Hands on a Hardbody previews thread- Page 6

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 10:47am

Also, not that it's means anything, but as I was leaving I heard things like "who did you want to win the truck?" "Um, I don't really know. I can't remember any of the characters." And even "that was worse than THE WEDDING SINGER." This ones definitely got an uphill climb ahead of it. Audience reaction was tepid throughout, except for a few token comped people who were way too vocal for their own good.

[dtzumbrunnen]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 11:12am

@Dramamama - Yes, I mean 12 hours into the contest!

[TheresaG]

Posted: 3/3/13 at 1:28pm

Saw this show yesterday. Everyone I spoke with both at intermission and afterwards liked it. Huge applause all throughout the show and immediate standing O at the end.

This show hits some real social issues of the day: unemployment, lack of decent jobs, returning home after combat. And the music was so beautifully done; nice story telling in the lyrics too.

The first act moved well, the second lagged a bit, then picked up. By then I was so invested that I didn't care about the lag.

Loved it.



Updated On: 3/3/13 at 01:28 PM

[TonyVincent]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:31am

Was there last night. Audience ate it up. I didn't. Lot of the "jokes" fell flat to me, and some I didn't realize were jokes but people were beside themselves (over-enthusiastic comps? or was I just in a wretched mood?).

In the end, the premise felt a ton like Putnam County Spelling Bee, just not well executed. The music was catchy but disjoint. The proceedings felt extremely cliche and predicable, just like the characters. I figured out what happened to Hunter Foster's character in the first act, I guessed exaclty how the second place finisher would lose a few minutes before, and I guessed within the first 20 minutes who would win. I thought everyone else did, too, but the audience gasped at each event.

Able performances all around, just not enough to work with. I actually thought Act II progressed well given the limitations (i.e., the characters were supposed to be exhausted).

In all, I doubt this gets enough traffic to last (the title sounds like a pornography, which they allude to in the show), but the performers and the audience all seemed to leave the house pleased.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 9:07am

It’s not quite there yet, but overall I enjoyed it and feel that, after some trimming (will that actually happen? Idk), there’s a really strong show somewhere in there. The night I was there, the audience also ate it up, and I didn’t mind the overt feel-good feel of the final number because the show spends a long time tracking you there, with stories of underdog after underdog after underdog. There’s no way they’re not going to try to lift you out of your seat at the end, and you realize that very early on.

We could certainly use less (or at least a more streamlined version) of the books scenes involving the dealership management. And TonyVincent is absolutely right that, structurally, the show very closely resembles SPELLING BEE, with its story/song-in-turn contestants, its exploitative authority figures, and even its own version of Mitch Mahoney. Now, SPELLING BEE does more with less, but HARDBODY also has twice as many characters and is more human drama than goofy comedy (though at times it is very funny).

Perhaps this is my personal bias, but by and large I enjoyed the twangy pop-country score. And while, as Whizzer pointed out earlier, not all the songs are equally memorable, they’re varied enough that the score never gets a same-ish feel, even in the yearning character ballads, of which we get several. But when the score gets peppy, it’s super-peppy, by turns sweet, angry, and exuberant.

Hunter Foster is the de facto lead, and he does admirably, but the role never catches fire. For me, the three standouts – and I mean significant, Tony-nominee-worthy standouts – were Keala Settle (old news at this point, it seems), Keith Carradine (his cumulative impact surprised me), and (especially) Dale Soules, whose character felt so authentic, she could have been wrangled up right out of Texas and shipped overnight to perform as herself.

The choreography was usually inventive, though occasionally repetitious by virtue of its own limitations (the truck can only be pushed upstage and downstage and side to side and in circles so many times), but, again, I was never bored by it. There are a few laggy sequences, mostly in the first act (the opening number, for instance, is far too long and gives us little information), but the second act moves like gangbusters (until the very end, where one particular character-tied-to-another-character moment too many threatens to capsize the momentum going into the finale).

