I agree with you all regarding
Jordan's comment. It is very sad that unless a show can please
everyone (or at least a larger majority of ticket buyers), it has no chance of surviving more than a few days, weeks or at the longest, months. That financial situation creates a blander, less diverse Broadway, and IMO is strangling Broadway.
RE:
Hands On A Hardbody, though, the show has little appeal for me. I agree that it's very similar in theme to
Working (a show I like), especially the score. But I've already heard the score from
Working. I know the direction nearly all the songs of HoaH are going and where they will end. Their themes (both musically and in terms of story-telling) are so similar. What's missing for me in Hardbody's score is some kind of "hook". Some spark that in spite of the similarities to other songs like them, told with similar stories, makes me want to hear them again.
For me, it's like the evolution that occurred with Country music. The genre was pretty stale and had limited appeal until new artists began mixing things up a bit - slipping in elements of rock and pop that (for me) provided something different, and a reason to keep listening.
One example from HoaH's score that illustrates what I'm talking about is
I'm Gone (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pz0ysRPSH8). It's a song with an often-used "
I've got to get out of this place" theme. As soon as the song begins, it's pretty easy to tell what her issues are gonna be, where her story is gonna go, and how it's gonna end. Is there anyone who can't tell there will be a "
Hey, let's go together!" element introduced at some point?
But the writers haven't created a hook that sets this song apart from every song like it, and that's been written before it. Instead they include the same "
pedal to the metal" and "
rear view mirror" images that have been used time and time again. There's even the obligatory "
my mama worked hard and got nuthin' in return" anecdote. For me, there's just no "hook".
The biggest element that causes me to stay away from HoaH is that the story itself is not an interesting one. What makes the story compelling is the "reality" behind its characters.
A group of people are meant to keep their hand on a truck until the last one falls away and gets to keep the truck. For a staged musical, that's a pretty static situation. All the other elements need to be outstandingly incorporated to overcome the lack of plot.
IMO, that doesn't happen. To my ears, the score is not strong enough (for reasons I mentioned above). I think the creative choreography and the use of the turntable help, but not enough.
The biggest deficit to my mind is that the original documentary was able to be compelling in a way that the musical can never achieve - the audience for the movie is able to connect with
real people. Given the task, the most interesting question for me is, "
Who would do something like that?". The documentary puts me face-to-face with those real people, telling their stories, in their unique voices. I connected with that element in a way that I'm not able to do with the musical. The stories (by themselves) have less weight when I can't associate them with the real people who lived them.
But going back to my original paragraph, just because
I didn't find the experience as valuable, doesn't mean it's not valued by someone else. I think it's sad that even beyond Broadway, "value" has lost all its peripheral meanings except for the singular definition of "money".
Updated On: 6/14/13 at 09:35 AM
