DOCTOR ZHIVAGO Reviews- Page 7

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:18am

"I know, but his premise is they're bad to begin with. Or am I losing my mind."

And Jesse Green opened his review with "Sprawling European novels do not make great musicals." 

[Eurotrash]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:24am

^LMFWAO!

(Welsh)

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:36am

Well right, but no matter what their opinion is of the "sprawling European musicals" (specifically recent failures like Tale of Two Cities), Zhivago is worse.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:45am

My wife and I are in the minority here as we enjoyed it.

I do have a few problems with it. The sets were not very good. Hated that stupid train car contraption. Spend a few bucks and get a realistic set and not something that looked like it belonged in a children's playground. The annoying design on the floor was a distraction as well.

The main problem I had was how they managed to take all the love out of it. The score was fine and the performers especially the leads & Nolan were great. They basically sucked all the romanticism out of it. You felt their pain in the movie especially when Lara walked away at the end & viewing Yuri's demise. Here it is like they were merely inconvenienced by the war. They took all the emotion out of it. Were the  some critics incredibly bitchy? Yes. I thought the fairest was Isherwood in that he gave constructive criticism (isn't that a critic's job?) and said what he liked about it

Cue the brickbats. I said my peace and now await the inevitable closing notice. Hope the cast album actually does get made.

[broadwayfan24]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:08pm

I enjoy Les Mis when done well (can't say I particularly like this current broadway production) and grew up loving Phantom. That being said, Zhivago is a wannabe Les Mis. There are certain songs that sound eerily like they are from other shows. The duet between Lara and Zhivago's wife is basically "In His Eyes" from Jekyll and Hyde. I actually enjoy the pop-opera if done well, and would lovingly open my arms for a new one to come to Broadway, but it needs to be deserving. Zhivago was not.

For the most part, I can come out of a show and find something I like. For this show, beautiful voices, fine acting, gorgeous costumes. Some of the songs were lovely, but it just seemed that Zhivago was trying to be soo much like other shows and not it's own entity. I can almost here the director saying "Oh yeah, let's do that because it worked for Les Miz."

Updated On: 4/22/15 at 01:08 PM

[philly03]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:24pm

I don't think its fair to compare A Tale of Two Cities to this, in all fairness. Tale also opened the week before the stock market crashed, was certainly a legitimate book musical, and because of its source-material, not execution, it was compared heavily to Les Miserables (Tale the novel was written before). I think it was treated unfairly and often misrepresented (including from its leading man).

Zhivago has a slew of problems even artistically, although I did enjoy a few of Lucy Simon's numbers.

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:34pm

I keep hearing about all of these "gorgeous costumes."  Maybe they were all at the laundry the night I saw it?  That night, they were all black,white and grey...except the ludicrous blue they had Lara in.  All the better to see the fake red blood, I suppose.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:37pm

^ Same, I thought they were pretty ugly...

Philly03, it appears I touched a nerve. Sorry, didn't know there were people that liked Tale of Two Cities. I thought it was boring.

[gypsy101]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:39pm

Someone said something yesterday about newspapers in Australia being paid to review shows, so they say kind things no matter what.

Uhh....is that a legal thing to do? It sounds like if they did that they would need to put "paid advertisement" in small print at the top of the review, because that doesn't sound very ethical to present them to the public as a critical review.

[philly03]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 1:47pm

Neonlights, I did enjoy it - it was not entirely panned either as some like to rewrite history (In fact James Barbour got some raves). It certainly opened at an awful time, but I'm not necessarily saying it would've ran years either. 

[alterego]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 9:15pm

Sounds like Anthony Warlow (who did it in Australia) made the right decision to pass on the Broadway production. It didn't work/sell in Australia either.

[philly03]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 10:33pm

For what its worth, Warlow is here in Washington DC doing Man of La Mancha which he said is one of his top 3 favorite roles of all time (along with The Secret Garden and My Fair Lady), and given the timing (Shakespeare Theatre is subscription house) he may have been booked already.

[Insider3]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:02pm

Rarely seen such across-the-board pan of the lyrics. Rex Reed calls the lyrics "gag-worthy" & "dreck"; the WSJ critic dubbed them "lead-footed doggerel". Ouch. I and my family members likewise found the lyrics often laughable (not in a good way) and trite. later realized that they arent so much trite as "borrowed." Even the supposedly signature song, NOW, seems basically cribbed from Halestroms hit song or Paper Faces "breathe you in" lyrics, lol. Simons music, while overwrought and often indistinguishable from one another, at least strived for grandiosity, and at times soared.  The lyrics though, were either boring or stretched to make ridiculous rhymes, like students in a lyrics 101 class patting themselves on the back for their self perceived cleverness. Ugh.

[philly03]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:25pm

I wondered about the lyrics also - was Michael Korie brought in to "re-write" Amy Powers' existing lyrics the same way that Andrew Lloyd Webber sacked her for Sunset BLVD (She did write "With One Look" and "As If We Never Said Goodbye," the latter which is one of Lloyd Webber's best songs, lyrics included)?

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:25pm

Uhh....is that a legal thing to do? It sounds like if they did that they would need to put "paid advertisement" in small print at the top of the review, because that doesn't sound very ethical to present them to the public as a critical review

 

Not necessarily. Every country is different with journalism. Having worked with journalists all around the world, there is no universal system. In Kenya, you must pay journalists to write a story. Though it may seem unethical to American eyes, it is how the media works there. Most of the journalists are freelancers, so you are paying them to write a story, not what to say. I'm unaware of Australian rules, but paying for stories is not unethical in much of the world. 

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 4/22/15 at 11:35pm

I actually really like the lyrics for "It Comes As No Surprise" It's a lovely song overall. Very frank wildhorn ballad esque. 

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/23/15 at 2:29pm

Still no official announcement for a cast album? 

[eperkins]

Posted: 4/23/15 at 3:23pm

To those of you who actually saw this production - is there ANY reason to go see it before it closes? Any redeeming qualities at all?

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/23/15 at 3:27pm

^ To laugh at the bad projections, and in 5-10 years, to be able to say that you saw it.

[jkstheatrescene]

Posted: 4/23/15 at 6:02pm

^

or if you have insomnia and need a sleep-friendly environment...

 

(you can catch pretty decent amounts of sleep in between explosions and blood-letting)

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 4/23/15 at 7:31pm

Or to catch Paul Nolan's performance?

[Eurotrash]

Posted: 4/24/15 at 9:45am

"Any redeeming qualities at all?"

Some people seem to like the musical numbers and performers, but if you listened to this board, not really, so its not a great place to come for advice... 

 

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/24/15 at 9:52am

Jeffrey, I've seen you comment about Paul Nolan's performance multiple times, but you haven't seen it. He's trying really hard to save the show. That's the performance he's giving. It's not any sort of layered, well drawn character. He is a little over the top, and he's singing his ass off. It's not really a kind of performance I'd go out of my way to see, but he's doing the best he can in this show.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/24/15 at 12:41pm

I am shocked no one has said "  What is going in next "?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/24/15 at 12:43pm

You just did.