GIGI Reviews- Page 6

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:21pm

I'm surprised about Hudgens' review from the Times. Whenever people talked about her audition, it sounded like she'd be a big surprise, and I actually thought she was very charming in that GMA performance. I guess the Times took issue with her book scenes, which is interesting. So I guess she's out for the lead actress nod at the Tonys?

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:25pm

She got negative reviews from multiple critics, including Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:29pm

^^^ Ok. I didn't read any reviews that were not from the Times so I didn't want to make some sweeping comment about "all the reviews." It's a bit of a shame when these sort of well-intentioned revivals and a hardworking star (as the Times referred to her) end up not working out.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:32pm

Can we stop the abbreviations? Every time someone refers to ON THE TOWN as OTT, I think of a otter. And OTTC is just confusing. It sounds liker some sort of bank. If you want to abbreviate that show, just call it 20TH CENTURY or something (even though the play it's based on has that title). This season, we'll know what you're talking about. 

As for GIGI, I thought the critics were far too generous to Miss Hudgens, and I only saw her lip-sync and look impossibly earnest on Live with Kelly! and Good Morning America. She's about as European as a Harold Arlen torch song with a fraction of the genuine emotion. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jv92]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:32pm

And I've double posted for the first time in a while. Oops!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Updated On: 4/9/15 at 03:32 PM

[bwaybby]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:38pm

Vulture is a ROUGH one but well written

"more perverted than ever, and altogether unworthy of its name."

"a disastrous if not deliberate misreading of the tale"

http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/theater-review-vanessa-hudgens-in-gigi.html

I live near The Kennedy Center so I read all the local reviews when it played here, I was not expecting this thrashing!

[Smaxie]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:40pm

>I only saw her lip-sync and look impossibly earnest on Live with Kelly! and Good Morning America.<

She didn't lip-sync.  She sang live at both appearances. 

[RW3]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:40pm

Also, it has been said in the "Gigi Previews" thread that lip-syncing did not occur for the GMA performance, so it is highly unlikely that Vanessa lip-synced the Live with Kelly and Michael performance.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:41pm

I think Jesse Green is the most astute and knowledgable major critic writing today. HE ought to be at the Times. Not Chuck or Ben. 

Smaxie, it looked very lip-synced on Kelly!. Very. Maybe not Good Morning America. But I'll take your word for it. In any event, she's a pretty girl, but she's not Gigi. 

 

 

[bwaybby]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 3:48pm

Jesse Green wrote the Vulture review. Yes JV92 I agree with you 100%. I usually don't pour over reviews but I had one last spot to fill on my docket for my upcoming NYC trip so I have been doing so to make an informed choice and his was the best written review and a good "read"

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:06pm

Funny that both Isherwood & Green compared it to soap bubbles.

[Fantod]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:13pm

Not only does Jesse Green write the most insightful reviews, he also writes incredibly thoughtful articles on the people in the theatre. My favorite of his was the article he did on Kander on the loss of his partner. He also is a great presence on the Theatre Talk season previews.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:14pm

"I think Jesse Green is the most astute and knowledgable major critic writing today. HE ought to be at the Times. Not Chuck or Ben."

I do kind of resent that his complaint with "authoress" is that femininity would somehow indicate a drop in quality. 

I'm not sure if I buy that the changes were as much about "contemporary oversensitivity" as much as selling the show to the Vanessa Hudgens' fans that he goes on to mock. I don't think the age difference or the mistress plotline are that scandalous if you treat it as a period piece. There are hundreds of romance novels churned out on a regular basis with the same issues.

As for the "unpleasantly coarse belt," I remember hating her baby voice in the first HSM (which was the only one I watched).

