Brantley's predictable dis of Sir Andrew's latest

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 8:59am

Anyone else read the Brantley review and know he wrote half of it before he ever saw the show? His disdain for Lloyd Webber's gift-slash-curse for melody is so arch and ever-so-predictable. It reads as pure calculation -- a wannabe Addison de Witt who sat in his London hotel room sipping a sherry and polishing up his put-downs ("...suddenly you find a goopy leech of a melody has fastened onto your brain. Hope you like it. You'll be living with it for days to come.") Oh, how ghastly, this penchent for composing songs you can take with you, as you exit the theater! It just grates, all that ... singable stuff ... doesn't it? One can't help but cogitate on what might excite Brantely. Because by the same token, he couldn't embrace the (to him) more inaccessible, eliptical musical phrases in CAROLINE OR CHANGE. There's really very little musical theater that works for Ben. Alas, Leonard Bernstein is dead. But Brantley is alive, and kicking. For now, kicking Webber (yawn) once again.

Updated On: 9/17/04 at 08:59 AM

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 9:21am

Um, no one else liked it either.

[G]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 9:25am

I agree, John!!

[umgeoboy]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 1:56pm

I have to agree with Augie on this one Ben hasnt really liked a musical in a long time! Can someone tell me the last MUSICAL he actually gave a rave review to? Do we have to go back to movin out which he enjoys?

(The last play was I am my own wife which he loves)

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 2:36pm

Thanks, Umge. Others: I hear you; I guess my point here got a bit lost. I'm certainly not defending LADY IN WHITE per se, or doubting its reception. (Several reviews pounced on its murky story-tellling and questioned its suitability for musicalization.) It's the way Brantley so zestfully seized this opportunity to go after a very familiar and overused target of the Times'/his wrath: Lloyd Webber. Call me square, but isn't Andrew bashing a little retro and just plain tired at this point?

Brantley just loves to tell Webber that his ambitions -- his attempts to move beyond PHANTOM -- have failed again. But his biggest problem, consistently, with this successful man's work is the way Webber dares to write accessible and memorable music. That's not news, any more than it's a revelation that Neil Simon likes to make us laugh. But what sticks in my craw is the way Brantley also tends to at best damn with very faint praise shows that are the "anti-Lloyd Webber" like CAROLINE. Material is thus either too acccessible and crassly commercial, or too rarified for his true believer (WONDERFUL TOWN) tastes. The middle turf he appreciates and enjoys is increasingly very, small indeed. So what, you may appropriately ask. Isn't he entitled? Well, yes, but Ben's the first string critic for the NY Times, musical theater is a distinctly American form, and Brantley has make or break power over all of it.

[Sally]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 2:36pm

<>


Wrong, read the Financial Times. It's close to a rave. Most of the other reviews I've read are mixed, with both good and bad comments---not the bash nature of Brantly's review.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 2:38pm

A lot of the reviews have been MUCH kinder than I expected, given the outrageously negative word of mouth that's been pouring out of previews.

[lildogs]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 3:18pm

whenever i think of ben brantley, i think about the scene from "Ed Wood" when the cast reads the review of Ed's play...

Bill Murray (Bunny): Oh what does that old queen know? She didn't even bother to show. Sent one of her lackeys to do her dirty work. Well, screw you Miss Crowley!

[Plum]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 6:09pm

I don't trust the Financial Times' reviews at all, but that's another story. Anyway, Brantley's review wasn't that negative. Mixed, yes, and probably more negative than positive, but he did find good things to say, especially about the performances.

The last big-time rave I remember from him was for The Producers, but I don't read all his reviews, so I'm not really qualified to speak absolutely. :)

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 7:02pm

Well, of what's currently running, he gave raves to Avenue Q, Hairspray, Movin' Out, The Lion King, Chicago and Wonderful Town (at least whenever Donna Murphy was on stage).

