SOMETHING ROTTEN Reviews- Page 2

Posted: 4/22/15 at 8:38pm

The Wall Street Journal is mixed to negative

"Something Rotten!" is a Mel Brooks-style Elizabethan-era backstage spoof ... of the sort that Mr. Brooks used to write for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, but Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick have blown it up to 2-1/2 half hours by inserting 15 mostly comic songs, none of whose lyrics are sharp enough to penetrate their targets ... Casey Nicholaw has staged "Something Rotten!" with enough punch to partially conceal the thinness of the material. Nevertheless, this one’s for backward sophomores only.

SOMETHING ROTTEN! Review: Throw Out Your Shakespeare

[ceisen]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 8:39pm

Don't forget to include Robert Fairchild in An American in Paris, Tony Yazbeck for On the Town, and Peter Gallagher for 20th Century in the Best Actor in a Musical category, although I agree that it will probably come down to James and Cerveris.

[indytallguy]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 8:43pm

Matthew Murray is pretty positive with some reservations.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 8:59pm

"The Wall Street Journal is mixed to negative
"Something Rotten!" is a Mel Brooks-style Elizabethan-era backstage spoof ... of the sort that Mr. Brooks used to write for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, but Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick have blown it up to 2-1/2 half hours by inserting 15 mostly comic songs, none of whose lyrics are sharp enough to penetrate their targets ... Casey Nicholaw has staged "Something Rotten!" with enough punch to partially conceal the thinness of the material. Nevertheless, this one’s for backward sophomores only.
SOMETHING ROTTEN! Review: Throw Out Your Shakespeare"

 No surprise there, this is the dude who hated The Book of Mormon.

[jnb9872]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:03pm

I'm surprised there's been a few raves already, I was expecting more middle-of-the-road approval. Let's see if they can sustain this or if all the excited reviewers published first.

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:04pm

lol because Terry Teachout barely likes any comedy!

[jv92]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:14pm

No, Terry Teachout doesn't like musicals that are self-referntial claptrap. If someone took musical comedy seriously, I bet he'd have a good time. 

 

[ceisen]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:17pm

NBC New York is very positive (but not quite a rave):

 

Shakespeare is a charismatic and conniving copycat who wears skin-tight leather pants in the new musical comedy “Something Rotten!” An easygoing effort from the director of “The Book of Mormon,” the real brains—and heart—of “Rotten!” belong to the Bottom Brothers, a pair of aspiring writers who challenge the Bard on his own turf.

Now open at the St. James Theatre, “Rotten!” delivers the same sort of accessible and over-the-top laughs as “Mormon.” Both stem from the talents of Casey Nicholaw, the director and choreographer who here teams with brothers Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick (one is a songwriter; the other helped pen “Chicken Run&rdquo.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:18pm

Newsday is negative:

"Suffice it to say that, despite my sincere desire to be at the party, the show's good-natured silly charms just feel hammered by an unrelenting tsunami of manic, frenetic, zanier-than-zaniest onslaught of collegiate show-biz humor.

Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw -- who, among other funny feats, codirected "The Book of Mormon" and choreographed "Spamalot" -- may be unchallenged today in his ability to put new spins on bushels of naughty-but-nice frolics. For "Rotten!," he has rounded up a pack of Broadway's most appealing clowns and set them loose on a project determined to make breathless (but, alas, not particularly fresh) reference to just about every musical of the last 70 years and every Shakespeare play."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/something-rotten-review-shakespeare-as-rock-star-in-frenetic-crowd-pleaser-1.10309571

[VotePeron]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:19pm

Glad to see the critics are looking beyond the show's initial shtick and bringing to light the shows flaws. 

[Kichkinet4life]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:20pm

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press is a VERY POSITIVE/RAVE!!!! (Another comparison to "Mormon")

"Something Rotten!"...is fresh and hysterical and irreverent. It's easily the funniest thing to arrive on Broadway since "The Book of Mormon"...the song "A Musical," in which the writers get to goof on such shows as "Rent," 'Pippin," 'Les Miserables," 'On the Town," 'Annie" and the Rockettes. It's one of the highlights of a show that is full of them, all led by director Casey Nicholaw at his exuberant, daffy best...A stunningly good first act...invariably leads to a somewhat weaker second act, but that's still better than most entire musicals on Broadway right now...But Borle as Shakespeare seems to be having the most fun of all. He shakes his butt, gets to put on a disguise and plays a preening peacock of a man..."Something Rotten!" is a valentine to Broadway musicals...these outsiders have created something far from rotten. Or a turd. It's awesome.

