Is the Great Comet really that confusing — Page 4

No. I haven't read War and Peace but the part they extracted is every soap opera-y affair/scandal plotline from this era of novels. If you can follow an episode of Gossip Girl or a Jane Austen novel or a paperback historical fiction romance, at least the gist of the plot should really not be a problem. My only guess is that it's confusing because it's lyrically dense or the music is offputting to some people but a lot of the songs are so repetitive, I don't know how you still couldn't catch the salient points. I do understand if people aren't quite sure of the significance of the comet and some of what Pierre is going on about but I think that's at a higher level of criticism than the main plot and you don't need to totally grasp the all the symbolism to understand the basic plot points of a story.

For people who have read War and Peace, is this 70 pages standalone, or should you really tackle the whole beast?

djoko84 said: "I found the show very confusing. I'd rather not read a synopsis of a show before seeing it."

OK, but at some point while being confused, you literally had the Playbill as a reference material, broken down by what is happening and each song called out by name.

The entire cast literally sings to you:

"And this is all in your program you are at the opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit if you wanna keep with the plot
Cuz it’s a complicated Russian novel everyone’s got nine different names
So look it up in your program
We’d appreciate it, thanks a lot"

No, I do not think it's that confusing.

For whatever it's worth, when I went back in March with my parents, the synopsis wasn't in the Playbill. I only noticed because I thought they should read it before the show and was surprised to see it missing- that said they were able to follow just fine.

No, it isn't 'that' confusing.

No, No, No! I get so tired of hearing this; it's so not confusing. There is a definite cohesion, story, song...it baffles me that people don't "get" shows at times. The performances all by Broadway (babies-debuts) are incredible.

There are those people that go to theater for reasons other than we do. Three giggling but mature (20-23) year old women behind us at Sunday/Park/George kept saying, "I don't get it" "What is the old lady doing?'' Why does he just paint" etc...that tells me why they are there...Jake. and that's fine; it's BO gold.

There are people I know that hated Hamilton.

Great Comet is a once every ten years show (or even longer). It deserves an audience; I hope it continues for a long long time.

(Gotta run; DVR is set; GC is on crappy Today show this morning).

Saw this two nights ago. Count me in as one of the many who will admit - I was confused. Not only was I confused by the plot (which is all over the place), but I was confused by the entire 2.5 hour experience. I sat there for 2.5 hours not feeling anything, and not learning anything. The visual / audio experience was very cool - and I certainly applaud many aspects of the execution (especially from this winning cast of fully committed actors - though the quality of the singing was questionable at times, imo, from many of the principle performers). But, there's no show there for me to follow, and no dramatic reason for me to follow it. No amount of egg shakers and free peirogies is gonna help me with being emotionally invested in these characters. At no point did I feel invested, and I even found myself dozing off at times. I think this is the reason many audience members (including myself) are confused. If a show lacks the ability to get me to invest emotionally, I am not sitting at the edge of my seat, waiting for the next bit of story that will forward the plot and tell me more about these characters. Instead, when the story line is lacking, I am being distracted by musicians / singers behind me and egg shakers being tossed at me. I know this show has many fans, and I wish I saw what they saw in this, Just not my cup of tea.

BobbyD3 said: "It is confusing....and unnecessarily so. The concept is brilliant, the staging is fun, the set and lights are dynamic - but the book sucks. If you need a cliff notes in your playbill you overreached.

It was like the musical version of Medieval Times - a slew of interestingly dressed people with a ton of energy yelling at me to be have fun.



"

I kept thinking to myself after the show: the technical, spacial, visual and musical execution of this is brilliant. If the show also had a tight, clear libretto, it would be revolutionary theater. What the team did with the space and the "how" of the story-telling is to be commended. But, they missed the mark on the most important aspect of theater - the story.

Also, do people know Sondheim himself awarded Comet the Richard Rodgers Award? I don't think he does that just for the sets...

I don't think "I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters/story" is a valid critique of the objective value of something. I was emotionally invested in Great Comet. Not so much Dear Evan Hansen. I don't think that's a success on the part of the former or a failure from the latter, but rather just my own preferences.

Seriously. I'd be less surprised if someone said they found Rent confusing.