KPOP Reviews — Page 4

All Jesse had to say was “the lighting was so bright it made me squint” (wince the criticism is based on his viewing experience of the show).

But like…what if it’s just a bad show? The opening number rhymes “this is my Korea” with “this is my story-uh.” The book is, at best, inept. There are some very fun numbers, yes, but if I had to watch that stage roll forward or back one more time, I was going to scream. I was really excited to see a show about K-pop. The genre feels ripe for dramatic treatment. But woo, this was just. Not. It. The last thirty minutes, when it finally ditched the pretense of telling a story (or a ragtag assemblage of stories), it got really fun. But the rest of it is such a painful slog.

everythingtaboo said: "That said, couldn't anyone at the Times been like, "Hey, so this phrasing? Considering the show, maybe find a replacement?" I didn't even think of it when I read it, but I'm not the audience who could be offended by it. And they should've thought of that."

This.

Luna was out again tonight. I wish I'd seen her as Amy is incredibly talented but she just doesn't have that same KPOP idol look or vibe.

As for the lighting, maybe it depends on where you sit but I assume a critic would be in the center where I was and I had no issues. I was far more blinded by the lights at The Father and there have been other shows with far more jarring strobe lighting.

I don't know if word of mouth lowered my expectations but the show was much better than what I was anticipating. The book is serviceable. I can see the issues it should be talking about but they're largely unexplored to focus on the easy villain of the director and MwE's pretty basic struggles with fame. Those more interesting issues are still there but it's like the audience doesn't get access to them. When MwE is being pushed to redo the choreo over and over, I saw the play that could be there and they are so close with the boy band subplot actually touching on identity issues. But the actors are mainly carrying those scenes, not the writing. Also, jokes mainly land because of line delivery.

I simultaneously felt immersed in the Asian-ness of KPOP and also like the show didn't want to truly go deep or expose community or industry specific issues. The book does feel weak and sanitized in the scenes with MwE's boyfriend and when Artemis finally gets a scene of their own... that dialogue could have been from a Disney Channel Original Movie. I loved them shutting up the director (who I loathed) but the book scenes that should have given us more insight into the characters... didn't. Personally, I still don't think the show was bad, it just felt very off-Broadway but in a different space with slightly higher production values. (For example, a lot of the costume design was solid but some of those fabrics looked cheap... especially in an intimate theater. I don't know what track she was on but Marina Kondo definitely got the costumes of the least-favored member of the group.) The performers are much much better than they appear in some of the press footage/TV appearances. It was not a mess. It gave me things to think about, but it didn't say very many of those things out loud. Jully does her damnedest and Kevin is so dynamic as a performer. The cast is strong even if most of them don't have individual moments to shine. There's a lot to like. It could have had more depth but I didn't find it tiresome to sit through. I only wish they'd freed themselves from Harry earlier.

I think you have to read the "squint inducing" comment in the context of the whole review, which finds nothing praiseworthy about the show. It's entirely within Green's prerogative to say that he didn't like the show, or that the show didn't meet his expectations. But as the other reviews demonstrate, there's something to like about the show. An honest critic should review all aspects of a show, both its brilliant moments and its blemishes.

I had to look hard to find anything remotely resembling praise in Green's review of KPOP. And really, found nothing. Even mildly positive comments are backhanded, in some way or another:

"Only among the members of F8 does the conflict feel fresh and worthy of exploration in song ... [t]he songs, unfortunately, do not take up the challenge of investigating that issue."

"[I]t's hard to say whether Brad's "Halfway" and MwE's "Mute Bird" -- acoustic songs simply staged and feelingly delivered -- are actually lovely or merely a relief."

Contrast Green's KPOP review to his review of other less-well-received shows.

Only Gold: "[I]t is so pretty to look at, and so musically dreamy. . . . [T]he shows, essentially dance revues, use the lyrics for mood and just a suggestion of plot."

Almost Famous: Praise for "Morocco," and Solea Pfeiffer's portrayal of Penny as "dreamy but slippery." Still, with this one, a lot of backhanded or conditional praise.

Funny Girl (original): Beanie Feldstein is "good. She's funny enough in places, and immensely likable always."

Paradise Square: The dancing explores, "far more subtly than the book, the place where appropriation and joyful sharing meet. . . . Kalukango . . . somehow alchemizes the remarkable difficulties of the role into her characterization, making it incredible in the good way instead of the bad."

The gist of Green's review is, "If you don't like K-Pop (the genre) and/or if you don't speak Korean, you won't really like this show." Which is quite unfair. I know folks who saw and liked the show, despite not liking K-Pop or speaking Korean. I speak Korean, but don't particularly like K-Pop; while there are moments that may resonate differently if you understand Korean, the thrust of the show can be well understood even if you don't speak a word of the language. Whatever you think of the book (and I agree that it's the weakest part of the show, though now serviceable unlike earlier iterations in previews), there's deliberateness in how the characters speak in Korean, so that the message is understood even by those who don't speak the language.

Quite frankly, while I could usually stomach Green's reviews (and agreed with many points therein), I stopped taking them seriously after his, "LOL &Juliet is fun!" review. That particular show, while very likeable, has quite a few warts -- warts that Green's review glosses over. ("I could have used a bit more brain, though," may apply not only to &Juliet, but perhaps his reviews as well.)

