Posted: 3/9/17 at 1:09pm
I was hoping the NYT article about Phillipa would reveal more about her personality and her process. It's not really a profile, more like a summary of the jobs she's had, with a casual mention of her fiancé. Really strange.
Posted: 3/9/17 at 1:13pm
The problem with what I've heard from the score is that it's too generic and doesn't have the charm of the film.
Posted: 3/9/17 at 10:38pm
Caught the show tonight and it was a really pleasant surprise. I will write more later but they really need a new marketing campaign immediately. The marquis and ad campaign don't capture any of the show's charms at ALL.
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:14pm
QueenAlice said: "Caught the show tonight and it was a really pleasant surprise. I will write more later but they really need a new marketing campaign immediately. The marquis and ad campaign don't capture any of the show's charms at ALL."
Love hearing this. Can't wait to hear more about tonight!
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:23pm
neonlightsxo said: "I was hoping the NYT article about Phillipa would reveal more about her personality and her process. It's not really a profile, more like a summary of the jobs she's had, with a casual mention of her fiancé. Really strange.
Phillipa has never read as having much of a personality so this doesn't surprise me. Maybe she's an introvert, but I don't find her her dynamic or captivating in any way.
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:28pm
I actually thought the marquee of Amelie with the raspberries was quite charming --- with the exception of the background color as it's hard to see the raspberries covering the tips of her fingers.
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:30pm
Wick3 said: "I actually thought the marquee of Amelie with the raspberries was quite charming --- with the exception of the background color as it's hard to see the raspberries covering the tips of her fingers.
I never knew there were raspberries. You just educated me.
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:38pm
I am a huge fan of the original film AMÉLIE, so I honestly went into tonight's performance with low expectations. I ended up being largely won over by Pam McKinnon's creation here. No, there are no accordions, and the tone is quite different from its film counterpart, but I think the creatives found a unique and rather delightful way to tell the same story for the stage. Much of the staging is very clever and unabashedly absurd. I had a huge grin on my face through much of the evening.
Much criticism has been waged against the score, and while I admit some of it does sound repetitive at it first listen, I suspect most peoples real complaint is that it doesn't evoke at all the Gaelic Parisian sounds of the film. I ultimately found much in the music to appreciate, and look forward to hearing it again. The Elton John number was a particular highlight. Hilarious! The cast is all winning – A delightful group of misfit toys, and Phillipa Soo I thought was just perfect here. I do wish she had a bigger 11 o'clock number to simply plant her feet and sing.
As stated before, the marketing for this production is an absolute misfire. I truly hope they will rethink it, because the show is a lot more charming and clever and interesting than the way they are selling it. Btw- The raspberry moment isn't even in the musical, and Soo doesn't look at all in the show the way she does in the publicity photos.
Updated On: 3/10/17 at 11:38 PM
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:45pm
Hey QueenAlice, thanks so much for your review! Just curious if you could elaborate a bit more on your comment about the show's marketing? I've actually been finding the work for Amélie so far to be some of the most charming for Broadway in a long time! What isn't compatible with the show and what's been done PR-wise? www.ameliebroadway.com is delightful and quirky, too, but just in my opinion!
Posted: 3/9/17 at 11:53pm
The ad campaign to me looks like a Sunday spread for JCPenney. Nothing specific, nothing theatrical, nothing to make me want to pay hundred dollars to see it. I guess they're banking on Phillipa Soo out of costume to be some kind of draw here from Hamilton, but I think that's a mistake. ( In performance she basically is a doppelgänger for Audrey Tatou with her signature hairdo from the film, an image which I think would be a more instantaneous, recognizable draw for most would be ticket buyers of this musical, but I digress)
The actual show is a lot more visually interesting. Again, these are clearly not production photos so maybe it will all change once the show is up and running and I hope it does. As has already been pointed out, the marquee with the red background that doesn't let you even see the raspberries on her fingers seems like a totally inept decision. The artwork in Los Angeles, while perhaps a little too Lewis Carroll, at least was quirky and visually evocative of the show.
Updated On: 3/10/17 at 11:53 PM
Posted: 3/10/17 at 12:35am
QueenAlice said: " The ad campaign to me looks like a Sunday spread for JCPenney. Nothing specific, nothing theatrical, nothing to make me want to pay hundred dollars to see it. I guess they're banking on Phillipa Soo out of costume to be some kind of draw here from Hamilton, but I think that's a mistake. ( In performance she basically is a doppelgänger for Audrey Tatou with her signature hairdo from the film, an image which I think would be a more instantaneous, recognizable draw for most would be ticket buyers of this musical, but I digress)"
I see your point QueenAlice. I haven't seen the show but from the marketing I didn't think she'd have the same hairdo as Audrey in the film at all. I have listened to a few songs on youtube and I liked the song "Stay". How was the chemistry between Soo and Chanler-Berat?
Posted: 3/10/17 at 2:18am
See the problem is , if the highlight of the show is still the Elton John number and she still doesn't have an 11 o'clock number, I one thing people walk out remembering is the Elton John number, cause that number and the fish at the start is really the only memorable thing
Posted: 3/10/17 at 7:38am
Bettyboy72 said: "Phillipa has never read as having much of a personality so this doesn't surprise me. Maybe she's an introvert, but I don't find her her dynamic or captivating in any way."
