The Pirate Queen Reviews- Page 7

[Esparzafan]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 9:24am

Linda Weiner didn't review PQ for Newsday (must be on vacation or maybe out sick?) The review was negative.

'Pirate Queen' misses the boat
BY ZACHARY PINCUS-ROTH
Special to Newsday

At one point early in "The Pirate Queen," most of the 42 cast members stand onstage braced for battle, the Irish soldiers facing their British counterparts. It seems the audience is about to be treated to a rousing, "300"-style fight to the death.

But a few seconds later, the stage is almost blank. A few scattered soldiers run this way and that. Some jump in the air like a child imitating a ballet dancer, while others swing swords at them, missing by several feet.

Such avoidance of real emotion is typical of "The Pirate Queen," the new musical at the Hilton Theatre that, at times, goes out of its way to be dramatically inert.

The show staggered into town with the kind of unfavorable buzz that makes critics feel like Barry Bonds preparing to face Roger Clemens' grandma.

"The Pirate Queen" isn't an embarrassment like "Dance of the Vampires" or a vanity project like "In My Life." It just feels a little sad, as if a lot of people put a lot of time into something that's simply lifeless. It makes one think: Turkeys aren't funny anymore.

"The Pirate Queen" tells the story of Grace O'Malley, a 16th-century pirate who leads an Irish rebellion against the British, led by Queen Elizabeth I. Grace does this despite being - as everyone keeps reminding us - a woman.

She's the kind of feminist who makes Susan B. Anthony look like Larry Flynt. Right after giving birth, she drags herself out of bed and crawls across the battlefield to stab a British soldier.

The show boasts the songwriting team of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Sch"nberg of "Les Misérables" and "Miss Saigon" fame. But "Les Miz," despite being a period mega-musical, continually surprises the audience as its characters confront true-to-life moral dilemmas and make inspiring choices.

"The Pirate Queen" is based on a true story but does a poor job of proving it. The characters seem to do things not because they want to, but because the script tells them to.

For instance, at one point Grace's father wants his clan to unite with another clan, so apparently Grace has to marry the other chieftain's son. No character onstage seems thrilled about this. Grace's real true love hangs around just in case. Even her father says the marriage's first three years are just a trial period.

A couple of scenes later, Grace's new husband stumbles home from a night of partying. She boldly declares, "This is no marriage." What did you expect it to be? Lucy and Ricky Ricardo?

Fans will recognize Sch"nberg's music - the opening song evokes "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from "Les Miz" - with slight Irish inflections expressed primarily via the orchestrations' pipes and whistles. The lyrics are infuriatingly predictable, as phrases like "seize the day, this is it" simply wash over us, meaning nothing.

At the performance I attended, Stephanie J. Block, playing Grace, was replaced early in the first act by Kathy Voytko, whose lovely voice bloomed during a few tranquil second act moments. Hadley Fraser has an enjoyable tenor in the role of Tiernan, Grace's true love (though the writers fail to make their love convincing).

The show finds a couple invigorating moments of Irish dancing - after all, its producers created "Riverdance."

The idea of an adventure musical about a female pirate hero whose feminist ideals create an unlikely bond with her enemy doesn't seem so horrible. But whatever alchemy made "Les Miz" so magical simply doesn't exist here.

Seen at Wednesday night preview.





http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/stage/ny-etpirate5159824apr06,0,4562465.story

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 9:29am

Roma hated it:

"An act of piracy on the high c's of Broadway is being committed. That would be the high c's, as well as the middle and low ones. “The Pirate Queen” is pillaging and plundering the American musical. Hard to believe it's spawned by Boublil and Schonberg, the very same composers behind Les Miserables.

But it's not just the music that fails: the direction, the book, and the musical staging are all colossal disappointments. And that puts intense pressure on the performers who try to salvage the work by singing their hearts out. No wonder the show's lead dropped out 15 minutes into the show Wednesday night.

Even though the story ends happily, considering all that wasted talent, “The Pirate Queen” is a tragic misfire."

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/Living/theater_reviews.jsp

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 9:33am

NS i like fame i like footloose

I love
Saigon
Sweet Charity
Anything Goes
Cabaret
Bare
Taboo(london)
Rent
Hair
Hairspray
Hedwig
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels etc

so dont judge of the fact that i like 2 dance based shows(as a dancer) or we could judge you on your love of Mamma Mia?

as for watching shows on dvd i believe you got some from me?

