Good Vibrations Reviews- Page 3

[Marlothom]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 1:22am

VARIETY!
Thanks to the enduring buoyancy of the songs and to a vocally capable, youthful cast that is attractive, energetic and bares a lot of skin, this isn't quite the history-making train wreck trumpeted in advance by the bad vibrations emanating from its troubled previews. Even within the frame of jukebox tuners, it doesn't approach the staggering tedium of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David songbook show "The Look of Love," which dispensed with its book during development and opted for a pedestrian revue format. But that comparison is by no means a recommendation.

Tossing out the book might have been the best thing that could have happened to "Good Vibrations." Librettist -- a job description entirely unmerited here -- Richard Dresser's clumsy, half-baked stab at a storyline throws together the coolest boy in high school with the nerdy brainiac who's had a crush on him since fourth grade. Since she has a hot car and the guy and his buddies need to get to California, boy uses girl, she wises up and cold-shoulders him just as his desire for her suddenly stirs, then he spends the rest of the show trying to win her back.

Throw in a briefly separated mixed-race couple and a closeted gay boy hanging with the dudes while hankering for the surfer hunks -- not that either of these scenarios create any conflict, God forbid -- and you have "Good Vibrations," a musical so inane it makes its obvious model, "Mamma Mia!," look like "Sunday in the Park With George." This is not just cheesy, it's Velveeta cheesy, spread thick on white bread.

Graduating to director-choreographer for the first time after handling terpterp duties on such Broadway tuners as "Into the Woods," "Urinetown" and the regrettable "Dance of the Vampires," John Carrafa seems to have allowed a kind of anarchy that carries through the musical's structure, performance and design elements. The lack of polish is evident from the first messy, overpopulated number, "Fun, Fun, Fun" -- predictably awash with swim and wave moves -- as a bunch of East Coast graduating high school students dream of California, where the girls are beautiful and it's always summertime.

It would have made sense to set the show in the '60s, when the idea of California as a golden destination and an almost mythical land of pleasure became implanted in popular culture. Instead, Dresser has declined to make "Good Vibrations" time-specific. The look of the show liberally mixes '50s and '60s iconography -- diners, drive-ins, pulp-fiction covers, Andy Warhol -- with contemporary costumes, hair and attitudes to bland effect.

In the arbitrary leading roles, David Larsen is a little low on charisma as Bobby; Kate Reinders displays far more charm and confidence as Caroline but does herself no favors by relentlessly channeling Kristin Chenoweth.

Given the yawning absence of character development in the book, the actors are not just beached but entirely at sea trying to stamp an identity on their roles: One minute Bobby is a devil-may-care dude with nothing but scorn for twittering Caroline, then without warning he's a lovesick fool; similarly, Caroline is transformed instantly from dweeby valedictorian to popular lifesaver chick.

But despite occasional evidence of straining to re-create the studio-enhanced smoothness of the Beach Boys' incomparable harmonies, the large cast acquits itself well enough on the songs. There's an infectious, toe-tapping vibrancy in numbers like "Surfin' U.S.A.," "I Get Around," "California Girls" and "Surf City" that won't be denied, no matter how imbecilic the context. Likewise, the warm melodies of more complex, introspective songs like "In My Room," "Your Imagination" and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." The stirring "Sail on Sailor" even withstands an "American Idol"-style blasting from Tituss Burgess and David Reiser.

However, the songs are strung together with witless dialogue that summons only the faintest occasional hint of self-irony. It takes a knock to the head from one of the beach balls lobbed into the audience during the show's built-in "Mamma Mia!"-emulating encore to muster full attention. (It will be interesting to see what comes first: an early closing notice or legal action over broken glasses.)

There's a brash shamelessness that becomes quite disarming in the earlier prototype hit when Abba songs are ushered in with purpose-made dialogue. Here, the song selections too often seem awkwardly random.

The lack of any unifying shape in Carrafa's busy but undemanding choreography is echoed in Heidi Ettinger's sets. Indeed, the first and second acts appear to be entirely different shows, opening with the band onstage and a jumble of beachcomber paraphernalia strewn about a cluttered space representing who knows what, and then shifting upon arrival in California to a backdrop of coastal projections and a giant stylized wave that makes for some surreal entrances during nonbeach scenes.

The curtain-call medley boasts a neat trick, with several members of the cast riding elevated surfboards. Not that it could have saved this wipeout, but why the effect wasn't employed to enliven an earlier number is just one of this misbegotten show's many mystifying creative decisions.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 5:19am

SJ13

I'm unclear why I have been the subject of your attacks when I didn't give any opinion whatsoever, postive or negative, or write a single word of the negative reviews you're reacting against.