I literally don't speak a single word of Korean, and I loved it. People are so stupid. I just can't.

HeyMrMusic said: "KPOP Producers Respond to New York Times Review Requesting Apology From Jesse Green

This is a bold and eloquent letter. Good for the producers for standing up for their company. I think this is a good read for people here who post every day asking when the show is closing, for all the silent readers liking people's posts about their general dislike of the show's existence."

Bold letter indeed, although I think it’s a bit of a leap to suggest that the comment without English supertitle, the audience wouldn’t enjoy as much is the same as “a Broadway show valid only if it is centered on and catering exclusively to a white, English-speaking audience”

I don’t think it’s that big of a leap. That’s the inherent connotation. He literally said, “you will have a harder time enjoying this show [if you don’t know Korean],” which is false. I know zero Korean and don’t really listen to K-pop in everyday life, and I had a blast. So many people are unknowingly othering this show, and it’s really telling.

They had the supertitles when I saw it early in previews. I believe they were always integrated in the RTMIS videos.

Forgive my ignorance as I don't typically read professional reviews. I've found that as I am in a completely contrary demographic to most of them, my opinions rarely align with theirs.

But was it really Green's job to mention anywhere in his review that 18 AAPI broadway debuts were being made and that Helen Park was the first asian woman to compose a broadway score? It would've been nice if he acknowledged these accomplishments, but was it really that disrespectful to withold it? Felt a little nitpicky to me, but don't get me wrong. I still stand with the producers and actors that spoke out and overall think Green's article was careless and needs acknowledgement.

(EDIT: grammar)

Updated On: 12/3/22 at 01:24 AM

It's a shame that any of the actors read the review, good or bad.

Green wrote an extremely fair review, and it's "poor loser" behavior of the cast and –– especially –– the producers to be criticizing it in this way, primarily based on the phrasing of one sentence. Green also knows his audience: the reader, not the artist; considering the NYC population is less than 11% Asian, Green is writing for a mostly non-Asian theatergoing bloc. It's a critic's job to speak their own opinion, and that's what Green has done here.

This all reeks of a convenient way for them to blame the show's indisputable financial failure (and in some ways, creative failure) on this review, when anyone who follows the grosses knows this show was DOA. It's also worth noting that there are white people in nearly all key positions on this production: both lead producers, the co-composer/lyricist, the director & choreographer, the general manager, 4 of the designers, and much of the marketing/press/ad team. That all makes the breathless manufacturing of controversy even sillier.

Critics & journalists being attacked is nothing new and this perpetuates the MAGA-adjacent view that "mainstream journalism" is bad. Hopefully Green will wear it with a badge of honor, move on, and not engage any further with the matter.

For what it's worth, I'm a fan of the show, and I think the "squint-inducing" comment, while not itself strong evidence of malicious racism, should absolutely have been caught by an editor before publication. That said, I do think that the use of Korean in the song lyrics does undermine the dramatic goals of the show to a certain degree (at least for a general, non-Korean-speaking Broadway audience).

I had no problem with the use of Korean in the book scenes, because the meaning was virtually always clear from context. I suspect the song lyrics probably work the same way on paper, with the English and Korean lines complementing each other, but in performance that goes out the window. Pop lyrics can be difficult to decipher on a first listen even if they're in a language I understand; if a significant portion of them are in a foreign language, that makes it all the more difficult. (More than once, on a repeat listen to a song from this show, I've realized that a passage I previously tuned out because I had assumed it was Korean had actually been in English the whole time.)

This is a shame, because I think the lyrics contain some interesting thematic material - for example, the disturbing irony of 13-year-old MwE doing a routine to the creepy lyrics of "Wind-Up Doll". For me, this is what really makes the show "musical theatre" as opposed to a concert or a play with songs.

I don't know if there's any solution to this, some magic ratio of authenticity to comprehensibility that would have made the show work for everyone. But I think it's a reasonable topic when critically discussing this show.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: “Critics & journalists being attacked is nothing new and this perpetuates the MAGA-adjacent view that "mainstream journalism" is bad. Hopefully Green will wear it with a badge of honor, move on, and not engage any further with the matter."

Theatre criticism isn’t quite the same as journalism because it requires a heavy dose of opinion. And your likening of the criticism of Green’s review here to the “MAGA-adjacent view that ‘mainstream journalism’ is bad” stinks of false equivalence.

No one is attacking “just the facts” reporting here; Jesse Green is paid for his opinion. But there’s a difference between weighing the merits and pushing your thumb down on one side of the scale. That Green’s review is perceived as doing the latter, and not the former, is fair criticism, regardless of whether you agree with it.

Kad said: "And what if Green were a massive K-Pop fan (a laughable notion, but go with it), who gave the show a pass because he was enamored enough by the genre to let the production's deficits slide? Would that not be putting a thumb on the scale? Yet, I doubt he would be criticized."

You’re right that you probably wouldn’t see the same level of outrage. But I would certainly criticize a cupcake review. (Sadly, I’m not in the business of critiquing theatre reviews, as there is absolutely no market for that.)