame"); Helen Sjöholm and Tommy Körberg, the s...

This sounds to me like a really desperate attempt to make the show a cult hit that will be "redeemed" on tour and in regional / amateur productions. Cutting the cast out instead of waiting for the contracts to end for an album to be produced (which I believe was the case for Amour, Melissa Errico's prior flop) is just low, however "pragmatic" a decision Wildhorn looks at it as. -Wayne

Unless it's about as long as Wagner's Ring cycle, I don't think a Lord of the Rings musical will be anything but funny. But there is one of Tolkien's works I'd love to see on stage. If anyone's read the Silmarillion or the poem in Fellowship of the Ring, they know the story of Beren and Luthien (who is also called Tinuviel); it's a great story about love, mutual devotion, and heroism, and it'd work wonderfully as a very different kind of theatre piece - something of a cross between a ballet a...

Misterchoi: I can't agree. In the '80s, aside from Sondheim, what American composers were doing anything truly interesting in the form? Who has succeeded in making really compelling and original theatre in America since him? Jonathan Larson had some really good, energetic pieces that probably needed more dramaturgical shoring up, but he died; Jason Robert Brown's a great composer (and a serviceable librettist, if you've seen The Last Five Years), but nothing he's done has really caught on (ot...

gherbert's right. Les Miz was not a Broadway musical. It was something very different, almost operatic in its dimensions. That doesn't mean it wasn't really good at being what it was; and, to put it honestly, it remains one of my favorite things I've seen on Broadway. (That has a lot to do with the casts. See the cast tribute link in my post above.) Broadway is something different, but by the '80s the only person doing anything interesting in the form was Sondheim. I love Sondheim's work, pre...

I found Philip Hernandez's version of "Javert's Suicide" to be almost heart-stoppingly intense, and I enjoyed the scene greatly with Paul Truckey and David McDonald as well. The right actor playing it can really make it a great final scene. It's one of my favorite musical pieces from the show, because it really allows the actor to get into Javert's mind and deconstruct him bit by bit until the final moment of the suicide - the actual moment of which, I'll grant, works more or less depending o...

In defense of Les Miz: It is a well-crafted epic piece of theatre, a Romantic musical with a capital R, and everything about it was done expertly. The first notes of the overture blasting out of the orchestra like the voice of God, the roundabout and sets expertly used to create the sweep and feel of a true epic onstage, it was a piece de theatre that worked, seamless, from end to end. The character lines worked wonderfully in just about every case (one could make a good argument that the Mar...

Did anyone else here see the New York and/or Philadelphia productions? I enjoyed the Philadelphia staging, design and direction much more than in New York, but I thought Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott were better in their respective parts than the actors in the Philadelphia production. Of course, I also think that Lauren Kennedy was the best Cathy ever and should be in another production, but that's another story... -Wayne

I love the girl who plays Kim on the OLC, especially for her "Pretty Lies," and it has "Touched by the Hand of Cool." On the other hand, the OBC has Raul Esparza, and George's "Ich Bin Kunst," which is by far the superior take on the song. I wouldn't want to be a Taboo fan without both. -Wayne

1. Chess 2. Hamlet (modern dress) 3. Jesus Christ Superstar 4. tick, tick...BOOM! 5. I Am a Camera or just musicals: 1. Chess 2. Jesus Christ Superstar 3. tick, tick...BOOM! 4. Merrily We Roll Along 5. Cradle Will Rock -Wayne

1. Evita 2. Aspects of Love 3. Jesus Christ Superstar 4. Tell Me on a Sunday (US version) 5. Sunset Boulevard 6. The Beautiful Game 7. The Phantom of the Opera 8. Whistle Down the Wind 9. Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 10. Cats 11. Starlight Express Don't know well enough to rank: Jeeves / By Jeeves The Woman in White -Wayne

1. F***ing Trevor Nunn. Yes, Trevor Nunn. It's bad enough that he directed Cats and Starlight Express, but he's committed the following sins against my favorite musicals: -Through sheer force of hubris, Nunn managed to put on a production of Chess that only ran 68 performances in 1988, and then contractually obligated future versions in North America to use it. Had Chess waited out the Phantom backlash, had it been given time for Richard Nelson to really make something of the script, had it o...

I'd love to see them record the London production of Les Misérables. The concert was simply inadequate; a good film of that particular legend deserves to be made available for all. -Wayne

The recording captures the leads wonderfully; it misses the spoken segments (phone calls, primarily, fleshing out the plot a bit) and the story excerpt that Jamie reads (it's printed in the booklet); that's really about it. Any fan of the show should also pick up Lauren Kennedy's album "Songs of Jason Robert Brown," which features a fleshed out "When You Come Home to Me," the solo version of "Goodbye Until Tomorrow," and Lauren's wonderful rendition of "I Can Do Better Than That." Much as I l...

Have to add Aspects of Love...wasn't thinking about it at the time, but it's a show that I long to see live. I have some problems with areas of the recitative, but it's one of my favorite Lloyd Webber works (along with Evita and Tell Me on a Sunday). Credit to ALW as well for his work on The Beautiful Game, which...well...it's a pity it never made it over here, really. -Wayne

1. Chess 2. Chess - the show had enough wonderful music written to fill two spots. 3. The Last Five Years 4. Merrily We Roll Along 5. Taboo -Wayne

...worst musical idea...EVER. I can't believe this is actually going to be produced.With any luck, it'll be the next Carrie.-Wayne

Amour, as I've always said, was beautiful and I loved it. It was just not Broadway material, never could've been - it was too small, it was French.It's amazingly hard to get an import musical to work here anymore. Mamma Mia! is a hit, and before that the last European show to be a certified hit was Miss Saigon (AFAIK). Good recent examples include Amour, Dance of the Vampires, and Taboo...I have a feeling Bombay Dreams will be next.-Wayne

I don't see what's so devastatingly wrong about playing up a blooper in a comic scene. It's supposed to be FUNNY. Would you rather Kristin just threw all sense of comic timing out the window, broke the comic reality, and made the scene become tedious?-Wayne

When Taboo is good, it's freakin' amazing. When it's bad, it's bad. It's comparable to the Broadway Chess: instead of cleaning it up for the US, they wrecked it, but the score and the cast are solid gold.-Wayne