Dr. Dolittle?????

[GlindaChenoweth]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 6:43pm

Hey i was wondering if anyone has seen Dr. Dolittle is it good or bad??

[DAME]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 6:48pm

I found a review. It sounds awful. ( just cut and paste if the link doesn't work)


www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/3601419.html

Updated On: 2/1/06 at 06:48 PM

[justme2]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 6:50pm

There's somewhat of a discussion of the show on this thread. It hasn't gotten to "Lestat thread" like yet....


https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=884058&dt=27

[DAME]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 6:56pm

Just me;
What is the correct way of posting a link?

[moowithme111105]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 6:58pm

From sounds, the show is tragic.

[justme2]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 6:59pm

The only thing I did was go to the thread, then copy the url address at the top of my page. Then paste into the new thread.

Why? Did I do it wrong?

[DAME]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:00pm

No. But it is the same thing I did and it doesn't work

[justme2]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:04pm

hmmm..maybe the chron already took the review down? But wait, if you copied the link today...then how? I have no idea!!!

Updated On: 2/1/06 at 07:04 PM

[justme2]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:08pm

DAME...I even tried copying your lik and pasting it in my browser, then deleting all by www.chron.com and got a blank browser! Maybe they are "protected"?

Moowithme...are you referring to "sounds" like the official site's recording of Tune singing? Or just to what people on BBW are saying?

[DAME]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:11pm

Oy. I tried.here is most of the review.


Dolittle does little, despite the return of Tommy Tune

By EVERETT EVANS
Houston Chronicle

Tommy Tune has always come across as an overgrown kid.


In his breakthrough show, Seesaw, his signature number It's Not Where You Start (It's Where You Finish) found him cavorting amid a sea of balloons in a circus-y spectacle that director Michael Bennett let Tune choreograph for himself.

In My One and Only, his dance duet with Twiggy, splashing in the surf (cleverly represented by a trough of water at the footlights), exuded the same childlike delight.

Even directing more serious works like Nine and Grand Hotel, he could be seen as a whiz kid ingeniously assembling the show like some giant Tinker Toy set.

So perhaps it was inevitable that Tune would direct and star in an actual children's show — which, after all, is what Dr. Dolittle is. Tune has taken on the heroic challenge of salvaging the troubled touring musical, based on the 1967 film. The result was unveiled Thursday night at Hobby Center, the revamped Dolittle's first stop, presented by Theatre Under The Stars.

It's great to have Tune back doing his first musical in more than a decade. Even if his portrayal is more Tune than Dolittle, even with the on-again/off-again English accent, he still exudes an engaging presence, sings with a supple plaintiveness and moves with limber grace. He demonstrates an eager energy to make the show work.

If only it were a better show. One wanted to see Tune return in something great. Yet even with Tune doing all anyone could to make the thing playable, Dolittle isn't great, nor even good. At its occasional best, it's passable.

Even with extensive revisions by Lee Tannen, Leslie Bricusse's script is hopeless. The episodes inherited from the film strain our credulity even as fantasy: Dolittle's mistakenly being put on trial for murder, his voyage seeking the Great Pink Sea Snail, the animosity-turned-to-romance with Lady Emma. The jokes are weak. (Dolittle says to the horse, "You're the only one with any horse sense.")

Bricusse's songs, however uneven, at least are better than the script. It's largely the movie score, though the songs are reshuffled to different scenes, and sometimes, different characters, with varying results. The one new number, You're Impossible, is a standard argument duet for Dolittle and Emma. A new set of lyrics turn a reprise of the show's sprightly keynote Talk to the Animals into a preposterous Save the Animals protest song for placard-carrying villagers.

Though Bricusse's lyrics tend to too-predictable rhymes, there are pleasant tunes in Where Are the Words, Something in Your Smile, When I Look in Your Eyes and the whirling waltz Fabulous Places. But the better songs don't fit the silly style of the surrounding script, and the ones that do suit it are unmemorable.

In his rescue work as director, Tune makes everything fast, bright and playfully energetic, the whole show trimmed to 100 minutes (sans intermission). Yet atypically for a Tune production, this one lacks a consistent visual style and tone. Busy, fitfully enjoyable, it's an artless hodgepodge.

A similar lack of consistency dogs (sorry) the depiction of the animals. Some are puppets run by onstage puppeteers in black. Others are costumed performers. The giraffe, the least effective, is a flat cutout lowered from the wings. The animal business would work better with a uniform look and technique for all — for instance, like the moptop shaggy dog, the most characterful of the bunch.

The biggest surprise is that the choreography is so undistinguished. It's credited to Patti Colombo, but in a Tune production, he always has a hand there. Sure, it's lively and energetically danced. But it relies wholly on routine steps and a jumble of styles ill-suited to the period setting: 42nd Street hoofing, a recurring Charleston, an embarrassing simian tap ensemble on "Monkey-Monkey Island."

Only in Tune's eccentric tap specialty with the "Pushmi-Pullyu" does the production summon anything like his trademark terpsichorean magic.

Dee Hoty does her best to bring conviction to the nemesis turned love interest. As always, one admires her dignity and the steely tenderness of her singing.

The costumes by Ann Hould-Ward and Dona Granata are as much a stylistic mish-mash as the rest of the show. Kenneth Foy's sets at least start out on the right track by taking their cue from Dolittle author Hugh Lofting's original drawings: the animal characters on the show curtain, the initial drop depicting the village of Puddleby. But unfortunately, the look isn't sustained throughout.

If you attend in a forgiving mood, you may find Dr. Dolittle tolerable as Tune's chance to be a kid again, frolicking in a petting zoo of puppets. At least it has put him back onstage where he belongs.

But now, will someone please come up with a show worthy of him?

[justme2]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:13pm

Here's my attempt at posting the link:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/3601419.html

does it work?


I just tried it and it worked for me!! It went right to the story...WTF? Why must the internet toy with you, DAME?

Updated On: 2/1/06 at 07:13 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:17pm

Ok. How did you do it? I copy and paste and I get a blank page.

[justme2]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 7:23pm

Ok, I went to the page with the review. Then, I went to the top of the page, where the "address" field is, and selected the entire address (including the http part). Then, I right clicked and hit "copy". Then, I went directly back to this thread and right clicked again and hit "paste". Finally, I hit the enter button on the keyboard. This is what I think turns it into an actual link to the page.

Good Luck!

And now..for my "sigh" portion of this post:

I find it sad that the majority of Dee's reviews always begin or end with this sentence:

"Dee Hoty does her best to bring conviction to the nemesis turned love interest. As always, one admires her dignity and the steely tenderness of her singing."

[uncageg]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 10:10am

My review is at the below link. I saw it Jan. 31st. Opening night in Denver


https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?boardname=bway&thread=884058#1852745

Updated On: 2/2/06 at 10:10 AM