I'm heading to NYC at the end of the month. I'm sure everyone is excited to hear that!......I'm curious to get some opinions. Here is my list of shows that I will be seeing.
Frozen, Beetlejuice, Hadestown, Moulin Rouge, Tina and Mean Girls. If you were to rank them from an entertainment perspective, not a critically acclaimed perspective, where would they rank? Here is my guess....
1.Moulin Rouge 2. Tina 3. Beetlejuice 4. Frozen 5. Mean Girls 6. Hadestown
What you might discover here is that the show with the most critical acclaim (HADESTOWN) is — surprise surprise— everyone’s most entertaining show as well. Funny how that works.
I’m in the same boat— HADESTOWN is my top, and
MOULIN ROUGE is my bottom because a limp story leaves me less entertained.
As far as TV performances for Hadestown, I believe that, had they performed "Road to Hell," "Wedding Song," or an entire host of other upbeat songs from the show which include the entire cast, it would have been better. "Living it Up on Top" is not the strongest song in the show, and they did that a lot. However, "Wait For Me" is, and I think seeing it live made me truly appreciate the power of the vocals. Still at the top of my list. It's timely and it's real.
1) Hadestown 2) Mean Girls 3) Beetlejuice 4) Moulin Rouge 5) Frozen 6) Tina
I've seen all of the shows on your list and I think what is interesting that my list is almost the reverse of your guess. I think that it depends on what your definition of "entertaining" ultimately is. You will probably find that a l;ot of people will rank Moulin Rouge pretty low on this list - unless you somehow equate spectacle with entertainment. If your favorite thing about Phantom was the chandelier or your most entertaining part of Miss Saigon was the helicopter, or you...liked King Kong at all - then maybe Moulin Rouge will move up higher. Ultimately, beyond sparkly costumes and a fancy elephant on stage, I think you find that a lot people on the board would not call it that "entertaining."
I actually had a conversation with a friend about Moulin Rouge the other day and ultimately what we landed on was the Moulin Rouge is a musical made for people who don't actually watch musicals.
Similarly Tina, like most bio-musicals, is pretty minimal in terms of character or story in favor of something more like a wikipedia entry set to the best-of album with concert footage - not something I personally found very "entertaining". Frozen was just...unnecessary, IMO. It did nothing that the movie didn't do, just...not as well.
ccbway said: "I actually had a conversation with a friend about Moulin Rouge the other day and ultimately what we landed on was the Moulin Rouge is a musical made for people who don't actually watch musicals."
That's the best take down of this empty-headed, soulless spectacle I've seen so far.
I too had a conversation with a friend about Moulin Rouge the other day and ultimately what we landed on was that Moulin Rouge is a musical made for people who just want a fun and entertaining evening at the theater, and not for the regular (and pretentious) theatergoers who think their tastes are better than everyone else's.
IHeartNY2 said: "I too had a conversation with a friend about Moulin Rouge the other day and ultimately what we landed on was thatMoulin Rouge is a musical made for people who just want a fun and entertaining evening at the theater, and not for the regular (and pretentious) theatergoers who think their tastes are better than everyone else's."
Sure go for personal attacks, that seems like cool thing to do. Look, it's an opinion, agree or not, defend the show or not. I don't think it has anything to do with pretentiousness - I thoroughly enjoyed both Mean Girls and Beetlejuice - neither of which were critical darlings, but both were "fun and entertaining" IMO. I personally loved Be More Chill - which most of what I assume you would call "pretentious theatergoers" absolutely loathed. To me, Moulin Rouge was a muddled, clumsy, medley-driven musical mess. I wanted to like it, was excited to see it, liked the movie/source material, and was thrilled with the casting when it was announced. And then I saw it and I was disappointed, mostly by the music and surprisingly by the lack of chemistry between the leads. I wouldn't have cared that it was jukebox musical if it had been executed in a way that I thought was done well vs just cutting lines from 5 different 90s songs and pasting them together to create musical dialogue. I thought it was visually stunning, but to me that only gets you so far.