My date described the show as “uneven.” I think he was speaking musically, but it’s a good assessment of the show on the whole. It’s uneven, but what’s there is still enjoyable and could be much stronger with discerning trims. And if they can carve that terrific show out of the current good show, I could see it becoming a surprise hit. It’s got verve, characters to root for, a lot of good, old-fashioned sentiment, and leaves you feeling fuzzy and wanting to believe in people, naïve as that may be. Now, if they can just get their marketing on track…

[dtzumbrunnen]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 10:37am

I'd second the Dale Soules comments. My southern roots are Georgia and not Texas, but she embodied the down to earth, strong southern woman quite well. The quality of her voice was off-putting to me at first, but ultimately endearing.

[egghumor]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 10:44am

While I haven't seen HANDS ON A HARDBODY, I have seen Dale Soules in a number of shows during the 1970's and '80s and she was always powerful and authentic. As far as I concerned, Dale Soules is one of Broadway's biggest secrets - an amazing talent!

[TonyVincent]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 1:47pm

Great review, TMG, you mentioned a lot of thoughts I had very well. I agree that Dale Soules was my favorite performer of the evening.

You see a little more potential in the show than I do, but I also feel that trimming about 20 minutes off the show, 10-15 of it having to do with the dealership managment and the other 5-10 from the religious woman and JD Drew, would be a big improvement. Not to keep comparing it to Spelling Bee, but that show told a story with 6 contestants (plus the 3 audience members) in 90 minutes. I think they could effectively flesh out the 10 contestants in 130 minutes with the intermission.

Updated On: 3/5/13 at 01:47 PM

[jbm2]

Posted: 3/10/13 at 12:08am

I am surprised how much I enjoyed this....

[WhatIWasBorn2Do]

Posted: 3/10/13 at 1:04am

Caught this last week, did not enjoy it much. Was surprised to truly not like it after reading the reviews posted here. It is a good idea, but it just fell flat. I just didn't like the songs, and the book was all over the place at times. Wouldn't recommend this, but glad I got to see it. A very different kind of show, but not for me.

[grandpianoalex]

Posted: 3/10/13 at 1:07am

Saw it tonight. Hated the result of the competition. Keala, Allison, and Jay's voices are the stars of this show.

"The Joy Of The Lord" number is SO great. If they perform on the Tonys, THAT should be the song.

[AntV]

Posted: 3/12/13 at 9:07pm

If you search this show on twitter or instagram all you mostly see are comp tickets. Kinda would make me feel like a sucker if I paid while I know so many other people were comped. A bit of a bad strategy. They should tell people they comp that when they post on social media NOT to show the comp tickets.

Though, how would one go about getting one of these seemingly common comp tickets anyhow?

Updated On: 3/12/13 at 09:07 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 3/13/13 at 10:26am

I'd been hoping for something novel and interesting, but well you know. Flabby barely-two-dimensional characters, lame cliche-ridden book and lyrics. One single interesting number, the Feel The Joy song or whatever it is, which really took off and lived as something interesting in ways that the rest of the proceedings never did.

The comparison with SPELLING BEE is interesting, in that SPELLING BEE took a multi-character story line and gave everyone their due -- they all got their Big Songs, and the characters came alive somehow, and that's not something I can say about HANDS ON A HARDBODY.

A shame. There's a lot of potential here for a real picture of life in the USA for the 99%, but it just goes for cheap big songs and easy tear-jerking. It goes for glitz instead of grit.

Updated On: 3/13/13 at 10:26 AM

[Yero my Hero]

Posted: 3/13/13 at 10:52am

If you search this show on twitter or instagram all you mostly see are comp tickets. Kinda would make me feel like a sucker if I paid while I know so many other people were comped. A bit of a bad strategy. They should tell people they comp that when they post on social media NOT to show the comp tickets.

Pretty much every papering service DOES tell their members that, for that very reason. People who don't listen and are caught are sometimes banned from getting tickets, at least for a little while.

Another way to get comps is to work for or be a friend of someone who works for the production, which should be no surprise. Most new productions like to paper the house with friendly faces during previews in case there are reviewers there, and because they hope that once reviews come out, they will be selling too well to offer comps. It shouldn't be a surprise that you're seeing lots of comps during previews, although people probably still shouldn't broadcast that fact.