Recently, I've begun to create posts for all of the reviews for pretty much every new show that opens on Broadway (and occasionally Off-Broadway) and try to fairly capture a sense of each review as it becomes available by cutting and pasting excerpts (copyright law will not allow me to simply post each review in its entirety). I have no control over whether the tenor of the reviews are positive, negative or somewhere in between.

Brantley's review was extremely negative and no amount of creative editing of those excerpts on my part would be able to get around the that fact. Any fair characterization of that review would have to reflect that HE FELT the show was amateurish and mediocre.

Does that mean he's right? Does that mean no one else could possibly enjoy it? Does that mean that anyone who loves the show is wrong and should love it less because he didn't like it? Of course not. I disagree with Brantley all time -- WEEKLY, usually, for all the shows I see. But whether he's right or not, his opinion has a great deal of power in the theatrical community just for the fact that he is head critic of the Times.

Normally, if you were someone who loved the show and was disappointed that the reviews didn't reflect your enthusiasm for it, I would tell you to ignore the critics and to love the show in spite of them, that their opinion is no more valid than yours and not to let what they say, in any way take away from your enjoyment of what you saw on the stage........ normally, I would say that....... HOWEVER, you admit that you have never even bothered to see the show that you are defending. That you're defense of it is based on nothing. That you have absolutely no idea whatsoever whether Brantley's opinion of it or anyone else's is accurate, true or correct.

You have simply decided to attack Ben Brantley, and every single other theatrical reviewer in New York for that matter since they all are of the same opinion, for not praising a show that you've never seen and for all you know is every bit as bad as they say it is.

And in a classic case of killing the messenger, you also have the gall the attack me of all people for simply re-printing WHOLE PARAGRAPHS of the reviews -- your accusation that I selectively omitted a single sentence regarding Brantley's opinion of "Mamma Mia" is woefully unfounded, irrelevant and idiotic. He hated the show. Period. End of sentence. Doesn't mean he's right or wrong with his opinion. And, by the way, I wasn't even the one who originally posted the link to the review, but, regardless, given that the link was there right above what I excerpted (I normally include a link with any excerpt I post so that no one can accuse me of unfairly characterizing the general intent of an article), I thought I fairly captured the gist of the overall review.

And as for me "pouncing" on the show in an earlier thread, my precise quote was "c'mon, the reviews are going to be terrible." That was my one and ONLY definitive statement regarding the future of "Good Vibrations." I never said that I personally thought the show was terrible, but that I thought that the reviews would be. That statement was based on my general sense of how the show was being received, not on any personal opinion of it that I had formed (I haven't seen it). And hey, guess what? I was 100% accurate with what I said. The reviews ARE terrible -- ALL of them. It didn't take a psychic and a crystal ball to see what was coming....... and it came -- with a vengeance.

Do me favor. In the future, if you're going to attack me, please go after things that I actually said, not things that I fairly and accurately reprinted from other people. And please, if you're at all capable of it, PLEASE, observe the proper rules of grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization -- it's much easier to, at least, try to take your barely coherent ramblings seriously that way.

Updated On: 2/3/05 at 05:19 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 5:26am

OK, now that that's out of the way......

Howard Kissel (Daily News):

"There used to be a dentist in New Jersey who wrote gags for ailing shows.

Has he retired?

If ever a show was in desperate need of his help, it's "Good Vibrations," the pathetic attempt at making a musical from songs by the Beach Boys.

What might have been a "feel-good" evening is simply dumb and tedious, more like Novocain than laughing gas.

It's just depressing that the apparent model for musicals nowadays is "Mamma Mia!," which attached a feebly written plot to the songs of ABBA.

The implication is that musicals are a kind of living jukebox, where people are so happy to hear music they love that they will put up with plots that make the average sitcom seem like great drama.

Here, an unusually contrived plot is woven around the cheery music of the Beach Boys. Initial reports indicated that the material was so awful it might be fun. But it isn't. It's just bland. "

"Apart from the flimsiness of the story line, it is so amateurishly delineated that, looking back, "Grease" begins to seem like "My Fair Lady."

"Grease," after all, had a point of view about its period, the '50s. It also had an original score, which, if primitive by Broadway standards, at least had a satiric edge and some bounce.

Here, nothing seems to have been thought out. Everything is aimless.

The thinking seems to have been that the music would carry everything along with it. Sad to say, except for occasional harmonic passages, the music is not performed with enough gusto to achieve the desired effect.

Given the synthetic nature of everything about this show, wouldn't it have been cheaper and more effective to play the actual Beach Boys tracks and have the cast lip-sync?

