Tarzan Reviews- Page 6

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:22am

I hate they they include Aida-bashing in this. Aida ia brilliant. Despite some admitted book issues, it is brilliant.

[EugLoven]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:24am

I've kept my mouth relatively shut since I saw the 4th Preview, but now I can just nod and say: "Not surprised."

There are those theatre fans who have the desire and gusto to dedicate themselves to liking this show... but as I'm known for saying in the threads: "It'd be much more healthy focusing your energy somewhere else."

In the end, 'Tarzan' will break your heart if you like it too much. I'm glad I got student rush because I'd not have paid any more than $25 for this "Broadway experience."

At least I'm safe here in SF... people can't throw rotten bananas that far.
Updated On: 5/11/06 at 03:24 AM

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:26am

AIDA was brilliant?

Liza, fetch Mommy her pills...

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:38am

Oh man. I threw up a little in my mouth after reading that. Then I felt a profound sorrow at the infection and evil that dude (CapnHook) set upon the world by saying that, so I ate rat poison and died. Then I was resurrected by a mad scientist who built a version fo me using a conglomeration of body parts. Thanks, now I'm a soulless freak doomed to wander the land forever in search of my lost love.

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:49am

Whatever. I loved it. Wish they would have cut all songs sung by Radames' father. "Like Father, Like Son"??? "Build Another Pyramid"??? Gimme a break!

But everything else - lovely.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:54am

I like "Another Pyramid."

Hated the direction.
Hated the book.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 9:32am

"The original cast of AIDA, though, was a rare exception - and each and every one of them outshone their awful direction and mediocre material."

I disagree. I thought Sherie Rene Scott was the only one to rise above the direction and material.

[mejusthavingfun]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 10:12am

Saw Tarzan last night... and well very disappointed as I really enjoyed the movie and had high hopes for Crowley. I love the way he uses a stage. I really like the design of the show but every element from direction to music to book is playing against a common goal. It suffers much like Lestat does. I get what they are trying to do theatrically, but thinking too much when I'm supposed to be engaged is a distraction. My fears about Josh were well founded and his Tarzan is just not the guy I would expect to find in the woods. It wasn’t that bad (which I said about Lestat) but like I said I was very disappointed. What a bland year.


It was a magical night. The cast sounded great and the audience enjoyed the show, the party was cool. Not nearly as much energy as the Lion King opening, which was by far the coolest night I’ve seen on Broadway. Tarzan will probably play for a long time. It is just so hard to gauge who Disney want their audience to be. I didn’t see any stuffed toys.


Oh and about Aida. Disney got and knew they were getting bad/mixed reviews. They had an entire plan in place to thwart bad press long before it’s even published. These mixed reviews will serve them just fine. Munk made an excellent point in saying Disney’s core audience doesn’t know who Brantley is, and he is on the money. Ok I need some Gatorade.

Oh I had good seats in the Mez, but I still don't know about the site line issues, are they resolved?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 10:42am

No, you're right. But c'mon, if you stripped Aida of all its glitz and glamour and put it in a cabret setting, or Beauty and the Beast, or Lion King, it wouldn't hold up to so many other shows.

No, of course not, but that, again, is not a strictly Disney fault. Plenty of shows (maybe even better ones, at that) need their big sets and fancy lights, and wouldn't work in a cabaret setting. You can't blame that fact on Disney, or that it was "bad." That's just not the kind of show it is.

It's just that I find him sort of pompous and the way he sings makes me feel bad for him because he's tearing up his vocal chords and I don't find him a very versatile actor.

His voice is fine; if you don't like the way it sounds, that's one thing, but it's in fine condition -- I heard him sing two weeks ago. And if you think he's not versatile, then you merely haven't been looking in the right places. He's grown a lot since Aida.

I think some of the Disney shows have less "effort" placed on their dialogue than their casting, no? Aida's book was a mess. Tarzan's is supposedly miserable.

Also, can I just say that the titles for some of the Tarzan reviews are (though cheesy) kind of funny?

Updated On: 5/11/06 at 10:42 AM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 10:43am

I just watched the video preview. It looks like fluffy fun, which I usually enjoy. Perhaps I might not enjoy the entire show, but I'm sure I will like many aspects of it. I would rather see Tarzan than The Color Purple, Threepenny Opera, Hot Feet, Lestat, or even Sweeney Todd (I'm personally burned out on any production of Sweeney Todd).

I also enjoyed Chitty and Bombay Dreams, both of which were highly entertaining.