These People are far to talented to be out of work stephanie and the rest of the cast are awesome and ive given them credit where credit is due(if i can find something good in a show i will say and i thought the pirate queen actors were Fantastic and deserve all the praise in the world)
I would love to see Block not just get nominated but WIN the tony but with the reviews i don't see that happening .

Its also been addressed on here why some of us are happy at the reviews and it has nothing to do with the show and all to do with the been jumped on by the fans everytime we said a bad word(but we have put that to rest, and i dont mean popular)

And NS you should really see Legally Blonde before you judge it of a few clips(bad clips i may say)

Updated On: 4/6/07 at 09:33 AM

[NS]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 10:07am

Yeah I have seen some on dvd, from you yeah, but my point is id never judge a show based on that type of viewing alone. If I did I would have been put some shows that on stage I love, and vica versa.

Yeah love Mamma Mia, to be honest there are very few shows I dont like. I can count on one hand the ones I dont like, usually find something good in most shows.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 10:12am

The show does not change if its on dvd or stage (im not even having this conversation again mr NS or i will have to bitch slap you) and im closer to you than you think hehehehehe(i LOVE NS hes a babe)

And you can pan Fame and Footloose but at least they had original songs in them(bring it on NS)

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 10:13am

Where are fachadeluna and Lady Italy? queenbee2? I want to hear their endless defenses.

[queenbee2]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:02am

Hi Sorry Grateful-

No endless defense coming from me. The reviews are actually somewhat expected, as disappointing as they may be.

The one thing that makes me somewhat sad is that I don't think the reviewers gave the cast enough credit. I still stand strong behind my earlier statements that there is great work being done on that stage every night, no matter what you might think of the material.

And from what these producers have shown us thus far, I still wouldn't count PQ out of a decent run. Certainly not what they would have hoped for, but I would guess they will find a way to have it run for a while.

We'll find out.

-QB
Updated On: 4/6/07 at 11:02 AM

[Shakespearean]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:21am

Thanks to helpful friends who thought they would 'surprise me', I ended up seeing four PQ previews and my original review stands... I liked the music better with the lyrics from Les Mis, and I've come to the conclusion that the parts I didn't recognize from Les Mis and Miss Saigon give me a good idea of what Martin Guerre was. I'm with the reviewers on that.

That said, I also stand by my accolades for this talented, earnest, hard working cast and wish the reviewers were making more of this distinction between the show and the production as many of us here have. There isn't a person on that stage that I wouldn't buy a ticket to see again. I can't imagine any of those folks remaining out of work for long if it does close.

I also wish more of the reviewers understood Elizabethan costuming before writing about it. I'm hoping the show remains open long enough to see what kind of tourist momentum it might build just to keep folks working.

[chicolini]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:23am

Wow, Terry Teachout in today's WSJ was harsh. I don't have the full article electronically, but I read the print review and it included lines like:

"It starts out dumb, then gets dumber, and at no time does anything other than preposterous ever take place on stage or in the orchestra pit. If it were somewhat shorter, it might actually be worth seeing, but at two and a half hours, I can’t recommend it in good faith to anyone who isn’t (A) a full-fledged hit-me-again masochist and/or (B) deaf…."

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:24am

Although I didn't care much for the show when I saw it in Chicago and knew the reviews wouldn't be great, I didn't expect them to be this brutal.

[Nick Plasia]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:32am

Well,of course they're brutal, it's god-awful...
Updated On: 4/6/07 at 11:32 AM

[rocker05]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:33am

Wow, the show has been completely trashed. I really didn't expect such horrible reviews, I expected maybe some mixed thoughts, but now it's just all negativity. I'm not a fan of the show, but I feel bad for the wonderful cast because of how hard they worked to get the show where it is now. I felt the same way for High Fidelity which didn't need to close after 14 performances. The performances were great in that show as well. Once again, I wish the best of luck to all the performers and I hope that their broadway careers can only go up from this.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:35am

Is there anywhere else for them to go?

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:37am

Maybe that dinner theater in Minnesota?

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 11:46am

"The one thing that makes me somewhat sad is that I don't think the reviewers gave the cast enough credit."

queenbee2, on that I agree with you. While the harsh reviews weren't entirely unexpected for me, I was surprised that at least Block isn't getting more recognition. I guess she's going down with the ship. I thought she was incredible and I would love to see her in a show that isn't awful.

