bear88 said: "I'm trying to think of a revival that's comparable to this one. Sellouts every night with big box office (of a Sondheim musical, no less), very favorable reviews (even if most had various complaints), coupled with a lot of withering criticism on this board. Not just, "I was kind of disappointed," but a pretty thorough trashing of the show and especially its direction.
The most obvious recent analogy isThe Music Man, but that doesn't really work. That revival got a mixture of mixed to negative reviews, along with a few stray raves, and it was pretty much critic-proof (and certainly message board-proof) anyway. It won no Tonys and the audience didn't care. They wanted to see Hugh Jackman in a beloved musical.Funny Girldoesn't work either, because Lea Michele has been lauded both by critics and folks here.
IfSweeney Toddwas playing eight shows a week, it would easily clear $2 million. That's astounding, even for an admittedly famous revival. Maybe it will perform like a lot of anticipated revivals and fall off a cliff this summer. I realize it's got some star power behind it (I've learned not to underestimate the drawing power of Josh Groban at this point) but the audience I saw it with absolutely loved the show. (I advised my daughter, who wanted to see the show during her June trip, to snag tickets nine weeks in advance lest anything semi-reasonable be gone.)
I realize that some of the criticism of the revival stems from high expectations. People are very protective ofSweeney Toddand react harshly to a performance they regard as a disappointment.
But I'm trying to think of a major revival that's drawn near-unanimous critical acclaim, big box office, and a very, very mixed reaction here."
Since every poster above hasn’t addressed bear88’s valid question, I think I have some observations that might frame why this particular chat board and Sweeney Todd 2023 are not friends.
There are chat boards for every form of both popular and those considered the ‘higher’ performing arts. Opera, symphony orchestras, movies and ballet all have at least a couple of active social media messaging forums that are either independent or embedded in larger sites with chat being a component.
This chat board would fall under the category of a ‘club’ in that there are many repeat posters, often with ongoing conversation between members of several years where there is acknowledgment of one another and their agreement or disagreement on all things theater.
Sites like Rotten Tomatoes give users the opportunity to write their own movie reviews, but not interact in a back and forth between other registered users. RT also has a running tally of the positive professional critics alongside of members. I mention RT because it is the most comprehensive rating website that shows the clear distinction between professional opinions and those of registered members. The disparity in some cases is negligible, but there are many cases where the critical consensus and those of its members are dramatically different.
So why is this particular chat board so critical of Sweeney Todd? The general popular opinion ratings from other aggregate theater sites, critic tally’s, ongoing SRO business and an overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience response reported even by those who hate the production are in stark contrast to this chat board. Again, why?
I think there are a variety of reasons, some of which are rather simple and others that are more difficult to quantify.
The first significant BW chat topic that always paves the way for all significant conversation is the preview thread. Every show gets one, either on its own or as an extension of pre opening talk of a show well before its first performance.
The preview threads obviously run from the outset and continue to Opening Night, then adding professional reviews, or a new thread created consisting only of reviews and the BW posters appraisals of the professional appraisers.
This process is important in that all the preview threads are sort of a social media parlor game about every show that comes to Broadway. Who likes it and who doesn’t? What are the show’s prospects? How many Tony nominations should be expected? What will the critics say? This is where the first general consensus among BW early attendees are cemented. And there are a significant number of people on this board who are early attendees.
In the case of Sweeney Todd, the first preview posts were mostly favorable, but as the days and weeks progressed reaction had become mostly mixed, with a significant number of very negative reviews that continue weeks after its opening.
And the opening. With overwhelmingly favorable to rave reviews, the professional press ran counter to the BW prognosticators. The preview parlor game left BW in a minority. And then it wasn’t just the reviews. The show quickly went SRO. Love letters continued to be written and the PR for the show became constant and spread through an unusually wide variety of publications. What’s most interesting to me is that much of the post opening PR has very little to do with Groban. The producers have the luxury to make the entire ensemble and creative team available to the press, who are seemingly more than willing to pick up on and write about any number of ST topics.
The world at large responding so favorably to ST in direct opposition to BW posters seems to have had a completely understandable outcome. Dismay, followed by doubling down on negativity are where the BW chatters have landed. And that isn’t right or wrong. It’s human nature.
A fair question on sites like this is who are we? Given the dramatic minority opinion here on ST begs that question. Like other arts chat boards made up of those passionate about their opinions I think it’s fair to say that we are a subset of a subset within a niche occupied by even tighter subsets.
Which is to say that there is an extraordinarily narrow group of individuals who both define the chat, and direct it in ways not necessarily in agreement with a general consensus. I would surmise that many people who read these posts and visit BW often have self selected out of ever contributing their opinions here.
Just as important are those who self select in, and post on a regular basis. The community is by nature limited, and the general tenor of any given topic seems to be extremely narrow in variety of opinion or reasoned disagreement.
So Bear88, I am also interested in why a show that has an SRO audience on their feet before the first members of the ensemble even appear for their curtain call is deemed a disaster by BW chatters.
for those asserting that the ongoing negativity about this production on BW is a minority opinion, I share the very page on this site that compares the professional critical response to those of BW armchair prognosticators. With 85% of the critics being positive, versus 30% by readers, it’s pretty clear that this particular chat board sits in an extraordinarily and perhaps actuarially unprecedented spread regarding the disapproval of a hit show. And it’s so interesting that Sondheim was aware of this phenomenon and even has a lyric to commemorate it:
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