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 3/13/13 at 12:25pm

Such a disappointment. Wanted it to be a breakout show in the vein of Starcatcher or Once, as it's such an interesting concept, but it's just not. I would like to see what Trey Anastasio would have done with a different lyricist. Also, Neil Pepe has never directed a musical and it shows. A big problem with this show is tone. It's uneven. Also Hunter Foster's character is presented as a narrator/guide at the beginning and then we don't hear from him for half an hour.

[TimesSquareRegular]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 12:06am

At this afternoon's performance, applause was tepid for most of the musical numbers, JOY TO THE LORD being the biggest exception.

A revised musical numbers list was slipped into the Playbill. Gone from the first act are "Brothers In The Storm" and "A Little Something Something" with a new one added ("If She Don't Sleep"). "The Tryers" has been cut from the second act.

This was a chore to sit through, despite some terrific vocal talent. I didn't give a rat's whatever about who won, and was not involved at all.

The staging was terrible. Yes, there are limits to the staging when everyone is keeping a hand on the damn truck - so they move under/over/around each other during some of the musical numbers. But then when there a duet away from the truck, it's still the same style of movement.

The score is basically bland, and the lyrics have too many false rhymes. Worst of all, there are several instances when the lyrics do not fit comfortably on the music.

The tag line on their TV commercial is "How long could YOU hang on" ......... longer than this show will last on Broadway, for sure.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 12:18am

It goes for glitz instead of grit.

This. This. This. Nothing in the show felt authentic or wildly original, which the concept certainly is. The comparison to SPELLING BEE is apt in generalities only. SPELLING BEE got everything right that HANDS didn't.

[quizking101]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 1:02am

I happened to enjoy this show very much, despite the tepid reviews.

I do recognize that the lyrics were sometimes a bit off-kilter and that some banter and dialogue can afford to be cut (looking back, I see that the comparatively large amount of attention given to Carradine's character). However, I did enjoy the score (probably one of my favorites in a good long while; I hope it gets a cast recording, and some songs such as "Joy To The Lord", "Stronger", and "Born In Laredo".

That being said, I follow the consensus that the standout performance was Keala Settle and I was heartbroken when she lost (although I had bet on Allison Case's Kelli at the top of the show). Other standouts for me were David Larsen (His delivery of "Stronger" reduced me to a hot, blubbering mess) and Jon Rua (with his character who takes charge of his ethnic identity and his response to American condescension - I have a Grandmother from Puerto Rico so I've heard stories like this before). On the whole though, there was not one bad one in the bunch.

I hope this get a decent life (at least until Tony season)...Of course, I feel this is going to be one of the shows that Matilda will steamroller over for the big catergories.

...Such good stuff. It's like the product of a threesome between A CHORUS LINE, PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, and PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES.

Updated On: 3/15/13 at 01:02 AM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 1:08am

Seems silly to not make this an intermissionless show.

[HenryTDobson]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 1:10am

I half wish they pulled an Edwin Drood and let the audience vote for who they wanted to be the winner. The audience would have become more invested in the characters' stories, making the show a little more interesting/exciting.

[WhatIWasBorn2Do]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 1:19am

^ That would have required the character stories to be more than 1 dimensional. Every character literally had 1 purpose that was focused on. At least, thats what I took out of it...

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 2:16am

HenryTDobson, I was totally thinking the same thing earlier. I found the show pretty boring and it would liven it up to have a different winner every night.

[Owen22]

Posted: 3/14/13 at 12:47pm

Well, it was better than Kinky Boots.

[mschwager]

Posted: 3/15/13 at 1:59pm

I posted my review from the preview this Wednesday on my blog if anyone is interested in my thoughts. http://upstage-left.blogspot.com

[denali.fire]

Posted: 3/15/13 at 2:36pm

Anyone know if this is getting an OBCR and if so what label?
Thanks....I am into getting OBCR's today looking for matilda also.