The actors go through their paces brightly, but the overall effect, matching the material, is hollow."
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater/story/277201p-237452c.html

Updated On: 2/3/05 at 05:26 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 5:31am

Clive Barnes (NY Post):

" John Carrafa, the director and choreographer of "Good Vibrations," is hardly in Tharp's league — they're scarcely playing the same game. As for Richard Dresser's drab book, it almost disappears into Heidi Ettinger's ugly settings and Jess Goldstein's conventional costumes.

For what it's worth, the story tells of a group of East Coast kids who, after high school graduation, go west for the sun and surf. Two couples — plus a third pair who turn out to be gay — eventually find true love. "The Odyssey," it isn't.

The cast tries hard — the actors practically burst their seams trying hard. The two leading couples, the romantically troubled (Kate Reinders and David Larsen) and the nerdily comic (Jessica Snow-Wilson and Tituss Burgess) do very well.

But it's the wrong time, the wrong show and the wrong beach. "
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/21642.htm

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 5:36am

Michael Kuchwara (The AP):

"As it is, the show, which opened Wednesday at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre, proves that pop classics alone can't make musical theater -- especially when accompanied by a sketchy, almost nonexistent plot, lame wit and meager character development."
AP Review

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 10:06am

The reviews are not in the least bit surprising. Actually, I take that back. I'm surprised they actually took the time to say a few positive things about the cast (at least, a few of them did). I think Brantley's review is amazing, as it reads like a negative review should read, go him. Mostly, I'm glad that no one is placing particular blame on the actual cast. We knew the reviews were going to be bad, but they try and are talented, so if anything, I'm glad that's noted.

Buuuut, I still enjoy it. What can you do, can't always help what you like.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 10:37am

It's such a tragedy. Well, at least we have Piazza, Scoundrels and Spamalot to look forward to. Even Chitty will probably be welcomed with open arms at this point. After Good Vibrations, All Shook Up may stand a chance, but I would at the very least get a new choreographer. The choreography that I saw in the Thanksgiving Parade for Good Vibrations looked masterful compared to what I saw in All Shook Up.

If anything, it certainly is an interesting season on Broadway.

Are La Cage and Sweet Charity the only musical revivals this season?

[Apollo]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 10:41am

I can't believe how they already have that British twit of a woman promoting Good Vibrations on the commercial.

Glad they are only showing people throwing beach balls in the audience. That is about the most exciting part of the show.

Posted: 2/3/05 at 11:34am

First up, Margo, thanks a million for compiling the links to the reviews. No one else seems to be doing it and since I've discovered you & this board it makes perusing the pundits a snap. Thanks!

Second, will this & "All Shook Up" be enough to drive a stake through the heart of the creature known as the "Jukebox Musical?" How many poorly executed songbook shows will we have to suffer through before Mamma Mia is seen as the exception and not the rule?

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 11:52am

I think we're about to witness the extinction of the Jukebox musical...
*crosses fingers*

I honestly agree with most of the reviews... The book is incredibly flawed...

But it is NOT a completely un- enjoyable show.

In my opinion (and I have seen the show), it had no less integrity than Mamma Mia, the leads were perfectly casted and very good, and it WAS fun, not painful. Like Mamma Mia meets Grease! Not expecting intellectualism and thought- provoking art from a show IS NOT "lowered expectations". Good Vibrations IS what it IS- fun entertainment with, if not always well- integrated, certainly amazing songs from one of the best groups of all time. I loved Tituss Burgess and Jessica Snow- Wilson. I thought overall, the cast did a great job of interpreting the Beach Boys numbers in their characters... And the book did not ALWAYS fail at this either. I personally, found the set design interesting and engaging.

I don't think GV will have a long life. I don't blame the critics for the slaughter. But please, go see it for yourself and FORM YOUR OWN OPINION.

[Lynnespock2]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 12:36pm

I saw the show at Vassar. I guess I was a bit blinded by the fact that someone I know was in the show and I feel this actor is extraordinary. Unfortunately, he wasn't BLOND enough and was not cast in the Broadway production.

From what I have heard, they made a number of other changes and obviously, not for the better. Ah, well, such is life. Reviews with the exception of Variety, who seems to like almost everything, tell the story.

[Eyemakeup3]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 12:39pm

I feel for the talented members of the cast, some of them have put so much into the journey, but the show should never have made it passed the Vassar reading. John Carrafa should be mindful of this creative tumble, his method of improvisational directing/staging DOES NOT WORK. The very noble cast members of DOTV could tell you that!

[bryan]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 2:22pm

i love all muiscals and this one i will see. but before and when they colse they sholud put out a cd of the show because the muiscal collets like me want it on cd.