Did anyone go to John Tartaglia's reading last night?

[mirramar]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 10:55am

I wasn't able to go to the reading, but I'm curious to hear how it was. Let me know!

[Corine2]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 10:56am

;-( Updated On: 4/20/05 at 10:56 AM

[sassypanz]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 1:43pm

Language Corine.

[andyf]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 2:37pm

I went.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I had the opportunity to go, and it was great to see John onstage again, but the material was NOT good...at all. The concept is just a little too weird. I only say that because it seems like the people who wrote the show weren't even really sure how they wanted to handle the humor of the show and stuff like that, at least based on what we saw last night. The music was not very good at all, which, unforunately, was right on par with the dialogue.

And as far as the story is concerned...OK, you know how in third grade you learn about how a plot should be set up (i.e., you get some exposition and meet the characters, then we have a problem, rising action, climax, etc.)? Well this didn't really follow that at all. At intermission, I couldn't see how they were going to substantiate a second act, and by the time the second act was over, it turns out they didn't.

I'm not saying that the whole, "Wait, it's intermission, but isn't the show over?" thing is bad (hi, Into the Woods, BRILLIANT). And, don't worry, I just threw up a little, too, that I just compared "Not Good, the Musical" to "Into the Woods," but bear with me. So the second act of "Into the Woods" a) is very complex and very involved and b) actually substantiates A FULL ACT. The second act of "The Devil and Dexter Webster" was neither of those things; it clearly could have been tacked onto the first act and turned into a bad one-act, instead of drawn out into a bad two-act show, and believe me, it was DRAAAAAAAWN OOOOOOOOUT. It was like Brooklyn long, and, like Brooklyn, very unnecessarily so.

The rest of the cast was OK, very inconsistent though. There were 6 other characters: an actor, his wife (an actress), the main girl/Dexter's love interest, the Devil, and his two henchmen. The henchmen had no material, so you can't really critique them. The actor also had two very short songs, so he didn't have a chance to be bad. The actress had a slightly bigger part, and was good at points. I liked the way the guy played the Devil, I don't how I would like him otherwise, but for the crazy, character part they gave him, I thought he did a good job. And the main girl was good, but vocally, really inconsistent. Like, sometimes she'd be belting and it would sound fine and other times she would have no power behind her voice at all. So, yeah...

Long story short, the music wasn't good, the story was bad, the cast was "ehhh", I don't see them going anywhere with the show I saw last night, but seeing John onstage again was good.

Updated On: 4/20/05 at 02:37 PM

[MissNY]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 5:02pm

Sorry to hear the show sucked, but I'm still pissed I couldn't go since the only reason i wanted to was to see John. Did you go with Katie?

BTW-Saw you on 42nd street yesterday leaving the Easter Bonnet, had fun?

[andyf]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 7:08pm

PS - You know how there was a crazy-long waiting list (they said around 90 people)?

...there were empty seats last night.
So not only did the people who actually had reservations not show up, but not even enough people from the waiting list showed up to fill seats.

Craziness.

Updated On: 4/20/05 at 07:08 PM

[GirlforTartaglia]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 8:28pm

*cringe* I'm sad I missed it

[broadwaystar2b]

Posted: 4/20/05 at 9:43pm

Who'd John play?