It did make me think that perhaps part of the positive audience reaction among younger theatregoers is that they have no attachment to another version of Gigi and nothing to compare this to.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:32pm

I'm curious about this idea that the alterations to the script were made in order to attract HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL fans. Weren't these changes planned from the beginning before Hudgens became involved? It's not like the revival was conceived as a star vehicle for Hudgens the way, say, the revival of THE KING & I is a vehicle for O'Hara (and even that's a bit of a stretch). I wonder if the whole HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL angle is being a bit overplayed simply because of Hudgens' involvement.

[ucjrdude902]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:33pm

Anyone know what pull quotes they're using? If they've even updated the theatre front yet?

[MaddieBB12]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:35pm

The GIGI ad I saw when I came into this very thread used one from the New York Times:

"Scrumptious eye-candy"

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:37pm

If you click on "News and Reviews" on the website gigionbroadway.com, you can see the quotes they're using...they're not great.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:45pm

Sounds like the writer was not up to the task of adapting Colette for 2015. Sounds like every decision she made was the wrong one.

 

We've seen this before: a writer/director decides to "reinterpret" a classic because the classic is "flawed" and "no longer speaks to a contemporary audience."

But in the end, the writer or director is not as talented or gifted as the original creator or creators of the flawed classic and the end result is a mediocre muddle: Flower Drum Song, Porgy and Bess, On a Clear Day...so many others.

There ought to be test questions for directors and writers-hired-to-rewrite-classics: For Follies, I've always said the test question should be "How do you feel about the ghosts?" Eric Schaeffer's answer undoubtedly would have been something less interesting than Hal Prince or Michael Bennett's answers must have been, and his production was disappointing in that regard.

For Gigi, the question might have been "What do you think, in this day and age, about courtesans?" I think Anita Loos and Vincente Minnelli and Alan Jay Lerner would have given fascinating answers, despite the different times in which they lived.

But It seems like think Heidi Thomas and Eric Schaeffer would have given dull and muddled answers.

Updated On: 4/9/15 at 04:45 PM

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:56pm

"We've seen this before: a writer/director decides to "reinterpret" a classic because the classic is "flawed" and "no longer speaks to a contemporary audience.""

As with everything, I believe there's a way to do this well and do it poorly. I don't think we really need to be afraid of a wave of political correctness as many of these reviews seem to be. Rather, this is just one particular interpretation that was not as successful as it could have been. 

[newintown]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:56pm

Eric Schaeffer’s Broadway track record:

Putting It Together (1999); 101 performances
Glory Days (200; 1 performance
Million Dollar Quartet (2011); 489 performances
Follies (2011); 152 performances
Gigi (2015); ??

Was that 14-month run of Quartet so good and profitable that it justifies hiring him?

Perhaps one problem is that the DC theatre scene seems to have trouble discerning the difference between good and bad (remember how Peter Marks thought that the unbearably amateurish Glory Days was a great show?). And then New York producers fall for their erroneous evaluations of Schaeffer's work?

Updated On: 4/9/15 at 04:56 PM

[VotePeron]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 4:58pm

These are the reviews posted on the Gigi site:

 

“Delightful! A GIGI for a new generation.”

– NBC New York

“Stylish and saucy. GIGI sparkles and twirls.”

– Harpers Bazaar

“Scrumptious eye-candy.”

– The New York Times

“Exuberant and exhilarating.”

– USA Today

“Hearing GIGI's marvelously buoyant score cascade from a live orchestra is an undeniable treat.”

– LA Times

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 5:02pm

“Stylish and saucy. GIGI sparkles and twirls.”

Is that really from a review? It makes the character/show sound like a contestant on Toddlers and Tiaras.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 5:07pm

Sounds like Cinderella on Ice.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 5:07pm

DC critics can't be blamed for this transfer. The producers announced they were moving to Broadway before the DC production opened, to lukewarm reviews.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/9/15 at 5:11pm

Wasn't it Abraham Lincoln who first said "Washington is a small town in which it's easy to make a big splash, whether in Congress or in the theater"?

Updated On: 4/9/15 at 05:11 PM