Finding Neverland at ART -- Reviews & Thoughts — Page 8

The effect was designed by Daniel Wurtzel, and he has designed similar effects for a number of high profile clients, including the Sochi Winter Olympics and Cirque du Solei. He is given full credit as "air sculptor" in the Finding Neverland program. To my knowledge, he has no past projects that are quite like the effect he designed for Finding Neverland, so, like any other original work of art, it was indeed unique for this show. To characterize it a rip off shows a clear ignorance of his work.

That effect opens and closes the most current Cirque show touring the US.

Because of things like that ballet, which through its short hand short changes the wife's character, and the kids numbers and the theatre troupes numbers I came away with a show that was trying too hard to be liked and wanting to be more family fare. So when we got to the carousel and pirate and stronger number it felt as if the show took a hard turn it didn't deserve. Then the second act started up in the same vein. I would have appreciated a deeper more complicated route. When it was lite is was very very lite and when it was dark it wasn't consistent.

It all comes back to who the audience is it's aiming at.

It all felt like safe family fare to me with the exception of the adultery and suggestion of pedophelia in the book. I expected something more complex to be inspired from the film.

And to just have the orchestrations and choreography be anachronistic made no sense. Spring Awakening did the anachronistic thing much better.

But the over all effect of the film is in tact and for those who never saw the film it's still a powerful emotional sentiment.

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This is one of the best shows I've ever seen. I admit can hear the pop sensibility behind the music when I think about it, but that's okay; it doesn't undermine the musical theater feeling. I love the songs, and the singing is OFF THE CHARTS.

The talent level here is stunning. I loved all the choreography, including the bits that have been called Blues Clues-y. The show is dealing with many contradictory and swirling categories -- childhood vs adulthood, grief vs innocence, etc. There are deep and uncomfortable questions going on: why is childhood framed as the time of joy and innocence when all the examples show that children experience pain too? This isn't problematic at all -- it's complex, like real life. The blend of choreographic styles (and types of music) matches this blend of philosophical concepts that jostle against each other. It's deep. It's not simple.

This show is phenomenal. The aesthetics, the music, the talent level. STUNNING.

Look up Daniel Wurtzel's work on the Internet. Then, think "fairy dust". The guy has been designing effects like this for years. You won't find any two of his designs that are quite the same. That's why I think it is offensive to call his work a rip off. The Cirque du Soleil design was his work, and from what video I've seen of it, it too, is unique, although it was by no means the first time he had designed such an effect. The Finding Neverland effect used some materials that, to my knowledge, he had not used before. It was a stand alone work of art.

The anachronism subject is an interesting one. I think that it's commonplace in both musical theatre and opera. Think Verdi's and Elton John's AIDA. I don't really think that there is anything offered in either that is authentically ancient Egyptian. There are endless other examples where the music and dance styles don't even come close to evoking the setting. I have my doubts that the music and dance styles of Edwardian England would work in FINDING NEVERLAND.

WGBH Finding Neverland piece
WGBH

Those bits of B-roll give a much more specific idea of the show than any other comments posted here, I think.

I wouldn't say those clips make the show look "shallow and boring;" I'm not quite sure yet what adjectives I would use, but not those.

To the person who asked about the train: Train ride from NYC to Boston South Station is about 4 hours. The Red Line T has a stop at South Station and you can take it to Harvard Square Station. The theater is near that stop.

Does it still have the dancing bumble-bees in BELIEVE and the dancing doctor, band leader and sailor in WE'RE ALL MADE OF STARS? Because those segments (some of which you see in the clips) were embarrassingly bad.

So, this opens tonight. I will be interested to see what the reviews are like. I hope they've made a lot of changes since I saw it last week, because what I saw was, for the most part, cringe-worthy.

It's Official!!!!
The A.R.T. ?@americanrep · 1m
It's official: Finding Neverland will open on Broadway this spring!

Yup, it's either the Atkinson or the Marquis.