Disney finally gets it right - Newsies Preview

After the seeing the first night of previews of the Tarzan and Little Mermaid disappointments, we were prepared for the worst in seeing the first night of previews of Newsies at the Papermill. We had heard that Sante Fe was reworked in the beginning of the show. Sante Fe was one of the weaker songs sang by Christian Bale from the movie,so we thought that we had another mess on our hands. Enter Jeremy Jordan(Bale's replacement-Jack Kelly). This kid can sing where Bale was weak. It turned Santa Fe into the hit song of the show and Jeremy into a star. Other highlights include a great tap dancing routine to King of New York, some great special effects, a rotating full stage erector set, a new romance,
some new music from Alan Menken(whom we sat next too and never said no to any pictures or autographs) and some great ensemble singing and dancing. The new Bill Pullman female character
was weak in singing King of New York but still made the tap dancing routine work. The movable erector set stage with multiple projection screens must have cost Disney a pretty penny.
This is Jeremy's show. He can sing but also gave an emotional believeable preformance. Yes I want to see it again, when it comes to Broadway.

Really? I could not disagree more.

Yes, Jeremy Jordan was great. Yes, the choreography was impressive, though it's been done. But everything else just left me so disappointed.

The creators made so many changes to the story and the characters. It's one thing if the changes improve upon the material, but most of these did not help the show and they even made things more confusing and muddier. They sucked all the charm and likeability and tension from the show.

While I was watching it, my overriding feeling was that everyone involved in the musical simply does not understand the movie. They have no idea what it is or why people love it. That's really what it boils down to.

Villains are reduced to silly, completely nonthreatening buffoonish cartoon characters. Heroes change personalities and priorities so much you'd get whiplash trying to follow it. The fight scenes are completely laughable, there is never a sense of danger.

I get why they wanted to open the show with "Santa Fe." They're trying to keep the focus on Jack. But in this case, it was the wrong choice. To introduce the character as an outsider and have his first words be how much he wants to leave, he feels no attachment to New York or the people here, then when he takes up the cause of the strike, you don't particularly care because you know HE doesn't care. His desire to leave is supposed to reveal itself later, after you've already gotten to know and love the character as the de facto leader of the newsies. His song is inspired by the jealousy and loneliness he feels after spending an evening with Dave's loving, supportive family. In this case, there is no cause or reason to sing the song, Jack just wants out. It's not earned, so we don't feel for the character, during the song or later.

That was the first and one of the biggest issues I had with the show. There were many.

There were at least twice that I can recall where characters walked on stage and explained that they just went somewhere and talked to someone and this major plot point happened! Isn't the first rule of theater Show, Don't Tell? Why not just show us those scenes?

Act 2 made even less sense. The plot points were contrived (even moreso than in the movie) and silly, and things that were thrown in to provide a little chuckle actually seriously altered the entire tone or message of the scene (see earlier point about the creators not understanding what they have). I'd go into specifics, but I don't want to get too spoiler-y.

I'd go on, but I've already gone on to anyone who will listen, and it just makes me more depressed everytime I talk about, because I really wanted it to be good, but the creators just completely missed the mark, on almost everything.

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How was the set?

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Do we know if Jeremy Jordan is in fact going to do Bonnie and Clyde or whether he might leave that show and stick with Newsies? (I want to see him in Bonnie and Clyde. And I may hop a train to Papermill now.)

Disney "finally" gets it right? All this time, I thought they produced Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Learn something new every day.

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dear God why...Ugh..poor broadway..

Sounds interesting.

What's the running time? I'm going tomorrow afternoon and need to figure out what train I'm catching back to the city.

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Updated On: 9/16/11 at 06:25 PM

I always thought this was one of Disneys major flops.

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The movie is terrible. The actors try their hardest, and the music is good, but it just does not flow at all. I can not see how any changes could make the show worse than the movie.

One of the problems with adapting films with a rabid fan base is that you will piss all of them off when you actually make changes that make the material better.

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I don't think there's anything new with the idea of taking a familiar book or movie and adapting it into a musical. It's the creative approach today, for the most part, that is stale.

I think it's largely due to the movie studios trying to replicate Disney's earlier successes with Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. They all pretty much started "theatrical divisions" right after that, hoping to mine gold from their catalog of film titles. In other words, they immediately went into "factory mode."

Rather than searching for interesting material, they looked for popular titles that could easily be "modified" (aka, barely even adapted) for the stage.

There were a few exceptions. I know I'll probably take a lot of flack for this, but Wicked is at the top of the list for creative adaptations from books or movies. They didn't just "put the book on stage," not by a long shot. I applaud Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz's efforts in making something new out of the material. I remember sitting in the audience the first time, being completely familiar with the source material and realizing I had no idea what was coming next. They had changed characters, plot points, and story arcs while still managing to treat the material (and the Oz lore) with great respect, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Lion King was another that at least had wildly imaginative production values, even if the written material was fairly straight-forward in its adaptation.

But The Light in the Piazza and Grey Gardens were probably the two I respected the most. They hit "creative home runs," even if they weren't mega-hits at the box office. Both were based on "cult favorite" sources, too.

The majority of the time, we get "factory reproductions" from movies or books aimed at teens and children, where tweaks may have been made, but they either were afraid to leave their comfort zone (Beauty and the Beast and pretty much all other Disney stage adaptations), or they show ignorance and a lack of respect for their source material (Mary Poppins).

More often than not, they just look like "ice shows" that used to tour arenas when I was growing up. Big production values, very little creative vision (technical vision? Yes. Artistic vision? No.), zero acting, and it all looks mass-produced. That's exactly the feeling I got from watching the Newsies clips.

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Updated On: 9/17/11 at 12:27 PM

wicked, did you friend at Disney Theatricals happen to mention Hunchback by any chance? I'm hoping for the next two years on that one too.

I would definitely see Newsies on Broadway! I'm hoping to make a trip to NYC next summer, and I'm making a wish list.