IN MY LIFE REVIEWS- FIRST PREVIEW — Page 8

Six hours and 15 minutes to go!

ifit, i agree it shouldn't be on broadway. It could be if it got lots of work.

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Yeah the whole "Get a life" remark was basically uncalled for and I apologize for saying that to everyone on this board.

In response to iflitifloat's comment on my thread, I've decided to repost my review of the 2nd preview here.

"Wow! It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. However, it was quite dull. As many know, Jessica Boevers was out today. Her understudy, Courtney Balan, was pretty good, although she had a hard time staying in tune on some of ther higher-range numbers, like the title song. Chris Hanke is pretty decent, his "f**k, duck, suck" line standing out. Why they cast him when Hispanic actors play his mother and sister I'll never know. The above-all highlight is David Turner's Winston, who looks like a combination of Marilyn Manson and Alan Cumming in Cabaret. He makes the show a lot less dull, even if he's making a skeleton do a kick line. 13 year old Chiara Navarra has a great voice. Too bad that her part doesn't really fit in with the show. And then theres Michael Farina, who has a great time channeling Al Jolsen as Al-God.

The problems are all in the book. It could benefit from a substancial amount of rewrites, just to clarify everything that's going on. One second you're seeing J.T. and Jenny singing a love song to each other, the next, out of nowhere, you see Vera riding her scooter, talking to Al (which, apparently, is what God wants to be called.)

Joe Brooks' score by far is a lot better than a lot of the things we've had to listen to over the past few years. They're mostly slow pop-ballads that you'd hear on lite-fm, but they're memorable. I walked out humming the title song, after hearing it once (I turned the cd off half-way into it.)

The sets (or lack thereof) impressed me. They were all projected images and a few pieces, like the living room and the Heavenly file cabintes with projected faces. I think I saw Michael Jackson's face pass by a few times. Scary stuff. The dancing skeleton projections were a highlight by far, as was the skeleton kick-line, and the hokey J.T. rising from the bed and ascending to Heaven.

Oh, and that big lemon at the end may be saying something about what the critics will think.

Overall, it was worth the $29 (TDF) I paid."

Enjoy!

yeah its pretty terrible...which i feel bad saying because Chiara is a great friend of mine...but its not her fault! who came up with the idea, i mean is this show supposed to be like, an april fools joke?
maybe ashton kutcher planned it for Punk'd?
its jusy TERRIBLE but the cast is AMAZING!

"Broadway isn't the venue in which to mount a show that 'has heart and potential, but too many problems to fix during previews'".

But wouldn't that be censoring what can or cannot be produced on Broadway? I say, produce what you please. Let the critics and audiences decide what is worthy and what is not. An out-of-town tryout would certainly have been more beneficial, but I think anyone who has the means to produce on Broadway should have the chance. In My Life sounds better than Brooklyn, Good Vibrations and Laughing Room Only. It certainly has me interested in seeing the show, whereas I probably would not have seen the others even if I was offered comps.

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ifit? i never told people easy on th show, i said a lot of people are trashing it because it's the cool thing to do, and in fact, it's not as bad as people are making it out to be (but that i understood where they were coming from cause it has a lot of problems), so do try to not put words into my posts that i didnt say.

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I haven't stopped thinking about the show. And, after some of the conversations here and with some dear folks with whom I was at the show, I've come to realize that, in some ways, this show is beyond judgement.

Is the craft with which it was made good? No...no no no no no. But, as Margo has said, it was still thrilling. Perhaps because it is of such a singular and distinct vision and the production captures that vision completely. In that regard, it's a success. The vision is bizarre...mad, really.

But in an era of musicals that either distort their source material so much as to render the show simplistic, if bloated (WICKED), remove the bite from source material (THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE) or consdescend to the point of pissing me off (SPAMALOT), it's refreshing to see something so of a piece. It is what it is. Bizarre, odd, laughable and completely wacko...but in some ways that makes the experience of seeing it truly special.

It may not be a good show, but it was a great experience.

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This theatre season has started out really ****ty. Since July, we've had to trudge through Lennon, In the Wings, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Miracle Brothers...and now this.

I seriously wanted to kill myself. One of the worst shows I have ever seen. Makes Carrie look like Sweeney.

Anyone notice any changes since the first preview - granted its only been a day or two, but I mean have they changed anything yet? Or will they wait for the "dark days" to change stuff around?

Brooks has written a new song or two, and the cast is begging for book/structure changes -- especially a prologue - but Brooks is reluctant to make any major changes. Maybe after he gauges audience response, he'll concede.

You would think w/ pleas from the cast members he'd just give in already and get around to writing something in, he sounds stubborn. Most directors would have broughten in additional help by now.

I posted this in the Continuity thread:

I don't think it wants or needs fixing. Take out the absurdities and surreal qualities and you have an extraordinarily boring show -- an insipid love story crossed with a disease of the week movie. We've had enough boring "perfect", "logical" shows -- the Winston scenes and God on a bicycle moments are the only things that save this show from pure mediocrity. Brooks very obviously wants these bizarre elements in the mix. He's not stupid or crazy (well, not clinically anyway) -- this is all part of his vision. Smoothing it all out and making it into yet another other boy meets girl love story is precisely what he DOESN'T want, and good for him. Why be boring when you can be outrageous?

He could cut a few ballads (they all sound the same and none of them do anything to advance the plot), do some rewrites in the book to better establish characters and situations, but frankly, this isn't the kind of show that can bring in a top show doctor and be "fixed." Hiring Tommy Tune or somebody (which would never happen -- Brooks is too much of a control freak) would be a huge mistake. The more a real "pro" director would make cuts to turn this into something more conventional, the worse this show would be. To just have the show be about the love story would be bland and unwatchable.

Now if you want to cut the love story out and make the show just about God's opera, that's a show I might pay to see. Execessive, campy, nonsensical and over the top, it would go down as the most bizarre show in Broadway history. As it stands, interweaving the two plots together makes for quite an entertaining show.

Frankly, at this point, the show is "unfixable" in the traditional sense. They've cast their lot with this vision and they should keep it as is. You could add or subtract a couple of numbers and tighten here and there, but the show is what the show is and the critics are gonna have a field day with it. Mind you, as I said, this isn't a "bad show," but this slate of critics doesn't know what to do with something so completely different from anything they've ever seen before and will likely just trash it. My hope is that at least a few will recognize that the show is quite intentionally surreal and bizarre and while it has many flaws, it's also very entertaining.

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