A Question re Mr Brantley

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 5:53pm

Does Mr Brantley like anything ?

[Riff]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 5:54pm

blonde sopranos and pretension.

[Weez]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 5:54pm

As far as I can tell, he likes 'Company', and Donna Murphy. I also hear tell he's fond of Kristin Chenoweth, but that's not from my own observations.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 5:58pm

So basically, he hates almost every show.

He is carrying on in the tradition of Frank Rich & John Simon

Updated On: 4/30/07 at 05:58 PM

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 6:03pm

Oh please, he has liked a plethora of shows. People just dislike it when he dislikes a show or a performer that has a certain following.
In recent memory I remember him giving solid reviews to LITTLE DOG LAUGHED, COMPANY, GREY GARDENS, THE APPLE TREE, FOLLIES, JOURNEY'S END, BLACKBIRD, FROST/NIXON, etc. Just because he wasn't particularly fond of LEGALLY BLONDE, THE PIRATE QUEEN, and MARY POPPINS, people feel the need to make generalizations such as "so basically, he hates almost every show."

[C is for Company]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 6:06pm

Indeed Ray. Although he can be picky (like any critic) he is just like all the rest out there except based off of where he works and the reputation the Times carries, his word is usually deemed to carry more weight.

Updated On: 4/30/07 at 06:06 PM

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 6:09pm

He likes plenty of shows.

And Frank Rich is a god among mere mortals.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 6:10pm

I believe Brantley also liked The Coast of Utopia and Spring Awakening.

[JustABroadwaybaby2]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 7:56pm

Brantley didn't review SA, though, Isherwood did. His "Blonde" review made it sound as I expect it to be, but I'm seeing it anyway! The nice thing is about Brantley though, when he blatantly insults a show, yoyu can usually find one teeny-tiny salvageable thing in the review, like how he said Stephanie's voice was pretty, when not being Celine Dion-ish, and a couple of slightly nice things about "Blonde." It's fun to look for those.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 7:58pm

He did not review SA, but he did put it on his Top-ten list making me think, if he reviewed it, he would like it.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 8:48pm

Fran Rich loved alot of shows during his time with" The Times", people just remember the bad ones.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 8:53pm

Am I the only one that remembers his full out rave for Christine Ebersole?

Ben Brantley likes plenty of shows and performers. He's just so good at writing scathing reviews of shows he doesn't like.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 8:59pm

He's one of my favorite critics, honestly. We disagree enough, but this season and especially last season, I've agreed with most of what Mr. Brantley has written. He's certainly not Frank Rich. Mr. Rich REALLY didn't like anything. We all complain about Broadway in the 80s, but if he had been a tad kinder to individuals like Jerry Herman and Kander and Ebb, perhaps they would have turned out more in that decade. We also must remember his scathing reviews of Into the Woods and Merrily We Roll Along, so honestly, he could have been nicer to Sondheim too.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:00pm

True, theaterkid. He also raved for Julie White.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:07pm

He has raved about countless performers this season: Raul Esparza, David Hyde Pierce, Julie White, Donna Murphy, Victor Garber, Christine Baranski, Kristin Chenoweth, Gavin Lee, etc. Of course people decide to whine and moan about his more bitchy side...can't please everyone. I'm quite fond of Brantley's reviews even when I disagree at times.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:11pm

Don't forget Victoria Clark, in both Piazza and Follies! He loved her in those two (as did I.)!

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:15pm

His reviews make me laugh so hard. Seriously, his pan of "Lestat" was brilliant.

I don't know, he was pretty kind to "Legally Blonde." I wouldn't call it a rave, or even mixed to positive, but it wasn't a pan and I don't even think it was mixed to negative.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:22pm

We also must remember his scathing reviews of Into the Woods...

I am reading his ITW review right now. Not scathing at all.

"To hear "No One is Alone," the cathartic and beautiful final song of INTO THE WOODS, is to be overwhelmed once more by the continuity of one of the American theatre's most extraordinary songwriting careers."

"The material of INTO THE WOODS is potent stuff."

"To understand how much INTO THE WOODS disappoints, one must first appreciate its considerable ambitions and pleasures."

"The conception is brilliant, and sometimes the execution lives up to it."

"Mr. Sondheim has as much fun as one expects."

"There is enough to look at and think about, however, that the overlengthy rarely includes tedium. The result is unique to the composer's canon-the first Sondheim musical whose dark thematic underside is as accessible as its jolly storytelling surface."


He certainly had a lot of issues with the show. But he didn't just rip it apart.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:29pm

Rich gets such a bad rap, that I think is unjustified. I'm flipping through HOT SEAT, a collection of his reviews, and he has plenty of positive and rave reviews.