[Plum]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 7:06pm

Oh, right. How could I forget Wonderful Town? But my review reading gets spotty during school.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 7:24pm

Actually Brantley didn't give LION KING a rave. He was actually one of the dissenters, except for praising Taymore. And his recent dis of HAIRSPRAY (McKean and company in the roles) was a fresh chance to take a swipe at the show's "ambitions." He doesn't like the race issue in the show, as he pointed out in far more detail than his original take on it. He generally prefers his musical comedies pure, classic and devoid of such weighty issues. Remember, he thought CAROLINE was "almost too good.." What did that mean? Not fun enough for him.

I know, I know, he's entitled to like whatever the hell he wants. I've debated this here before, and people pounce on me. I just find that position at the Times so career make/break that it's worth keeping an eye on. And his specific tastes have become far more pronounced as he's settled in at the Times, and gained power in the process. He has his fans, I'm just not one of them, increasingly.

Posted: 9/17/04 at 10:26pm

There's nothing to like about Brantley's reviews.

Pompous twit. For a real treat try listening to him on WQXR.

10 to 1 he'll bend over backward praising W-W=W-W-W-WillimFinn...I can hardly get that name out in the context of musicals.

I have to agree with you Auggie with the comment about Caroline being "almost too good." Hello? So, we're supposed to ignore its merits and we're NOT supposed to like it?

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 9/17/04 at 11:30pm

For once Jose' I agree with you. However I do think William Finn did some fine work with the Falsettos series.

[FestiveCheez]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 3:25am

Now I have an idea what JRB meant in one of his interviews, when he said "I've seen my work dissected by Ben Brantley, who couldn't give a **** one way or the other."

This guy is one of those critics who, 50 years ago, would have said "Stephen Sondheim's music is crap because it's just not *hummable.*" Oh well. Can't please everybody.

Edit: Oops...double-post. Next time, I'll just use Edit from the beginning. >_< Updated On: 9/18/04 at 03:25 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 3:37am

While he had certain problems with the book (understandably), overall Brantley's review of Lion King sure looks like a rave to me,

"Suddenly, you're 4 years old again, and you've been taken to the circus for the first time. You can only marvel at the exotic procession of animals before you: the giraffes and the elephants and the hippopotamuses and all those birds in balletic flight. Moreover, these are not the weary-looking beasts in plumes and spangles that usually plod their way through urban circuses but what might be described as their Platonic equivalents, creatures of air and light and even a touch of divinity.

Where are you, really, anyway? The location is supposed to be a theater on 42d Street, a thoroughfare that has never been thought of as a gateway to Eden. Yet somehow you have fallen into what appears to be a primal paradise. And even the exquisitely restored New Amsterdam Theater, a former Ziegfeld palace, disappears before the spectacle within it.

Such is the transporting magic wrought by the opening 10 minutes of 'The Lion King,' the director Julie Taymor's staged version of the Midas-touch cartoon movie that has generated millions for the Walt Disney Company. And the ways in which Ms. Taymor translates the film's opening musical number, 'Circle of Life,' where an animal kingdom of the African plains gathers to pay homage to its leonine ruler and his newly born heir, is filled with astonishment and promise.

* * * * *

Still, 'The Lion King' remains an important work in a way that 'Beauty and the Beast' simply is not. Ms. Taymor has introduced a whole new vocabulary of images to the Broadway blockbuster, and you're unlikely to forget such sights as the face of Simba's dead father forming itself into an astral mask among the stars.

There will inevitably be longueurs for both adults and children who attend this show. But it offers a refreshing and more sophisticated alternative to the standard panoply of special effects that dominate most tourist-oriented shows today. Seen purely as a visual tapestry, there is simply nothing else like it.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?id=1077011420479&html_title=&tols_title=LION+KING%2C+THE+%28PLAY%29+++&byline=%20By+BEN+BRANTLEY+&pdate=19971114

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 5:30am

Wasn't Brantley originally dubbed "the Bambi of Broadway" because his reviews were so much milder and mamby-pamby than Frank Rich's (a.k.a. "the Butcher of Broadway")?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 11:04am

I'm not exactly sure what is so wrong about memorable melodies.

