ON A CLEAR DAY... Reviews- Page 2

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 10:48pm

I can't say I ever had much interest in this. And I can't say I'm suprised by all the reactions this has recd so far.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 11:10pm

Joey; I'm guessing Mayer, who's hands are all over this.
Or the creepy Slater who's just, well creepy.
After these reviews, we will probably never know.

[Broadwayhunk]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 11:15pm

"Negative" might be something of an understatement.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 11:20pm

I'm bummed! I was hoping we might get a cast recording out of this, but who would record it now? Updated On: 12/11/11 at 11:20 PM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 11:23pm

It's still Harry Connick and a cast recording might have been written into his contract, no?

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 11:31pm

When he was in "The Pajama Game", the recording came out as "Harry on Broadway Act 1", so maybe this will be act 2?

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 12/11/11 at 11:43pm

I sincerely hope this is recorded. The problems would not be evident on the recording, I don't think, and it would preserve the best part of the score.

[PalJoey]

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

Here are some pull-quotes from the NY Times:

"The approximate fun quotient of a day in an M.R.I. machine." -BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Never mind trying to figure out the logic of all this. Reincarnation, I’m sure, has its own transcendent laws." --BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES


"Mr. Turner, an actor of wit and charm...is here required to be witless and charmless."--BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Ms. Mueller, who has a fetching affinity for swing-era song stylings, comes off better....But in reshaping Melinda as a concept, someone forgot to make her a character as well." --BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mr. Connick...has the look of a man just out of grueling dental surgery, who is both in pain and still semi-anesthetized. And he makes even an up number like the title song sound like an exquisitely sung dirge." --BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"An exquisitely sung dirge!" --BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

"I couldn’t help feeling that members of the talented supporting cast — who include Kerry O’Malley...Sarah Stiles...and Drew Gehling wished they were somewhere else, in more attractive costumes, doing less spasmodic dances. --BEN BRANTLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 12:12am

Rather makes B&C's reviews not look so awful, doesn't it?

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 12:18am

Ya gotta love how Benny is able to praise his girl Cheno,
even if she's not in this production.
He takes Gay/Diva worship to a whole new level, N Y Times style.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 12:37am

I wonder how long it will last with these reviews. Connick could not help Thou Shalt Not. What will his name do here?

[goldenboy]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 12:58am

The reviews for Bonnie and Clyde were much more harmful.

This has Connick to sell it, a song everyone knows to sell it while Bonnie and Clyde needed the reviews because it has no star.

Bonnie and Clyde was robbed.

Much worse musicals than Bonnie and Clyde lived on: Sister Act, Legally Blonde, Titanic to name a few.

[BorisIgor]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 1:20am

Well, bad reviews or not.... the show has a great score, is beautifully performed and audiences cheer and love it!

[goldenboy]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 1:24am

I agree with you wholeheartedly Boris.
It is a shame about this one. Great score. Great performances.
Well conceived all the way around

Unfortunately, the show costs 400,000 per week to break even. It has only pulled that in one week out of four.

The critics wouldn't give Wildhorn a break. No matter what.
Sad. It sucks being the man they love to hate.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 1:53am

How is it possible that THIS was the show the decided to waste Harry Connick Jr.'s talents on? Is there no other revival in the rich history of Broadway that they could have selected? This show was a bomb in the 60s for a reason.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 2:27am

Curiously, Connick's label - Columbia - had decided NOT to record this one.

[bk]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 2:32am

Who records 905% of the cast albums made today? Not the labels. It's the producers. It's their dough - if they want to spend it, they'll record it. If not, they won't. The labels get handed this stuff - they have nothing to do with the financial end anymore - if the producers weren't popping for these things, very few cast albums would be made these days - next to none.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 6:15am

Harry is a major part of the problem.
HIs acting is misquided.
Mark Kudish was really good in the role in the reading.

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 6:50am

The show even comes with a caveat from the chief surgeon:

A warning: All those elaborately mixed patterns of circles and squares can affect your vision. I found myself seeing double at the shows beginning, until my eyes had adjusted. What a relief when things fell into normal focus again. One Clear Day at a time is more  much more  than enough.

I guess 'The Best Man' has found its house?

[Scripps2]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 7:13am

Hmmmmm, errrrr, okay.

So how else might the Lerner estate allow his works to be made more commercial and less confusing?

They've missed the opportunity to give Carmelina a contemporary Europop score and retitle it Mamma Mia. So perhaps they could...

relocate Camelot to Hyannis Port...

...or maybe a necrophiliac take on Lolita My Love?

Any others?
Updated On: 12/12/11 at 07:13 AM

[jayinchelsea]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 7:37am

City Center is the right place for a new look at PAINT YOUR WAGON. The original book isn't much, but the score is terrific, and the piece is way better than the unwatchable movie with singers the calibre of Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood!

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 8:01am

"relocate Camelot to Hyannis Port... "

There's nothing confusing about Camelot. It has also made money set exactly where it is.
Updated On: 12/12/11 at 08:01 AM

[newintown]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 9:22am

I have heard that Dick Scanlan (friend and former colleague of Mr. Mayer) contributed some pedestrian new lyrics to the show, uncredited.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 10:46am

IT WAS the best of mistakes, it was the worst of Gambles, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Revision, it was the season of Darkness, it was the fall of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had Evita before us, we had no Funny Girl before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, on the S.S. Bernard Cohn, we were all going direct the other way, on a boat leaving soon - or not - but after all, yes, indeed! - for New York; in short, the revival was flawed so very much and so very unlike the original, that some of its noisiest authorities, yours truly, insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a Dr. with a Sinatra croon and a queen with a plain face, in the 1970s; there were a Dr. with a Sinatra croon and a princess with a fair face, in the 1940s. In both times it was clearer than Clyde across the River Jordan to the lords of the State preserves of Bonnie loaves and fishes, that things in Other Desert Cities were settled for ever.

It was the years of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventy-four. and one thousand nine hundred and forty-four, and two thousand and eleven. Critical revelations were conceded to Chicago at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Mueller had recently attained her Broadway debut, of whom a prophetic tour in the U.S.O. had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of her airplane. Even the ghost of Burton Lane had been laid only a round fifteen years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this theatrical less than golden age (supernaturally deficient unlike the original) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come from Mr. Sondheim in a letter to the Times, from a congress of Webberites in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the starstruck throng than any communications yet received through any ill-begotten expose of Mr. Jackman's theatrical sexuality.

Updated On: 12/12/11 at 10:46 AM

[newintown]

Posted: 12/12/11 at 10:57am

henrik, did you forget your medicine?