And munk, smug self-righteousness is never respectable nor pretty. The more self-importance you heap upon yourself and your opinions, the less I think of them, and the more I would like to see the show. It's almost as if you have something deeply personal to hold against the show. Did you audition and not get cast? Why do you care so much about whether Tarzan does well or not? What in the world has the show done to you that gives you so much personal gratification in its negative reviews? It's disturbing and quite nauseating to say the least.

"I'm hoping for it's failure. There's no way this trash should occupy a Broadway theatre. It shouldn't be tolerated."

The same has probably been said about you.

Updated On: 5/11/06 at 10:43 AM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 10:46am

I'm not going to speak for Munk, or to this *specific* situation, because I have yet to see Tarzan, but I can imagine a show getting the bad reviews one might think it deserves can be at least slightly gratifying in the sense that if a show is indeed a theatrical wreck, and a disgrace to musical theatre, or some such blunder, then at least it's getting what it deserves, and it's not getting critical acclaim that it does *not* deserve. In the long run, you'd think things like consistent bad reviews for a certain type of show, or consistent snubs (i.e. jukebox musicals) would get less people to produce them, which is why it might feel like a good thing, though ultimately, it's about what people go see, not the reviews entirely. And with a show like Tarzan, people are going to see it regardless, I think.

[Barihunk]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 11:37am

Here is a Rave from the Philadelphia Inquirer (caveat: Howard Shapiro is positive about almost everything he sees, including but not limited to "Ring of Fire", "Wedding Singer" and "Three Penny")

Spectacular ‘Tarzan’ opens on Broadway

By Howard Shapiro
Inquirer Staff Writer

NEW YORK - Tarzan swings. Subway trains may run underneath Broadway, but inside the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where the Disney spectacular opened last night, mass transit means vines. From its first gorgeous scenes, played without dialogue, the cast comes at you and over you, and after the curtain calls, you feel you should exit by rope.

The blockbuster is said to cost upward of $20 million - lots for Broadway but not much, considering that if Julia Roberts were not performing a block away, she herself would be getting that amount for just one movie.

The show is an eye-popping treat of lighting, streamers and fabrics, in which Bob Crowley's scenery is as fluid as the actors who wear his fanciful costumes and move to his frisky direction. Natasha Katz's magical, inspired lighting design carries the show as much as the formulaic paint-by-numbers plot - which is highly entertaining, if not gripping.

Tarzan is what Cirque du Soleil would do, down to the magnificent butterfly that drops from the ceiling, if Cirque were more than vaguely interested in a story line. Through much of Act 1, Tarzan seems to have only a passing interest in plot and a consuming interest in dazzling spectacle. In walks Jane, and with her, a narrative arc that gets our attention. Girls have a way of doing that in the jungle.

Plot, shmot - my overall feeling about Tarzan is that it's at its best when the apes are artfully wrecking a campsite, or when Tarzan is bounding across and above the stage, trying to find his way in life, in any one of Phil Collins' playful, generally short songs. The best tune in the show is Collins' hit "You'll Be in My Heart," followed by the rousing duo "For the First Time."

Changes in Tarzan's scenery, which frequently occur midsentence, unfold with a beauty that makes your mouth drop; they are part of the show's neat collection of special effects. Some people will inevitably call the shimmering stars, massive fluttering fabrics, and huge strutting fauna downright corny. I call them master stagecraft.
________________________________________________________________
The young Tarzan at the preview I saw was winningly played by a youngster named Alex Rutherford, who alternates the part with Daniel Manche. In a lovely piece of staging, Tarzan suddenly becomes a young adult, in the form of Josh Strickland, who came from the national tour of Rent. He's got a great loinclothed build, which suits his role as the most constantly undressed actor on Broadway.

Strickland also flashes a million-dollar smile, is as nimble as the youngster who heretofore played Tarzan - and is blessed with a great voice and a stage presence that immediately arrest the audience.

Much of Act 2 rests on the maelstrom swarming around Tarzan, and Strickland's performance makes the character worthy of all the attention. When he's trying to learn English, or when he's naively putting his trust in the wrong hands, it seems real, and when he and Jane both must figure where they want to live out their lives, it does, too.

Strickland sends out all the perfect signals for a Disney Tarzan - he's a positive guy who figures out what he is, who he must be, and goes for it. He's a Tarzan you would want your kids to ape, in a production that says: It's a jungle out there, but while you're in here, at least be entertained.

