Posted: 6/6/16 at 1:27pm
newintown said: "I've heard the songs that are available, I read the novel, and I saw the movie. I'm just not interested."
That's a high level of research to achieve disinterest.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 1:30pm
"That's a high level of research to achieve disinterest."
Well, I didn't do it all just lately, to prepare for this thread...
Posted: 6/6/16 at 1:33pm
"If you want the I will post the London reviews."
Do so, but only if it truly pleases you; just try to include the negative with the positive, OK? To give as much of a full, truthful picture as possible, y'know.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:03pm
Whilst I applaud anyone who really passionately loves a show, I agree 100% with Jane2 in her assessment of the show and also with the annoyance at suggestions that the show is somehow "ahead of its time"- like us dullards just don't get it and maybe in 30 years we'll have actually caught up with the smart set. Balls!
It's great to love it if you like, but for some of it the smoke and mirrors did not distract from the significant weaknesses in the material.
And it's really disingenuous to say that the show was a sell-out hit at the Almeida on the strength of it being a brilliant show. It sold out its run in that tiny venue IN ADVANCE because it starred fr*gg*ng DR WHO. Matt Smith was red hot coming out of the ridiculously popular TV show. Like Daniel Radcliffe, he could have sold out anything in London so the "sell out" is really no reflection on the popularity of the material itself. I remember clearly: Matt Smith was announced and the show sold out overnight.
Personally, I am baffled at the decision not to open this show off-Broadway- was it vanity, greed or self-delusion that made the producers take that leap from selling 15,600 seats over 6 weeks to a capacity of 8248 seats per week in an open run?
Love the show by all means, but this project was deeply flawed.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:15pm
Yes, I was going to say, it did well in London because of Matt Smith. Who knows what would have happened if an unknown had starred?
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:46pm
I want to post a reason for my not being very impressed by the show.
I lived it. I was part of that NY downtown club scene. I went to those places, those restaurants and hung out with some of those people- the ones who are let right into clubs before everyone else. I was with people who got reservations at any restaurant.
Then there were the club kids - the young people who put together the most outrageous and silly looking outfits in order to get attention and become famous. One of them did - Michael Alig -he murdered another club kid over a drug debt. Alig served 17 years in prison.
The clubs I went to were all about materialism, strobe lights, graphic projections on walls. Being fabulous. This was back in the 80's.
American Psycho is not ahead of its time.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 2:50pm
PThespian said: "The bottom line is they brought over a production that was much lauded in London and failed miserably here. I'm curious why people think that happened."
I just don't think comparing a 325-seat theater in London to a Broadway theater where they had to sell 700+ extra tickets to every performance for it to be sold out is comparing similar things. If it had opened in a small, intimate house Off-Broadway, it might still be running.
PThespian said: "Anytime a Broadway show closes is a sad time for the whole industry."
Not if you're a producer with a show looking for a theater to open up... 
Plus, the majority of shows fail, and many of them don't find audiences. By the time a show closes, most people don't even know it was a show. When I wear my Bridges of Madison County musical T-shirt, people say "Oh, they're making a musical of that?"
Updated On: 6/6/16 at 02:50 PM
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:01pm
"that the show is somehow "ahead of its time"- like us dullards just don't get it and maybe in 30 years we'll have actually caught up with the smart set. Balls! "
Wasn't the same exact phrase used for the likes of Follies, Sunday in the Park With George, Passion, etc? Was it "Balls!" to them as well? And if not, why not? What's good for the goose.....
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:12pm
The show (in my opinion) was 100 percent ahead of its time in terms of taking a risk on the material, the staging, design, light and sound. Just because you lived it does not mean they have somehow got it wrong. It's a work of dark fiction, Im pretty sure most yuppies didn't go out killing people. This was not Sweeney Todd that was formatted in a very traditional Sondhiem way, looking and feeling like a musical with a dark story, this was something that looked and sounded fresh, it was targeting a new audience and was not afraid to be cold, to not rest on a sympathetic character that has an uplifting 11 o'clock number. It didn't fall in to that trap.
People commenting on the London run need to remember a few things. Matt Smith was not attached first and the show was still getting major buzz. Matt came in and it blew up but it wasn't like the show would not have proceeded without him.
The London production opened to largly positive reviews, no out right negative from any major uk critics, and that was not down to Matt Smith.
Also if you don't think it was ahead of its time, artistically brilliant, has an amazing score etc that's fine, but saying it drives you crazy because other people think that is silly.
Ive worked professionaly in theatre for years, I've written and directed plenty of plays here in the UK, won my awards, got the reviews and continue to do well, so I'm sure I'm allowed to have my opinion without getting told its wrong.
This is production probably should have gone Off Broadway first to build some hype, you live and learn, but I can guarantee this show will have a life because many of us producers and directors would be drawn to something inventive and fresh.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:13pm
Good try, old friend, but I don't recall ever having made that claim- although the experimentations with form in those shows certainly might be considered that way; thank you for the suggestion.
Quite a few people described 'Chicago' as being ahead of its time, and the comparative success of the revival certainly suggests that might be true.
As Jane 2 so eloquently explained, 'American Psycho' is not experimental- (and I also remember the 80's)- so this show is far more retro than avant-garde.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:22pm
songanddance said " Just because you lived it does not mean they have somehow got it wrong. "
I DID NOT say they got it wrong.
