#1
Posted: 8/21/08 at 12:24am
The good news about this show? It's not the disaster that some people predicted it would be.
The bad news? It's still not a very good show.
I love a good costume drama, mega-musical, so I went in to A Tale of Two Cities tonight hoping to like it. I read the novel as part of my junior year English class in high school, and remembered really enjoying it (though I don't recall a lot of the plot). I had hopes for this one...
Unfortunately, the show can best be described as a mess. There are some moments and some numbers that REALLY work, but the moments that don't work are awful.
The central problem with the show as it stands right now, is that they've taken a novel with a huge scope and tried to compress everything into a nearly 3 hour musical. Unfortunately, what happens is that because there are so many characters, we don't get to see much of any of them, and therefore, the characterizations are incomplete.
The show misses an opportunity right from the get go. The novel contains what is easily the most famous opening line in all of western literature. You'd think the show would have the good sense to begin with those lines. You know...as the overture ends, and the orchestra swells, those lines are spoken just as the curtain comes up. No can do. The line is spoken later on, in passing, by a drunk James Barbour, then mentioned offhand later in the show by one of the women (I forget who).
Act 1 could stand to lose a good twenty minutes, easily. The show wouldn't suffer in the least. They could start by cutting the horrible grave-robbing number.
The first act consists mostly of exposition, and as such is not all that engaging. In fact, the majority of it is downright boring. People come, people go (Grand Hotel reference!!), but they don't do a whole lot. Plenty of "I want" moments, but no one really does anything about their desires.
The evening's low point is the act 1 finale. They should have saved us all the trouble and just acquired the rights to Do You Hear the People Sing, because that's what the number basically is. Even worse, the staging is nearly identical, right down to the people standing in a line, marching forward with fig rising from the stage. I kept waiting for Gavroche to come running out with the flag. The final stage picture from the first act has them all holding up guns in that pose. I mean, come on, surely they could do better?
Fortunately, I didn't act on my impulse, which was telling me to leave, because act 2 is much, much, much, better. It's tighter, there are some higher stakes, and it's finally dramatically interesting and engaging. A lot of the rather useless secondary characters disappear, allowing us to focus on the core story.
The score is a poor man's Les Miserables. There are some pretty melodies, but for the most part, a lot of the lyrics are just awful. Very amateurish. Also, I think there too many ballads, particularly in the middle of the first act.
The set consists of four moving platforms that don't move on their own, so the stagehands wheel them on and off. Then, they just sit down onstage to wait to move them off. Very strange. The platforms are also LOUD whenever they're moved. It's a bit busy.
The lighting design is very red. Very red. There was a strange lighting mishap in act 1, but I'm sure they'll fix that.
The cast does their best with poor material. As I mentioned earlier, because they tried to stick so much into this show, most of the characters get very little to do, and their roles are not well developed.
Barbour's singing is fantastic, and his acting is very good. He is the only character that is really developed beyond the surface. He's appropriately brooding, and even darkly comedic. The show definitely belongs to him.
I agree with the sentiment that Brandi Burkhardt needs to be replaced, be it by Christianne Noll or someone else. She doesn't sing that well, and her acting is off.
Aaron Lazar gets very little to do, but sounds great. The same can be said for Natalie Toro, who knocks her act 1 solo out of the park, but is hampered by terrible lyrics ("out of sight, out of mind"?????).
The rest of the talented featured players, including Greg Edelmann, Nick Wyman, and Kevin Earley, fail to make much of an impression. The exception is Katherine McGrath as Miss Pross, whose performance at least makes an impression on the audience.
Overall, not the worst show I've seen, but not a very good one either. They've got major work to do if they're going to make this work.
The bad news? It's still not a very good show.
I love a good costume drama, mega-musical, so I went in to A Tale of Two Cities tonight hoping to like it. I read the novel as part of my junior year English class in high school, and remembered really enjoying it (though I don't recall a lot of the plot). I had hopes for this one...
Unfortunately, the show can best be described as a mess. There are some moments and some numbers that REALLY work, but the moments that don't work are awful.
The central problem with the show as it stands right now, is that they've taken a novel with a huge scope and tried to compress everything into a nearly 3 hour musical. Unfortunately, what happens is that because there are so many characters, we don't get to see much of any of them, and therefore, the characterizations are incomplete.
The show misses an opportunity right from the get go. The novel contains what is easily the most famous opening line in all of western literature. You'd think the show would have the good sense to begin with those lines. You know...as the overture ends, and the orchestra swells, those lines are spoken just as the curtain comes up. No can do. The line is spoken later on, in passing, by a drunk James Barbour, then mentioned offhand later in the show by one of the women (I forget who).
Act 1 could stand to lose a good twenty minutes, easily. The show wouldn't suffer in the least. They could start by cutting the horrible grave-robbing number.
The first act consists mostly of exposition, and as such is not all that engaging. In fact, the majority of it is downright boring. People come, people go (Grand Hotel reference!!), but they don't do a whole lot. Plenty of "I want" moments, but no one really does anything about their desires.
The evening's low point is the act 1 finale. They should have saved us all the trouble and just acquired the rights to Do You Hear the People Sing, because that's what the number basically is. Even worse, the staging is nearly identical, right down to the people standing in a line, marching forward with fig rising from the stage. I kept waiting for Gavroche to come running out with the flag. The final stage picture from the first act has them all holding up guns in that pose. I mean, come on, surely they could do better?
Fortunately, I didn't act on my impulse, which was telling me to leave, because act 2 is much, much, much, better. It's tighter, there are some higher stakes, and it's finally dramatically interesting and engaging. A lot of the rather useless secondary characters disappear, allowing us to focus on the core story.
The score is a poor man's Les Miserables. There are some pretty melodies, but for the most part, a lot of the lyrics are just awful. Very amateurish. Also, I think there too many ballads, particularly in the middle of the first act.
The set consists of four moving platforms that don't move on their own, so the stagehands wheel them on and off. Then, they just sit down onstage to wait to move them off. Very strange. The platforms are also LOUD whenever they're moved. It's a bit busy.
The lighting design is very red. Very red. There was a strange lighting mishap in act 1, but I'm sure they'll fix that.
The cast does their best with poor material. As I mentioned earlier, because they tried to stick so much into this show, most of the characters get very little to do, and their roles are not well developed.
Barbour's singing is fantastic, and his acting is very good. He is the only character that is really developed beyond the surface. He's appropriately brooding, and even darkly comedic. The show definitely belongs to him.
I agree with the sentiment that Brandi Burkhardt needs to be replaced, be it by Christianne Noll or someone else. She doesn't sing that well, and her acting is off.
Aaron Lazar gets very little to do, but sounds great. The same can be said for Natalie Toro, who knocks her act 1 solo out of the park, but is hampered by terrible lyrics ("out of sight, out of mind"?????).
The rest of the talented featured players, including Greg Edelmann, Nick Wyman, and Kevin Earley, fail to make much of an impression. The exception is Katherine McGrath as Miss Pross, whose performance at least makes an impression on the audience.
Overall, not the worst show I've seen, but not a very good one either. They've got major work to do if they're going to make this work.
Updated On: 8/21/08 at 12:24 AM