Philadelphia Inquirer

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 12:09pm

"but I can imagine a show getting the bad reviews one might think it deserves can be at least slightly gratifying in the sense that if a show is indeed a theatrical wreck, and a disgrace to musical theatre, or some such blunder, then at least it's getting what it deserves"

It's one thing to agree with negative criticism. It's another to gloat over them and then make the hypocritical statement to call the show "classless". Pot/kettle.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 12:32pm

Daily News is Negative:

"'Tarzan': Me, critic; you lame!

I found myself consulting my watch frequently during "Tarzan," the Disney musical that brings the current Broadway season to an inglorious close.

The show, with a book by David Henry Hwang and score by Phil Collins, gets off to an impressive start with the enactment of a shipwreck in which the English parents of the lad who will become Tarzan float through water and then walk around dazed on an unknown shore - we watch them from above, the stage being used ingeniously, as if it were a movie screen, by director-designer Bob Crowley.

Soon, however, the novelties get boring. By 8:20, I noted, I was already tired of gorillas swinging over the audience. By 8:45, they were climbing the proscenium, which was briefly amusing. At 8:50, the stage was full of elegantly designed jungle butterflies and other exotica, but the scene was static - like the music. After the intermission, the gorillas did some bungee jumping, also briefly amusing.

Between these attempts at creating visual excitement, there is a modicum of plot.
_______________________________________________________________

Crowley, who has done some amazing sets (like his 1994 "Carousel"), seldom gets beyond bland - either as designer or director.

Ever since "Cats," which turned the Winter Garden into a gigantic haunted house, musicals have become increasingly amusement park rides, focusing on scenic thrills rather than solid storytelling. "Tarzan" wouldn't make the grade as a ride at Disney World. On Broadway, it seems merely a tourist trap."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater/story/416542p-351919c.html


Bergen Register is Negative:

"If a kid gets a new toy, you have to expect he'll want to play with it, hour after hour.

So when the folks at Disney hooked up with Argentinian "aerial designer" Pichon Baldinu, you might have predicted where it would lead.

Baldinu, who put together the De La Guarda troupe's long-running off-Broadway acrobatics show "Villa Villa," rigged up an elaborate system of "flying" for Disney's "Tarzan," which opened Wednesday night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

And the creators of the chaotic, lightweight, all-around-disappointing mega-musical can't get enough of it.

Performers, hanging from bungee cords attached to body harnesses, bounce and soar through the air, walk on walls and slowly descend from the top of the theater nearly close enough to touch audience members' heads.

The imaginative thrust of the production seems to have been: How many ways can we get the actors off the ground?
________________________________________________________________

There's a fleeting sense early on that book writer David Henry Hwang and director-designer Bob Crowley intend a dramatic story of Tarzan's journey, from nurturing by gorillas after his parents are killed to a growing sense of being different to the realization he's from another world.

But it soon becomes clear that -- beyond the flying -- a meaningful telling of the classic story is not on the menu. The production is said to be based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel "Tarzan of the Apes" as well as Disney's 1999 animated film version, but the show is formula Disney all the way.

There is, yet again, the hero's smart-mouthed animal pal. The character is essentially the same from film to film, show to show and species to species.
________________________________________________________________

Crowley designed better scenery than costumes (and did both better than he directed), including a particularly lovely panorama of colorful, exotic plants that Jane discovers in the jungle. But like much else in the show, it seems stuck in for the heck of it rather than as part of an organic concept.

There's also the required Disney message, which is that families may be different, but they're all to be valued.

Another message delivered by "Tarzan," unspoken and unintended, is that if you put a Broadway musical together like a theme-park show, the result is likely to be a bummer.


http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNjcmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY5MzI2NDAmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3


New York Sun is Negative:

"The loincloth and fur-covered actors may spend much of "Tarzan" gliding through the air, buttressed by an array of harnesses, wires, and bungee cords. But with the exception of an eye-catching opening, Disney's latest foray onto Broadway lands on the Richard Rodgers Theatre with all the artistic grace of George of the Jungle, Tarzan's cartoon counterpart, slamming into that tree.

After aiming low and scoring big with its risk-free stage adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" in 1994, Disney rolled the dice and hired visionary director Julie Taymor to rethink "The Lion King." The result was a visually rapturous event that continues to dazzle kids and adults alike.

