It's A Lemon: In My Life Reviews - Brantley's Included!- Page 2
It's A Lemon: In My Life Reviews - Brantley's Included!
Ben Brantley on In My Life#25
Posted: 10/20/05 at 9:41pmThis show deserves every pan that it gets. I honestly hope someone points out how annoying the little girl is because someone needs to let it be known.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
Ben Brantley on In My Life#26
Posted: 10/20/05 at 9:51pm
Ben Brantley drowning in a sea of syrup...
Now there's a visual for actors in this town...
Updated On: 10/20/05 at 09:51 PM
Ben Brantley on In My Life#27
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:12pmAnyone else finding it HILARIOUS that Brantley is comparing this to SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER from The Producers. Too funny.
Ben Brantley on In My Life#28
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:16pmljay-my thoughts exactly! To be called a "real life 'Springtime For Hitler'" by Ben Brantley is just...ouch.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
Ben Brantley on In My Life#29
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:31pmBrantley must read BWW. He stole my signature line!
Joined: 12/31/69
Ben Brantley on In My Life#30
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:35pm
I'm just replying to this thread so I can have all responses and awful pans sent to my e-mail box. This is too entertaining to miss. Not since Dance of the Vampires...
(oh, and if anybody's interested and didn't see it yet, http://www.broadwayabridged.com/scripts/inmylife.shtml )
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
Ben Brantley on In My Life#31
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:41pmDRACULA: the musical didn't fare very well with the critics, either!
Ben Brantley on In My Life#32
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:43pmFranky, I don't give a damn what the critics say. I'm still gonna see this show.
"I broke the boundaries. It wasn't cool to be in plays- especially if you were in sports & I was in both." - Ashton Kutcher
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/10/03
Ben Brantley on In My Life#33
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:46pmThe only reason to see *this* show is because all of the things that the critics are saying are absolutely true. Hard as it is to process, the show lives up to the reviews.
Ben Brantley on In My Life#34
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:49pmOK, I don't think I've ever read anything as funny as the Broadway Abridged version of this show! And I haven't even seen it.
Ben Brantley on In My Life#35
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:49pmI liked Christopher J. Hanke in FAME and I liked Jason Wooten on the demo CD so I am going to check it out.
"I broke the boundaries. It wasn't cool to be in plays- especially if you were in sports & I was in both." - Ashton Kutcher
Ben Brantley on In My Life#36
Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:53pm
Back from Opening Night!
Very nice reviews so far..
NY1 Review now up..
http://real.ny1.com:8080/ramgen/real3/0013A06D_051020_164008hi.rm
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
not a CARRIE, but a wanna-be#37
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:00pm
The Brantley review proves what has been floating through the Shubert Alley ether: this isn't the new CARRIE, because you can't want to be CARRIE to be CARRIE. It has to happen accidentally, like all freaks of nature. Or complex, flawed art.
CARRIE took risks and at its core it was daring. And primal. And because for all its ludicrous style and bizarre tone mistakes, it had a relationship -- the marginalized, damaged Carrie and the abusive, frightened, clingy Margaret -- that was specific and universal, true of all teens and their controlling mothers. The authors found something profound, disturbing, and for the ages in that small story. No amount of camp sensibility about teen angst and getting laid at the drive-in could fully upstage the inherent integrity in the operatic sequences created for the symbiosis between mom/daughter. IN MY LIFE doesn't have that core integrity -- truth -- and yet tries to pretend, from the outset, that it's present. The chasm between the shows remains huge -- one is an unforgettable wildly miscalculated flop that harbored the spark of true genius; one is a forgettable overproduced mis-fire that mistakenly assumed CARRIE-like exccess and earnestness would earn it a cult follwing, in real time. Won't happen.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
Ben Brantley on In My Life#38
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:03pm
That Broadway Abridged is hilarious; I didn't know they existed.
This show is a must see; I wanna go again.
I just hope it lasts a while.
Ben Brantley on In My Life#39
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:06pmYou know what I say to people that trash a show without seeing it for themselves? GO SUCK A LEMON!
"I broke the boundaries. It wasn't cool to be in plays- especially if you were in sports & I was in both." - Ashton Kutcher
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
Ben Brantley on In My Life#41
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:08pm
Talkin Broadway is up, as an open letter to Joseph Brooks, whose new musical In My Life just opened at the Music Box.
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/InMyLife.html
Updated On: 10/20/05 at 11:08 PM
Ben Brantley on In My Life#42
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:10pmnomdeplume- I wasn't talkin' to you!
"I broke the boundaries. It wasn't cool to be in plays- especially if you were in sports & I was in both." - Ashton Kutcher
Ben Brantley on In My Life#43
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:11pmCan not wait to see what FB will do to it.
Leading Actor Joined: 8/13/04
Ben Brantley on In My Life#44
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:13pm
"The neurological and psychological tics of the show's romantic leads rest upon them like lampshades on the heads of tipsy party guests."
The mere joy I got from reading its reviews make this musical, in my opinion, completely worth it. I'm so disappointed that, if there is justice in the world, this show probably will not be running when next I am able to make it to New York.
As regards the lemon: Joe Brooks' octopus-like grip on the show did not extend to the set design, correct? Could it be the poor fellow's cry for help?
Ben Brantley on In My Life#46
Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:40pmWhen I said "very nice" I didn't mean good.
Ben Brantley on In My Life#47
Posted: 10/21/05 at 12:04am
Now, it might just me, but Brantley's review doesn't read like a straight pan. It reads like more of a "i don't know how to review this show so I'll just tell you about the bizarrity of it" review.
also "Mr. Turner, whose Winston would have fitted right into 'Taboo'" Is that grammatically incorrect?
Featured Actor Joined: 10/18/05
Ben Brantley on In My Life#48
Posted: 10/21/05 at 12:06am
I love how NY1 says that the worst musicals in recent history are Brooklyn and Good Vibrations, and not In my Life. What does everyone else think? I thought "BKLYN" (still cant get over the fact they used that in print to sell to Iowans and foreigners) was better then Good Vibes wich was thw worst thing I ever saw on a stage. ("Grease on surfboards", what Grease? a bad hs production of it maybe.)
Chorus Member Joined: 10/14/05
Another review online#49
Posted: 10/21/05 at 12:15am
From Variety:
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117928627?categoryid=1265&cs=1
(Makes Ben Brantley's look like a rave)
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