[rocker05]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 12:00pm

That's true, Block is a great performer in every way. I first saw her in "The Boy From Oz" and her performance was sadly overlooked yet, I never forgot how good she was in that show. It's the material that the reviewers obviously don't like, but they definitely should give more credit to the hardworking performances. I don't think it matters what show it is, even if it is downright awful, you should still stand for the actors in the show because of how hard they work. This show is just a misfire. Also wanted to mention that I'm happy Kathy Voytko got some nice words from Newsday, she was a great standby and I give her major props for that seamless switcheroo in wednesday night's performance, her voice was great as well, yet if I ever were to see the show again, I would want to see Stephanie. Let's hope that $28 discount comes back.
Updated On: 4/6/07 at 12:00 PM

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 12:05pm

This could have been SUCH a good show, too, which is the real pity. But the songs have no passion, nor does the book. Yes, Grace and Tiernan are in love, but why? This, among other things, bothered me. The audience is just spoonfed things without being given any credit for intelligence, which certainly made me angry as a viewer.

[GilmoreGirlO2]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 12:46pm

I read these reviews and parts of them I understand, but I truly, TRULY can not comprehend these critics or any reviewers that call the show "terrible" or anything of the sort. I'm completley dumbfounded by them, because I really can not see how this show could be considered "bad". I am an avid theatre-goer and have grown up attending theatre, so I feel like I am able to decipher "good" and "bad" shows and PQ is a good show. I guess it often comes down to matter of opinion.

I'm also very surprised the cast isn't getting stellar reviews -in Chicago the talent of the cast seemed to be the one thing everyone agreed on, amidst all the bad reviews.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 12:48pm

I'm reminded of other mega-flops, not in the CARRIE tradition, but bigger, duller crash n'burn exercises.

Anyone ever see MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY in London? Lots of sweaty seamen and a whole ship on stage. But deadly.

[Hank]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 1:18pm

The New Jersey papers are negative:

By Michael Sommers
Star Ledger staff

Erin go blah

Hearing those Uilleann pipes keening away throughout "The Pirate Queen", one expects Celine Dion to pop up crooning "My Heart Will Go On."
Speaking of The Titanic, the new opulent operetta premiering yesterday at The Hilton Theatre turns out to be a big, lumbering affair that sinks into a sea of boredom.
...Look - gasp - Irish step dancers actually using their arms! That's about as exciting as this busy spectacle ever gets.
...Moronic lyrics by Bouble and several others don't help. (Rah-rah, tip-top, everything's right as rain," sings a chorus of noblemen.
... Because the words and music are so relentlessly third rate-come back Frank Wilhorn, all is forgiven- what's best about the musical is clattering streches of "Riverdance" style choreography performed with oars, brooms, and swords on every piece of scenery available. The 42 member company cavorts through these Hibernian rhapsodies with conciderable expertise.
...Credit must be handed to the pricipals for coping so gallantly with dreary material. Stephanie J. Block portays Grace with "Wicked" like intensity and vocal prowess. Extavagantly costumed by Martin Pakledinaz, Linda Balgord, as Elizabeth, regally rules with a vibrant soprano. Hadley Fraser's sturdy Tiernan contrasts with Marcus Chait's nasty Donal. A Riverdance alum, singer Aine Ui Cheallaigh lends her folkloric authenticity to a small role as Grace's faithful nurse.
Probably the creators and director Frank Galati hoped to get some girl power dynamics going in this story, but but because Grace and Elizabeth don't converge until late in the show, there's no time for any chemistry to ignite. Instead, it's mostly these two savvy women dealing separately with a lot of blockhead men. Oh, yeah, and a lot of step dancing.

Robert Feldberg of "THe Record" writes:

So many memorable moments. So little space. (I'll cut it down further to segments)
Grace O'Malley (Stepanie J. Block), the Irish heroine of "The Pirate Queen," has a baby in the ships cabin, an instant later she's struggling up a rope ladder to the deck, where she crawls into the battle against a group of English raiders. Grabbing a sword, she runs through and routs the attackers.
Talk about a woman having it all.
Later, a squeaky-voiced Queen Elizabeth (Linda Balgord)-the one who could order people's heads cut off-expresses her envy of the sey Grace, singing "What does she have that I don't have?"
The two women eventually sit down for a heart to heart, a couple of earnestly chatting silhouettes behind a screen. They emerge having resolved-for the time being, any way-the troubled relationship of England and Ireland. Speaking to her aide, the evil Sir Richard Bingham, Elizabeth declares, "What you could not accomplish with years of bloodshed and indecency, we achieved in a matter of hours."
It's the greatest celebration of girl power since "Wicked."
"The Pirate Queen," which opened Thursday night at The Hilton Theatre is deadly serious, you understand, totally unaware it's one of the silliest musicals in years, and one of the clunkiest. It heads down the wrong path and never looks back.
... The intention was to tell a wide ranging story in epic style. The result is epic folly.