And at this point, instead of continuing this with you, and possibly being part of another "Songanddance vs. Namo" fiascos, I quit.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:41pm
The problem with this show is that to outside people it looked really strange. Go to any youtube video of it. half the comets are about how dumb it is to make a musical of it or how dumb it looks. Now that might be an ignorant opinion but the marketing team needed to do something to combat that.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:43pm
"Good try, old friend, but I don't recall ever having made that claim- although the experimentations with form in those shows certainly might be considered that way;"
And it would amount to the same hill of beans that you were objecting to. And by the way, I was not referring to your ever having made that claim, but the shows' cadre of fawning elitists' at the time.
As for American Psycho, I don't foresee any greater recognition in the future than it has now. You see, it is missing the elements that would garner the adulation of the critics and agenda brigade at any time. It wasn't written by a critics' pet; nor did it mouth the talking points of the powers-that-be. If they didn't go to bat for this show now, they're not going to do so in the future.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 3:47pm
This might get a lot of hate, but I actually consider American Psycho to be very much in-line with many of Sondheim's concept musicals. I'm not talking about the quality of those shows, but rather a similarity in the forms they use to tell their stories. Bateman walks around covered in blood for a good portion of the second act , a visual representation of his inner state, but it goes totally unacknowledged by the rest of the characters. This calls back to the "ghosts" in Follies or The Balladeer in Assassins, entities that are not literally present in the scene but are nonetheless represented on stage.
The big difference from this show and Sondheim's shows is, obviously, the music. Nothing in the score would be considered Sondheim-esque in any way, shape or form. Especially given it's overt use of slant-rhyme and its rejection of other traditionally held standards of lyric writing. However, Sondheim's main rule for song-writing is "content dictates form." Isn't vapid 80s synth pop the only suitable form for American Psycho's content? In that way, Psycho becomes a sort of meta musical with its frequent use of a less-than-stellar score being used in order to further illustrate its own point about our empty society. I'm not yet calling this a good or bad decision. I'm just stating what I personally observed.
Look, the show obviously didn't do well. And the jury's still out on whether or not its ideas worked. I personally loved American Psycho but I fully understand why someone else would not. It's not because other people didn't "get" the show, it's simply that they didn't appreciate what it was trying to do. And that's fine, no one is required to. There's always the question of, "How far is too far?" Some might argue that the line between a show with a bad score and a show with a score that purposefully does away with long held conventions in order to serve the story is an indistinguishable one. A bad score is a bad score. Others might say that it makes all the difference in the world.
In this way, I do see American Psycho as an experiment. It does attempt things that haven't been attempted. I think the real debate is whether or not it worked (from an artistic standpoint, not a financial one)
Posted: 6/6/16 at 10:39pm
it closed, some people really loved it, some people hated it, its over get over it and stop bitching at each other you old queens.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 10:45pm
"it closed, some people really loved it, some people hated it, its over get over it and stop bitching at each other you old queens."
That's what we do here, son.
Posted: 6/6/16 at 11:02pm
beltingbaritone said: "newintown said: But a commercial musical based on a quarter-century-old novel (by a writer considered by many to be something of a hack), featuring an 80s-style pastiche techno score (padded out with decades-old pop tunes) written by a 46-year-old has-been pop singer, with a book by a 43-year-old comic book writer whose only other commercial theatre credit is the astoundingly amateurish Spider Man... whatever you could call this combo, "ahead of its time" certainly doesn't seem to be applicable."
How is Bret Easton Ellis considered a hack? I'm legitimately asking, not being snarky, as I was unfamiliar with his work until I saw AP, and went out to buy the original novel, perusing his other novels in the process.
"
I think Bret Easton Ellis is seen as someone who captured a certain zeitgeist moment, but his work hasn't aged well and his writing hasn't improved ( Chuck Palahniuk and Ellis "frenemy" Jay McInerney seem to be lumped in with him on these points). His constant twitter tirades, and theflop of his erotic drama The Canyons probably hasn't helped things. Still, I wouldn't call him a hack--maybe an author of his time.
I really liked this show--at least from the recordings I've heard and seen, but I agree with every one of Jane's points.
Posted: 6/7/16 at 8:57am
I think that's very well put, Eric. Ellis, McInerney, and don't forget their sidekicks Tama Janowitz and Mark Lindquist, did capture a certain pre-Goth/Emo immature/adolescent nihilism that was very popular in the mid-late 80's (and continues among some to this day). It was definitely facile and shallow, and maybe the times were a bit, too - but that still doesn't make for the best writing. And I think there was a lot more to the era than casual sex, greed, materialism, narcissism, and drugs. But those things were hot for a while.
Posted: 6/7/16 at 10:45am
Perhaps it wasn't "ahead of its time" so much as "too modern" for Broadway (even though the songs are from 30 years ago). Pop music from the show makes it all seem shiny & new in a way not translating to The Great White Way. I truly enjoy author Bret Easton Ellis & kudos to those involved for taking a chance.
Posted: 6/7/16 at 3:56pm
I enjoyed this show - but to be fair, the second act was a hot mess. If you loved it then I'm happy for you - there are shows that I loved that other people hate (Title of Show) and shows that I hated that other people loved (Fun Home). No sense in arguing over an opinion. Life is too dang short.