And he is a shrewd as anyone. He knows theatre.

I mean, while everyone else was ripping apart Cats, he certainly didn't give it a good review, but he opened his review with the following:

"There's a reason why Cats, the British musical which opened at the Winter Garden last night, is likely to lurk around Broadway for a long time--and it may not be the one you expect....

It's a musical that transports the audience into a complete fantasy world that could only exist in the theatre and yet, these days, rarely does. Whatever the other failings and excesses, even banalities, of Cats, it believes in purely theatrical magic, and on that faith it unquestionably delivers."


His prediction in his opening sentence was certainly proven correct.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:29pm

Alright, fine, but surely it deserved a better review. Into the Woods is not perfect, but it was better than Phantom of the Opera, which is was much more possitive about.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:31pm

I think his review sounds right on the money. I ITW, but it's one of Sondheim's weaker works in my opinion.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:33pm

"To hear "No One is Alone," the cathartic and beautiful final song of INTO THE WOODS, is to be overwhelmed once more by the continuity of one of the American theatre's most extraordinary songwriting careers."


That in no way is a bad rapp, he was the reason i saw "Into the Woods" on Broadway and he also did a follow up piece a couple of weeks later.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 9:33pm

It was quite good in its original run, but the revival really ruined it for me. It uncovered all of the show's flaws, where the original, which was so brilliantly cast, covered everything up.

[queenbee2]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 10:12pm

Just the fact that the title of this thread refers to him as MISTER Brantley makes me a bit unsettled. But that being said, Brantley is clearly a case of someone who's own power has gone straight to his head. His only goal seems to be in coming up with quotes that either make it onto a show's poster, or that are hateful enough to close a show. Often it seems as though he didn't even see the show he's reviewing, or only saw parts of it. It is so sad to me that so much emphasis and importance is put on what this one man has to say about shows. Especially since if he doesn't like a show, he can;t find ANYTHING good to say about it. Sure, I thought Lestat was completely inane as well, but I think he could have taken the time to point out a few of the good things in the show, even though the show as a whole didn't work.

The only reason I even read the man's column is because I understand how much importance shows put on what he has to say. I wish I had the self discipline to not even bother reading it.

But I'm weak that way.

-QB

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 4/30/07 at 11:10pm

Into the Woods is not perfect, but it was better than Phantom of the Opera, which is was much more possitive about.

Assuming you meant to say that Rich was more positive about POTO, that is a misleading and arguably inaccurate statement.

He praises the production values, Michael Crawford and Harold Prince's direction, but is anything but kind to Lloyd Webber.

"It would be equally ludicrous, however - and an invitation to severe disappointment - to let the hype kindle the hope that Phantom is a credible heir to the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that haunt both Andrew Lloyd Webber's creative aspirations and the Majestic Theater as persistently as the evening's title character does. What one finds instead is a characteristic Lloyd Webber project - long on pop professionalism and melody, impoverished of artistic personality and passion - that the director Harold Prince, the designer Maria Bjornson and the mesmerizing actor Michael Crawford have elevated quite literally to the roof. The Phantom of the Opera is as much a victory of dynamic stagecraft over musical kitsch as it is a triumph of merchandising uber alles."

"But Mr. Crawford's moving portrayal of the hero notwithstanding, the show's most persuasive love story is Mr. Prince's and Ms. Bjornson's unabashed crush on the theater itself, from footlights to dressing rooms, from flies to trap doors."

"In Act II, the heroine travels to her father's grave for no reason other than to sell an extraneous ballad whose tepid greeting-card sentiments ('Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again') dispel the evening's smoldering mood. The musical's dramatic thrust is further slowed by three self-indulgently windy opera parodies."

"But the banal lyrics, by Charles Hart and Mr. Stilgoe, prevent the score's prettiest music from taking wing. The melodies don't find shape as theater songs that might touch us by giving voice to the feelings or actions of specific characters."

"Instead, we get numbing, interchangeable pseudo-Hammersteinisms like 'Say you'll love me every waking moment' or 'Think of me, think of me fondly, when we say goodbye.' With the exception of 'Music of the Night' - which seems to express from its author's gut a desperate longing for acceptance - Mr. Lloyd Webber has again written a score so generic that most of the songs could be reordered and redistributed among the characters (indeed, among other Lloyd Webber musicals) without altering the show's story or meaning. The one attempt at highbrow composing, a noisy and gratuitous septet called 'Prima Donna,' is unlikely to take a place beside the similar Broadway operatics of Bernstein, Sondheim or Loesser."


He pretty much bashes the show and Webber, saying Prince, Crawford and the rest made the show what it is by sheer production, nothing to do with the material they were given.