The overamplified, underimagined "Tarzan" awkwardly straddles these two approaches, aping the 1999 film while attempting to translate its gravity-flouting visual scheme for the stage. It largely fails on both counts, somehow managing to feel both bloated and anemic, despite director/designer Bob Crowley's ambitious visual approach and a handful of actors determined to transcend the libretto's tired monkey business.
_______________________________________________________________

Mr. Collins has augmented the film's five songs, which range from mildly engaging ("Two Worlds") to blandly bombastic ("Son of Man"), with nine new ones. With the exception of a pleasant love duet for Kerchak and Kala (the very talented Merle Dandridge, whose ringing alto and empathic presence salvage a number of scenes), these are considerably less impressive than his original batch, and Jane's first song, in which she rattles off Latin genus and species names while actors in body stockings grope her, stands out as a low point.
________________________________________________________________

And so "Tarzan" turns out not to be a predictable train wreck but rather a mediocre adaptation of a mediocre film, which has solved some but by no means all of the adaptation problems with an impressive cast and technical crew to put it over.

But is this what we've been reduced to? Hailing a Broadway musical for having a coherent plot and a handful of good performances, plus some cool stage effects? No matter how many harnessed actors take flight in the stage's upper reaches, this production sees to it that their efforts remain dispiritingly earthbound."

http://www.nysun.com/article/32521?page_no=2



Journal News is Mixed-to-Negative:

"But the Crowley-Baldinu partnership doesn't gel to make magic.

Each time the anticipation folds away to make room for a scene with live actors talking, the show's magic quickly fizzles.

As sublime a set designer as he is, Crowley seems uncertain as soon as he must actually direct a scene. And book writer David Henry Hwang is at fault too. His dialogue is as flat as Crowley's visual concepts are elaborate, and the director is left with little to craft into musical theater.

Aided by lighting designer Natasha Katz, Crowley has more than one visual stunt like this up his sleeve, and each is deployed with a sense of momentous theatrical excitement that's hard to resist.
________________________________________________________________

Josh Strickland, the grown-up Tarzan, inexplicably has the body of a 90-pound weakling. Even the logo Tarzan who appears on the Playbill and on T-shirts for sale in the lobby of the theater is plainly better built than Strickland.

At first sight, after the grown-up Tarzan emerges from a somewhat lame sequence of giant finger-shadows, our first reaction is: Have a milkshake. The man's too skinny!
________________________________________________________________

Instead of the fascinating meeting of species across the divide, Hwang needlessly stresses a much smaller theme that little Tarzan feels "different" from the other kids. In trying to make the story contemporary, he makes it banal. This should not come as a surprise: Hwang co-wrote the book for the musical "Aida."

Actually, the kids who get to see "Tarzan" might well feel different from other kids. They'll have to be richer. The top ticket goes for $111.25 each.

Meryl Tankard's choreography is severely limited by the fact that most of the characters are dancing primates. And Crowley's unquestioned gift for creating breathtaking visual tableaux comes awry here, because shows are about live people, performing.

Those, he hasn't quite gotten the hang of yet.

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060511/LIFESTYLE01/605110420/1031

Updated On: 5/11/06 at 12:32 PM

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 1:15pm

MisterMatt:

I called myself classless, not the show.

[Laura King]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 1:29pm

Fabrizio2:

P*O*R*C*U*PI*N*E*S.

Love to all!

[Rentaholic2]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 1:48pm

"I was just wondering how it was recieved by the critics. Although it did win the Tony. "

If by "did win the Tony" you mean for costume design, then yes...it sounds like you meant "Best Musical"

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 2:32pm

munk - I see. It was a little unclear. Then that was not a hypocritical statement. Just accurate.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 2:35pm

I know.

[Nycboi23]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 2:40pm

I'm not really surprised the reviews are bad. A lot of adults who've seen the show that I've spoken with have hated it. I saw the show in previews and I enjoyed it. I agree with a lot of what people are complaining about, but I disagree when people say the score is dull. The score is actually very good and probably the one strong thing carrying the show.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:02pm

Rentaholic2, this is from the NY Times website for Beauty and the Beast:


"1994 Tony Award for Best Musical and Best Costume Design"

TIMES

[Rentaholic2]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:08pm

Wonder where they got that. Passion won Best Musical.

[leefowler]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 3:47pm

Wow, what a stupid mistake for the "paper of record" to make. At any rate, Beauty And The Beast won only one Tony award, for costume design.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 4:31pm

How many stars from The Post?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 5/11/06 at 4:36pm

It doesn't say...does that mean 0?