Updated On: 4/22/15 at 09:20 PM

[ceisen]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:20pm

Hollywood Reporter is a rave. Here' the first several paragraphs:

 

The Shakespearean references come thick and fast, along with the winking nods to a whole plethora of modern musicals, in Something Rotten! But the laughs in this rambunctious comedy by Broadway newcomers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, written with British humorist John O'Farrell and buoyed by a top-drawer cast, don't require comprehensive recall of classical theater or a particular receptiveness for arcane Broadway in-jokes. This is a big, brash meta-musical studiously fashioned in the mold of Monty Python's Spamalot, The Producers and The Book of Mormon, loaded with crowd-pleasing showstoppers, deliciously puerile gags and an infectious love of the form it so playfully skewers.

While it's been done countless times before, watching a musical that pokes fun at the very idea of a musical remains irresistible sport, especially when the digs are as celebratory as these. There's nothing mean-spirited even in the taunts aimed at frequent spoof targets like Cats or Les Miserables. The first-act high point is a riotous self-parodying number simply titled "A Musical," which represents with mounting excitement everything that's ludicrous and wonderful about the form at its most ebullient — people bursting into spontaneous song; perky chorus members thronging the stage; an explosion of tappers, fan-dancing showgirls and a kickline; even the magnificently cheesy tradition of the encore reprise.

There's no director-choreographer better equipped to stage such an irreverent homage than Casey Nicholaw, whose adoration for the unbridled excesses of old-school razzle-dazzle has been evident in his work on shows from Spamalot and Mormon through The Drowsy Chaperone and Aladdin. If the songs themselves are standard-issue show-tunes, they are elevated by dynamic staging and performances. Nicholaw can spin froth into a full-bodied confection, even if this one cries out for something more substantial at the finish. But while Something Rotten! might have benefited from a more robust second act and a punchier closing number, the show is clever enough in its impish desecration of highfalutin history to make it a very agreeable lark.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:21pm

I wouldn't call the AP a rave.  He points out that Act 2 is weaker by a considerable margin.  I'd call it very positive.

[Kichkinet4life]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:21pm

"Newsday is negative:
"Suffice it to say that, despite my sincere desire to be at the party, the show's good-natured silly charms just feel hammered by an unrelenting tsunami of manic, frenetic, zanier-than-zaniest onslaught of collegiate show-biz humor.
Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw -- who, among other funny feats, codirected "The Book of Mormon" and choreographed "Spamalot" -- may be unchallenged today in his ability to put new spins on bushels of naughty-but-nice frolics. For "Rotten!," he has rounded up a pack of Broadway's most appealing clowns and set them loose on a project determined to make breathless (but, alas, not particularly fresh) reference to just about every musical of the last 70 years and every Shakespeare play."
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/something-rotten-review-shakespeare-as-rock-star-in-frenetic-crowd-pleaser-1.10309571"

Newsday is basically written in finger paints! Let's save room for legitimate journalist-critics!

[jv92]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:21pm

"Glad to see the critics are looking beyond the show's initial shtick and bringing to light the shows flaws. "

Indeed. You'll be able tell the smart critics with an interest in serious musical theater (be it funny or more "dramatic) from the ones that get swept up in hype and shtick by the end of the night. 

 

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:22pm

"NBC New York is very positive (but not quite a rave)"

"Hollywood Reporter is a rave."

 

And both are already posted on the first page of the thread...

Updated On: 4/22/15 at 09:22 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:25pm

Newsday is basically written in finger paints! Let's save room for legitimate journalist-critics!"

So WHO IS a legitimate journalist-critic? Someone who likes SOMETHING ROTTEN? 

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:25pm

"I wouldn't call the AP a rave.  He points out that Act 2 is weaker by a considerable margin.  I'd call it very positive."

 

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:26pm

Elisabeth Vincentelli-She the only critic people should listen to

[ceisen]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:26pm

bjh: Oops! It's hard to keep track of all the reviews posted. I'll look for some fresh ones.

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:27pm

"Newsday is basically written in finger paints! Let's save room for legitimate journalist-critics!"
So WHO IS a legitimate journalist-critic? Someone who likes SOMETHING ROTTEN? "

 Yeah, seriously. Winer is a certainly a legitimate critic. 

[jv92]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:28pm

"Elisabeth Vincentelli-She the only critic people should listen to"

EL...OH...F*CKING...EL! 

 

 

[Phillypinto]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:29pm

why is that funny?

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:30pm

WHY MUST YOU DERAIL EVERY F*CKING THREAD?

[jv92]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:31pm

Because she's a moron! I never loved Clive Barnes, but I'd take him any day over that dunce.