It's A Lemon: In My Life Reviews - Brantley's Included!- Page 2

[bythesword84]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 9:41pm

This 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.

[nomdeplume]

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

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:12pm

Anyone else finding it HILARIOUS that Brantley is comparing this to SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER from The Producers. Too funny.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:16pm

ljay-my thoughts exactly! To be called a "real life 'Springtime For Hitler'" by Ben Brantley is just...ouch.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:31pm

Brantley must read BWW. He stole my signature line!

[Unknown User]

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 )

[Dollypop]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:41pm

DRACULA: the musical didn't fare very well with the critics, either!

[Phantom2]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:43pm

Franky, I don't give a damn what the critics say. I'm still gonna see this show.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:46pm

The 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.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:49pm

OK, 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.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 10:49pm

I liked Christopher J. Hanke in FAME and I liked Jason Wooten on the demo CD so I am going to check it out.

[Tiny-Toon]

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

[Auggie27]

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.

Updated On: 10/20/05 at 11:00 PM

[nomdeplume]

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.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:06pm

You know what I say to people that trash a show without seeing it for themselves? GO SUCK A LEMON!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:08pm

?

I've seen it.

I thought it was funny.

[Tiny-Toon]

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

[Phantom2]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:10pm

nomdeplume- I wasn't talkin' to you!

[mominator]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:11pm

Can not wait to see what FB will do to it.

[wickedwitchofthechest]

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?

[ljay889]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:39pm

"very nice reviews so far"

um. where?

[Tiny-Toon]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 11:40pm

When I said "very nice" I didn't mean good.

[ZONEACE]

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?

[my2cents]

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.)

[spintoboy]

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)