#1
Posted: 3/3/05 at 6:34pm
Talkin Broadway is first -- pretty mixed:
"We all know the famous saying: You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Why, then, are so many musical theatre writers today insistent on trying? Different authors succeed to different degrees, but most attempts are usually better camouflaged than they are in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
The new musical at the Imperial doesn't want for gloss, color, or slick Broadway know-how. What's missing - and all too noticeably - is a set of core principles. Okay, principles are funny things to demand from a show about con artists, but a show of any sort without a guiding set of rules has an uphill struggle in front of it, and "entertain the audience at any cost" is the kind of philosophy that only works these days for Mel Brooks.
That's what the creators of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are attempting, and while they succeed roughly half the time, it's the other, unanchored half that makes it hard to fall for this show's particular spiel. You become keenly aware at every juncture that this musical has little original framework of its own, that it's been cobbled together from (superior) parts of other recent shows, most notably The Producers, Sweet Smell of Success, and Hairspray.
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Despite these problems, the show manages to entertain, even frequently, and it's never a chore to sit through. But the final effect is one of gears grinding rather than of effortless musical comedy beguilement, which is what a show like this really needs. The Producers demonstrates how a show can steal your heart while its central figures steal other characters' dollars, but how can Dirty Rotten Scoundrels effectively steal our hearts when it doesn't have one of its own? "
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/DirtyRotten.html
"We all know the famous saying: You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Why, then, are so many musical theatre writers today insistent on trying? Different authors succeed to different degrees, but most attempts are usually better camouflaged than they are in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
The new musical at the Imperial doesn't want for gloss, color, or slick Broadway know-how. What's missing - and all too noticeably - is a set of core principles. Okay, principles are funny things to demand from a show about con artists, but a show of any sort without a guiding set of rules has an uphill struggle in front of it, and "entertain the audience at any cost" is the kind of philosophy that only works these days for Mel Brooks.
That's what the creators of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are attempting, and while they succeed roughly half the time, it's the other, unanchored half that makes it hard to fall for this show's particular spiel. You become keenly aware at every juncture that this musical has little original framework of its own, that it's been cobbled together from (superior) parts of other recent shows, most notably The Producers, Sweet Smell of Success, and Hairspray.
------------------------------------------------------------
Despite these problems, the show manages to entertain, even frequently, and it's never a chore to sit through. But the final effect is one of gears grinding rather than of effortless musical comedy beguilement, which is what a show like this really needs. The Producers demonstrates how a show can steal your heart while its central figures steal other characters' dollars, but how can Dirty Rotten Scoundrels effectively steal our hearts when it doesn't have one of its own? "
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/DirtyRotten.html
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 3/3/05 at 06:34 PM