Updated On: 4/6/07 at 01:18 PM

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 1:24pm

I'm sure I'll see it anyway, but out of curiosity, how do you all feel that a huge Les Miz and Miss Saigon fan would like PQ?

[caitiesus1522]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 1:29pm

A huge Les Mis and Miss Saigon fan most likely will not like it. You will feel like you have heard all the music before, but it was done better in those two shows.

As Shakespearean said (and both I and Jason will agree with)

"I liked the music better with the lyrics from Les Mis, and I've come to the conclusion that the parts I didn't recognize from Les Mis and Miss Saigon give me a good idea of what Martin Guerre was"

[ChicagoAmy]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 1:32pm

The Chicago Tribune at least says it's "no total shipwreck"

Overhauled 'Pirate Queen' is still leaking

By Chris Jones
Tribune theater critic
Published April 6, 2007


NEW YORK -- About 15 minutes into Wednesday night's press performance of "The Pirate Queen" on Broadway, the show's ailing star, Stephanie J. Block, walked her own plank into the wings, never to return. With the orchestra missing nary a toot of a pipe, out popped her understudy, none other than Chicago actress Kathy Voytko. All of a sudden, Grace O'Malley had a totally different face.

You can say one thing for this pirate queen. She's surely been full of surprises.

Clearly, the producers of this epic, troubled show--which originated last fall in Chicago and was to open officially on Broadway on Thursday night--have expended great effort and money in an honorable attempt to listen to their Midwestern critics and try to solve the problems inherent in their colossal Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schoenberg musical. Moya Doherty and John McColgan, class acts all the way, deserve more respect for this project than I fear New York will be affording them. To understand, you had to see the Chicago tryout.

Doherty and McColgan could do nothing about Block's untimely ill-health (she missed other important performances this week) or the inherent limitations of a dangerously woolly Boublil/Schoenberg conception or the bizarre inclination of many of those involved to wallow into dangerously melodramatic waters. More troubling yet, they could do little to right a creative ship, under Frank Galati's direction, that has acquired a frenetic--at times even panicked-- sensibility that was not in evidence in Chicago. That's what happens when actors, directors and choreographers start to worry that their ship is going down. Everyone pushes back much too hard, much too fast and with too many tricks. People forget the need for quiet; the obligation to let a story breathe. But what the producers could reasonably fix, they fixed. Mostly.

In place of muddled storytelling, we now have a much clearer tale. The new lyricist, Richard Maltby Jr. (and, since this is a through-composed show, he's really a new book writer), now telegraphs the plot developments in plain English. The lyrics are more colloquial and there are several new passages of plot-revealing dialogue. Along with other enhancements, new "musical stager" Graciela Daniele has fashioned a spectacular Act One finale. And most notable of all, the end of the show is infinitely more satisfying, with Grace and the Queen finally enjoying a full, passionate debate on the pleasures and pain of feminist occupation.

And, Hallelujah, the focus finally has landed on the two central women, O'Malley and Linda Balgord's Queen Elizabeth. Grace's dying dad doesn't dominate the first act but assumes an enabling cameo of the requisite, limited scale. Grace no longer gives birth and then, seconds later, takes up a sword. At last, thank heavens, the superb Balgord isn't obliged to spend the entire night in her upper register. Her character has morphed from a crass cartoon in grand gowns to a half-way humanized woman.

Block, one of the show's great assets from the start, will be back in full force. Her show is no total shipwreck. It will have some fans, especially among the "Riverdance" crowd. But if this end product was what "Pirate Queen" should have been in Chicago, the entire show might have had a smoother voyage. As it has turned out, the show is still undermined by the remnants of a campy sensibility it could never fully replace with the dramatic poetry required by the stirring, feminist, nationalist story it so badly wanted to tell with passion and truth.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0704050293apr06,1,376996.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 1:37pm

Rah-rah, tip-top, everything's right as rain," sings a chorus of noblemen.

Oy. They didn't cut that? It got snickers a-plenty the night I saw it.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 1:41pm

John Simon was mixed about this crap and Clive Barnes hated it? Wow. The world must be ending. I expected Simon to loathe it and Old Man Barnes to give it a four star rave as he usually does to overblown tripe (Mary Poppins anyone?).