larcen26 said:
Having seen it this weekend, and really really enjoying it, I was struck that it was two shows that were competing with each other...
One was a happy "let's put on a show" piece, and the other was an examination of PTSD in Post WW2 soldiers and the ability of music to cut through the crap...and it was often jarring.
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Here’s another: What is “Bandstand” truly about? Wartime musicals are a tricky business. From “On the Town” to “South Pacific” to “The Sound of Music,” they all have to balance martial reality with theatrical flair. Here, the push is toward “let’s put on a show” jollity, shadowed by a more somber impulse to examine what it means to come home half-broken. This gloomier inclination is more compelling; there’s a wrenching number toward the end of the first act when Mr. Blankenbuehler uses dance, in “Right This Way,” to suggest the psychological burdens these men carry. - ALEXIS SOLOSKI
Your review is pretty closely related to the Times review above in the mention of "let's put on a show" and the gloomy and the cheerful existing uneasily together.
I would call it a serious weakness if the production just let the light and the dark coexist together. The reason for the existence of the show, I think, is to highlight the PTSD of many returning soldiers and how it was never recognized after WW II the way it was after Vietnam (not that noting its existence did much to help the returning Vietnam vets). I see a cause and effect relationship.
Danny was getting desperate when he could not find a place that would pay him to play his music. He gave himself hope based on the rather optimistic plan that he could put together a band of all combat vets and beat out 47 other bands to land roles in a major film. Not just for Danny, but for the five others he recruited who also were still suffering from the war, forming a band and forging camaraderie among its members and finding success and acceptance playing its first gigs helped all to find their place again in the land of the living. (Well, I'm not sure about the drummer.) The remedy for self-centered gloom was joy.
And I even have some lyrics to cite from the song "Breathe."
Jimmy:
The promised return
Jimmy and Johnny:
To life the way it was,
All:
And we can have this all because, I look to my left and look to my right,
And see other guy who fight the same fight.
And during those few short hours a day, the noise in my head goes away.
And I, breathe through the instrument. Breathe through the end of the phrase.
And as everyone plays. It gets easier.
Pretty nice lyrics, actually.
Poisonivy2, I'm not posting this review of Laura to contradict your take on her acting.
I'm a lousy judge of acting myself. I saw Roundabout's Cabaret with Michelle Williams and with Emma Stone. I think that I saw Emma's debut. I was watching her closely, of course, and in the end I thought that Emma had done a pretty decent job for a Broadway debut. She hadn't messed up anything and had a warm reception from the audience.
So the next morning I look at the reviews and everyone is raving about her. I had no clue that I had been watching a great performance.
I know Laura did Carousel in Chicago last year and I was very curious how she would perform that line, "He's dead, Nettie. What am I gonna do?" Could she say that line with real pathos or would she just say it matter-of-factly, (or stiffly?) as if too stunned to react emotionally.
I never saw her in South Pacific, but I also wondered how she would handle the demands of the scene in which she is introduced to Emilio's children. In her favor, she had played Nellie during Kelli's maternity leave and Bartlett thought enough of her to bring her back in the lead of this expensive and prestigious production which ran for another seven months.
So here's someone who was very complimentary about her acting. Our old friend Charles Isherwood.
Osnes, too, deserves some major love for revitalizing what might be a plain-Jane ingénue role. She has become a reliably excellent musical theater actor, her gifts sometimes underrated or taken for granted. (Guilty as charged.) With fresh faces bursting onto Broadway every year, it’s easy to forget how rare her combination of talents is. She sings with beautiful purity and tone, acts with a fine simplicity, and here gets a chance to prove that her dancing chops are in fine working order, too. Osnes never pushes her character’s feelings on the audience; she reveals them slowly, as people do in life, allowing us to discover them for ourselves.
I'll link his whole review. Although it starts out unimpressed, he keeps warming up to it as the review progresses.
He also mentions the "Put on a Show" theme, has high praise for Corey, is happy to see a show with "an abundance of dance," and singles out the song "This is Life," which a couple of people here found to be special.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/theater/bandstand-review-broadway.html?_r=0&mtrref=www.broadwayworld.com
His conclusion, with which most may agree:
In a season so full of new musicals, I could wish that “Bandstand,” like some others, had a little more room to breathe. It’s a populist crowd-pleaser, performed with such ebullient energy that you find yourself rooting for the boys to win the big prize, sentimental though it seems. And while the show certainly has its imperfections — few shows are without them — I found myself rooting just as happily for it, too.
