I haven't read the rest of this thread so this may get redundant, but this show was HORRIBLE and here are a few key reasons (this may contain some spoilers):
1) The book: Lines were pulled directly from the movie. The filler lines written for the stage version had no depth (the big Frank and Hanratty emotional moment culminated in "You're pretty cool." Seriously, that's verbatim the line from the show. Then there’s a hug and the show is over.) Watching the show was like watching someone read the movie script aloud but only using every 20th line. As you can imagine, that's insufficient to tell such a complex story. They also have Frank Abagnale Jr. narrate/talk to the audience the entire show, which I think is a cop out. It takes what should be dramatic and suspenseful about the story and makes it campy and lame.
2) The characters: Because of #1, there is no character development. The only real motivation they give Frank for becoming a pilot, a doctor, etc. is that he was lusting for half-naked women, which is really superficial and skirts over what’s actually interesting about the Frank Abagnale Jr. story - his charisma, his intelligence, etc. (I knew when they revealed their artwork which has a female leg on it that something was going to be wrong). Hanratty, who is such a complex character, was given a string of terrible jokes which made him boring and didn’t give Norbert Leo Butz (who is a phenomenal actor) anything to work with. Brenda was talked about a lot in the show but was only in about a scene and a half. Her ballad was good but seemed a little out of place seeing as she had just entered the show about 15 minutes earlier. They spend a lot of the show following the downfall of Frank’s father who becomes a useless drunk, which was also entirely unnecessary. There are also approximately 20 other actors in the show, all of whom just dance around in skimpy costumes and have no actual reason to be on stage.
3) The music: Nothing memorable. I actually don’t even know what to write because it was just so boring. “Fly, Fly Away” and “Goodbye” are decent songs. Kerry Butler, Aaron Tveit, and Norbert Leo Butz all sounded phenomenal, but that could not compensate for the lack of meaningful lyrics or catchy tunes. (There’s one cute love song, but the fact that they made Aaron and Kerry sing it under a sheet with no clothes on made it very wannabe Spring Awakening.)
4) A few other random criticisms: The first scene and the last scene are exactly the same. I get that they wanted to go back to the same place in the story, but they actually did an ENTIRE scene in the show twice = waste of my time. Additionally, some of the lyrics sound like they were written by a first grader. I actually pictured a first grade recital during the “I love Christmas” (or whatever it is) song. There were actually even dancing wreaths on stage. Finally, the story is about an epic chase, yet there was no chasing, no drama, no intrigue, no suspense, no charisma, no interesting storytelling whatsoever happening in this show.
HUGE disappointment.
Updated On: 3/14/11 at 10:13 AM
