GREY GARDENS is one of the most beautiful shows I have ever seen...I'll be pulling for it Tony night.
While SPRING AWAKENING is obviously a great show that employs some really innovative tactics, I still can't help but feel unmoved by the whole thing. Only one and a half characters are developed at all. They rest chime in here and there to lament about how horrible their childhood is, but I just didn't care about them.
The reason Gallagher emerges the champion is because his role is not only the most complex of the bunch, but it allows you into the soul of the person. He's a real kid with real problems, and every ounce of his life is conveyed beautifully by both Gallagher's acting and the material he's given.
It jumps from one teen issue to another with no rhyme or reason. None of the mini-sub plots that develop are ever revisited again.
So while I understand the love for the coinage of an innovative musical technique, that shouldn't transcend material and the overall package. I simply can't see how or why people are moved by this show. I know i'm in the extreme minority, but I can't. I tried...I wanted to cry, I wanted to go home and pour over the lyrics and make new discoveries...but I tried and I couldn't. It's very surface...I found the heart of SPRING AWAKENING to be nearly hollow.
And there's no reason why GREY GARDENS and SPRING AWAKENING should be compared, but for our purposes, I am agreeing that GREY GARDENS is an expertly fashioned musical. I don't see how people how a problem with Act I. It doesn't flow gracefully into Act II, but it didn't happen that way in real life either. The "I can't see how they went from THAT to THIS" argument is a dumb one. It happend...it doesn't need an explanation. It doesn't take faith and a blind leap to follow the show.
And the score is just brilliant. No, it doesn't have the gimmicky slang or the pseudo-folk-rock beats, but it is a score that could have been written 60 years ago. It's a caliber of songwriting that is rarely seen anymore, and only once every so often does a songwriter (or a songwriting team) get it right.
The only working songwriters I can think of (besides GREY GARDENS') that succeed in such a manner are Stephen Sondheim, Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel, and occasionally Jason Robert Brown. Janine Tesori comes to mind, as well.
"If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy."
-Charlie Manson