Nor am I sure what is wrong with praising William Finn. His work is original, intelligent, and thought-provoking. Is that a bad thing?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 11:34am

Mea culpa, Margo. You got me! Just goes to show, my own bias clouded my memory. I remembered his problems as the overriding message of the review. Ah well, thanks for keeping us honest. As always, such is the value of this type of board. But in mild support of my thesis re the "evolving taste" of Brantley ... I also think the material you cited suggests that Brantley was writing better, more balanced, more objectively back in the mid-90s. He still sounded like a man in love with what the theater offers, which he too seldom does these days. Your review quotes do support that. Thanks again for doing the homework.

[tpdc]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 4:38pm

I thought other than a few Encores concerts, THE PRODUCERS and WONDERFUL TOWN that Brantley gave at best qualified raves to anything else. Didn't he have some doubts about AVENUE Q and HAIRSPRAY even if his overall review was positive? He certainly hasn't liked any serious musical and his dismissal of PARADE was disappointing.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 5:00pm

I agree that it does seem that Brantley has lost his enthusiasm and love for the theatre (and his job as reviewer) and a flip and dismissive and tone has crept into his reviews in the past few years. He too often seems to miss the boat with his opinions which is extremely disconcerting and worrisome since he's the most powerful theatre critic in America. IMO,he's been a critic for too long and the strain is beginning to show and he should step own.

[LouW95]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 5:06pm

If you search all the reviews, you will find 5 positive and 3 negative Woman In White reviews. Most Webber shows dont wow the critics but they sure do better at the box office than most other composers inc. Sondheim. Let's not forget CATS, Phantom, Evita and Joseph.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 7:29pm

Guess I now sound like a Lloyd Webber shill -- unlikely, since I can't bear much of PHANTOM (starting with the schlock rock orchestrations for the title song--which still set my teeth on edge) -- but I think he's consistently underrated.

I always thought, if SUNSET BLVD had been written by someone else, the reviews of the score would've been very different. Even people who grudgingly liked some of it gave him back-door compliments (Margo, back me up?! David Richards'review was mostly about Glenn, Glenn, Glenn...IF I recall! Ha!)

EVITA opened the week I moved to NY, and I remember how Walter Kerr dumped on it -- twice (you got another shot on Sundays, then). Despite being branded as a slick melody-meister, Webber does try new things and sometimes fails in interesting ways -- like APSECTS, which has a lot of pretty music (he wanted to write a NIGHT MUSIC?) unfortunately sung by creepy, narcissist characters you cannot care about.

I saw BEAUTIFUL GAME just before it closed and thought it was a real movement away from the slick(er) grandeur and pop-operetta form, getting back to his JSC roots. Dare I say ... ambitious? I know people compare Wildhorn to Webber, but if you look at the body of their work, they're not in the same league.

I dunno, I saw CATS in London only 6 weeks after it opened. It was this little show then, in the semi-round, staged in an old TV studio turned West End House -- considered a HUGE risk for the composer of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. No plot, a book of esoeteric poems. No Winter Garden sign about now and forever then, folks. And when I neard Elaine P sing "Memory," I remember being swept away. Sometimes we forget -- not everything this man's done has been a bald commercial calculation. A show about a dancing cats "ball," with people in painted leotards? Yeah, a sure thing to run "forever..."

I will buy the CD of WOMAN.

Updated On: 9/18/04 at 07:29 PM

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 9/18/04 at 7:30pm

Let's go to Brantleys house with torches in Revolutionary War fashion!

Posted: 9/19/04 at 9:41am

I think it's worth reminding ourselves that the West End is not Broadway so far as critics are concerned. Word of mouth is still more important than print. When Les Miz first opened in London it was universally panned - I can only recall one positive review (John Peter I think). And Phantom was by no means given an easy ride.

Two of the most successful musicals of all time.