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Coram Boy Reviews

Yankeefan007
#1Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 5:53pm

...another openin', another show.

The AP is positive:

"Heavenly choral music, by Handel and present-day composer Adrian Sutton, envelops the proceedings. Choir members are perched above the stage and look down on the turntable setting that suggests "Les Miserables" but without the barricades. There is some remarkable design work by Still and Ti Green. A drowning sequence near the end of the evening is stunning, with bodies seeming to float across the vast height of the Imperial stage.

"Coram Boy" is an ensemble piece, but several performances in the large cast stand out. Xanthe Elbrick does double duty, portraying young Alexander in the first act and then after intermission a Coram survivor of Gardiner's misdeeds. She has a sweet, pure voice — the young male choir members are played by actresses — that makes her portrayal of a boy whose singing voice has not yet cracked all the more credible.

Bill Camp is a fiercely unpleasant villain, yet he never descends into caricature, and Brad Fleischer brings a gentle quality to the man's doomed, damaged son, haunted by visions of a motherly angel, who sweeps into his dreams and onto the stage.

There is a dreamlike quality to Still's fluid, graceful staging. And like all potent dreams, her vision — and that includes her overseeing of those celestial musical voices — remains vivid long after the tumultuous events depicted in "Coram Boy" are over."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/05/02/entertainment/e133705D51.DTL

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Caroline-Q-or-TBoo
#2re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 5:58pm

I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to see this! someone fly me to NY, please!


"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed

C is for Company
#2re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:00pm

Yankee, you're a very bad poster! You stole Margo's responsibility here on the board and disrespected her. Don't you know anything?!?!?!


Yankeefan007
#3re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:03pm

Him, not her*

C is for Company
#4re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:07pm

I'm aware. I was mimicing the other posters who can't click on the name and just find out the gender.


Yankeefan007
#5re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:08pm

Ah.

Anyhoo, back to Coram Boy.

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LaCageAuxFollesFan2
#6re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:27pm

Well that review wasn't anything Magnificant, it was simply nice! Still didn't care for the show, but to each their own. I'm not expecting across the board raves here, I think Utopia and Radio Golf are the two best plays of the Bway season, with Frost/Nixon a close third and CB way behind in fourth.

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LaCageAuxFollesFan2
#7re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:42pm

TALKINBROADWAY Review

Murray is all around Mixed to somewhat Negative I'd say...

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/CoramBoy.html

lovesclassics
#8re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:44pm

Funny, I was going to say the Talkin' Broadway review was mixed to positive until I read his last couple of paragraphs. Then it definitely turned negative toward the play itself, but positive toward the experience.

Interesting.

lc

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LaCageAuxFollesFan2
#9re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 6:48pm

It was an interesting review, and I must say I agree with a lot of what he said. It was just Mixed I guess (parts positive, other parts definitly negative).

Mattbrain
#10re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 7:17pm

Behold the dreaded Word of Mouth Review:

http://www.broadway.com/gen/general.aspx?ci=547524


Butters, go buy World of Warcraft, install it on your computer, and join the online sensation before we all murder you. --Cartman: South Park ATTENTION FANS: I will be played by James Barbour in the upcoming musical, "BroadwayWorld: The Musical."

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James2
#11re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 9:36pm

They seemed to have good things to say about it.


My avatar = A screencap from Avatar, arguably the greatest animated show of all

neddyfrank2
#12re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 9:38pm

How much of the London cast came over?

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AC126748
#13re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:01pm

Zero, I believe.


"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

Yankeefan007
#14re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:26pm

Mixed from Isherwood:

"What the heck is a “Coram Boy”?

This question may not be whipping around the Internet at warp speed, but it is probably tickling the minds of theater lovers who have noted the curious title of the latest and perhaps least-heralded London-born show to hit the express lane to Broadway this season.

Put plainly a Coram boy is an orphan, and there are orphans aplenty in this rollicking melodrama that opened last night at the Imperial Theater, afloat on a surging tide of Handel music and swirling stagecraft. Directed with a minimum of physical means and a fine measure of brisk invention by Melly Still, this huge production may stint on traditional scenery, but it is stuffed to the rafters with just about everything else."



http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/theater/reviews/03cora.html?pagewanted=1&ref=theater

touchmeinthemorning
#15re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:30pm

I love that Isherwood (perhaps one of the poorest reviewers the Times has ever employed) faults the show for being exactly what it says it is and will be. How do you look for human complexity in a young adult period novel? Some reviewers need to take some classes.


"Fundamentalism means never having to say 'I'm wrong.'" -- unknown

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Elphie3
#16re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:38pm

Exactly. The reviews seem to be mixed - but in a way that will intreague more than deture.


Madame Morrible: "So you take the chicken, now it must be a white chicken. The corpse can be any color. And that is the spell for lost luggage!" - The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken

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Smaxie
#17re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:48pm

>intreague more than deture.<

What language is this?


Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

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B3TA07
#18re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:53pm

*Intrigue, Deter


-Benjamin
--http://www.benjaminadgate.com/

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Elphie3
#19re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 10:55pm

Sorry - I was rushing


Madame Morrible: "So you take the chicken, now it must be a white chicken. The corpse can be any color. And that is the spell for lost luggage!" - The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken

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Testing1232
#20re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 11:08pm

I thought a few members of the London cast had transferred, bit as mentioned, none of them did-

Just got back from the opening- Susan Egan was sitting a few rows in front of us- She is stunning in person !! Crowd gave a huge applause/standing O at the end-

Have to echo something that Yankee had been saying - Brad Fleischer really gives an incredible performance, and is getting better and better !! Camp excellent as well !!

Jamila Gavin was in attendance (at least that is who we were told that it was, having never seen her) and on stage for the final curtain.

Really pushing for Elbrick and Fleischer to get Tony noms, although I doubt either will.

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ray-andallthatjazz86
#21re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 11:25pm

Actually, from what I've read/heard--including Isherwood's review, Xanthe Elbrick is giving the best performance on that stage and will probably land a Best Featured Actress nod.


"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

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Caroline-Q-or-TBoo
#22re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 11:27pm

and what a name she has!


"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed

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Testing1232
#23re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 11:31pm

<< Actually, from what I've read/heard--including Isherwood's review, Xanthe Elbrick is giving the best performance on that stage and will probably land a Best Featured Actress nod. >>

Would love for that to happen !!! Would be well-deserved !

Amazing, layered, performance,

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ray-andallthatjazz86
#24re: Coram Boy Reviews
Posted: 5/2/07 at 11:31pm

I'd nominate her for the name alone...and to see whatever celebrity is presenting the Best Featured Actress in a Play award struggle to say the name for five minutes.


"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"


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