Everyone has a fully fledged personality. Being louder or whatever doesn't mean you have more of a personality than a quiet person, it's just different. Phillipa doesn't even seem like an introvert to me, just a professional that is probably mature for her age due to being so successful early on. I think when you see her interact with her co-stars etc., she comes across as quite quirky.
Anyway, glad you enjoyed it QueenAlice.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 9:19am
Roscoe- I wouldn't say the Elton John number is The only thing memorable about the show but it's definitely hilarious and wonderfully random and memorable because it's unexpected. I agree she still needs a big 11 o'clock number. The character of Amelie is a little bit tricky to musicalize because she is an introvert. But they do need to find a way give her that big musical moment. The character and the actress deserve it.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 9:48am
QueenAlice said: ." But they do need to find a way give her that big musical moment. The character and the actress deserve it."
In terms of adding a big 11 o'clsock number, it was apparently considered by the creatives after the show closed in LA. Take a look at the linked article, in which they say:
“The original idea was to end with Amélie and Nino alone onstage in a very small, quiet way, but then we went in a completely different direction and ended up really big,“ he continued. “We tried a couple of different things, but eventually we’ve come back to a much smaller ending. It’s heartbreaking. Most people who hear it wind up crying—but at the same time, it’s really hooky. It does what love does, and makes you feel.“
http://www.playbill.com/article/what-you-need-to-know-about-amelies-new-closing-number
So I'd give them credit for thinking the issue through and then doing what they felt was true to the overall arc of the show. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 10:01am
I think they could have both the ending as is and a big "realization" number for Amélie after she flees the cafe. I applaud them for thinking the idea through but maybe they should actually try some of those ideas in front of an audience.
I liked Adam- he has a quirky charm and is an unexpected match for Phillipa. They don't have much face time together until the final minutes of the show but I found them tender and lovely when they got together.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 10:48am
An update regarding rush tickets: a girlfriend of mine did rush last night and asked me to pass along she was sitting house right all the way on the side about 4 rows back. The seat was labeled partial view but she said she could see everything perfectly and that it was a great view. She also enjoyed the performance very much .
Posted: 3/10/17 at 12:36pm
The one song they've provided us has a freshness, certainly very different from what I expected. (No, I wasn't counting on, say, "Dis Donc" or "Language of Love" from Irma La Douce, or even "The Baker's wife," but maybe something vaguely Parisian.) What it has is a brightness, a forthright melodic drive backed by an elegant arrangement that perhaps has a whiff of Euro-pop. It doesn't sound like anything else, and that's remarkable. The brightness, the anti-power ballad-ness is arresting, I was indifferent to this show, other than a chance to see Soo again, but this released number makes me believe I'd respond to the score.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 10:50pm
I was at tonight's preview and sadly I did not walk away a fan of this show. My least favorite aspect was the score, which is aggressively monotonous; none of it is harsh to the ear, but the sameness is so overwhelming that the whole evening becomes inert, stifled under the weight of the contemporary-musical-theatry drone of the music. The show may have only been 100 minutes, but I felt them ticking by.
I do think it was a misstep to completely eschew a French sound- and no I don't think French sounds equals more accordion, ha. French sound, for me, can be Lily Pons trilling her way through La fille du regiment or Anna Maria Alberghetti's songs from Carnival or especially Michel Legrand's scores to Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Young Girls of Rochefort and Amour. Amour's score is a perfect fusion of musical theater in a French setting. It also contains a wide of variety of song type, something that Amelie is sorely lacking.
I thought Soo was good, but I enjoyed her in both the Great Comet and Hamilton more. Chanler-Berat has made a career of playing variations on Henry. The ensemble is good. I didn't have any issues with the cast, but no one particularly enthralled me either.
Amelie the film is a marvel of editing, owing much of it's style to Jules and Jim. Naturally a stage adaptation will not be able to deploy the visual techniques that made the film so memorable so it just settles for constant "whimsy," which can become tiresome, plus it kept me from ever fully emotionally investing in the story.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 11:01pm
I'm really struck by the contrast between Whizzer's review and that of Queen Alice, both well written and completely different in opinion. Maybe a predictor of mixed reviews by the professional critics? Not the first nor the last.
Posted: 3/10/17 at 11:15pm
From what I gather based on these reviews, it sounds like this could be the Tuck Everlasting for this season. A decent show with mixed reviews and not pulling enough grosses to maintain a run of more than 3 months. I really do hope that I'll be proven wrong though, the 1-2 songs I've heard so far have certainly caught my attention and we'll have to see how well their grosses are.
Posted: 3/11/17 at 1:02am
Whenever a show has a bland score, I look to Nathan Tysen. He wrote the lyrics here and his work is just very bland. I don't know how he continues to work. But nothing he has done is ... good?
Posted: 3/11/17 at 1:07am
djoko84 said: "I have to say the online lottery for the show is probably the best there is. I didn't win, but the fact that you find out the day before if you won and you can enter for up to a week in performances is awesome. I hope all of the other shows adopt the same digital lottery."
All Jujamcyn lotteries are like that. Many of them also will give you consolation coupons for a discount on the show (BoM excepted)
Posted: 3/11/17 at 1:33am
Nice to see that very little has changed since the awful Berkeley run. I think that the authors of this show just read the Wikipedia plot synopsis of the movie and decided to make a musical based on that, without any understanding as to why the movie worked in the first place.
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