#26
Posted: 6/30/13 at 2:30pm
Even though the title was "It's the Hard Knock Life", I wasn't expecting them to focus on that one song for the whole hour. I haven't seen this revival on stage, but what I saw of the final number in the documentary left me underwhelmed by the choreography, especially compared to Peter Gennaro's original material. I understood why Andy wanted to avoid the rags and buckets entirely and try to do something new. In fact, I was glad we were finally getting a new vision for ANNIE after it's essentially calcified into its familiar form after years and years of tours. But what they came up with for that number was... not an improvement or an acceptable substitute for what already existed. "Hard Knock Life" and "Easy Street" were Gennaro's best moments in this show and it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to re-imagine them with any success. I loved the set, though.
