LENNON Reviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 3:11pm

Talkin Broadway is up -- and NEGATIVE ("scathing" is perhaps a better word):

"Well, Lennon has finally opened at the Broadhurst. If this is fixed, I'd hate to have seen it when it was broken.

Lennon is the most criminally boring jukebox "musical" to open to date, utterly sanitizing and whitewashing its subject's life so as to remove from him any and all controversy and rebellious fire. (This is likely due, in no small part, to the close involvement of Lennon's fiercely protective widow, Yoko Ono.) 27 songs that Lennon wrote or famously performed have been shoehorned into a show-biz saga so bland and non-specific, but for a few specific names it could be about anyone.

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What happens here is what has to happen with jukebox "musicals": As the songs weren't written for dramatic situations, they become either diversions or extraneous theatrical black holes from which useful information, liveliness, and even good, old-fashioned entertainment have no hope of escaping. That makes Lennon no more effective than constantly switching channels between a VH1 Lennon tribute and Beatles night on American Idol.

That Scardino is out of his element and out of his mind is obvious when the show starts, and the production seems more about John Arnone's non-committal industrial set and its three towering projection screens showing a nonstop stream of images. Already Lennon himself isn't a concern, but common sense - let alone respect for the audience - is discarded altogether when the cast's four women try (and fail) to recreate the excitement of the Beatles' now-legendary performance of "Twist and Shout" on The Ed Sullivan Show.

If that number - equally famous in television history and music history - can't fly, what can? The answer, of course, is nothing, though there are plenty of desperation attempts......
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Finally, there's Marcy Harriell, the only thing about Lennon that seems to belong in a Broadway theater. She's an unstoppable burst of focused creative energy, and wakes up the show (and the audience) with her every appearance, whether as a hyperactive Elton John leaping on the piano when playing a gig with Lennon or simply writhing around onstage singing a searing, soulful rendition of "Woman Is the n* of the World."

Harriell should play Lennon, Yoko, and everyone else; anything else is wasting our time.
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If you aren't already an aficionado about Lennon's life, you'll learn nothing; if you aren't already a devotee, you'll feel nothing.

Well, that's not entirely true. I did feel something, specifically the desire to travel back to the halcyon days of late 1966, when I could have swelled with respect for producer David Merrick, who closed the previewing musical Breakfast at Tiffany's because it just wasn't good enough. Lennon also isn't good enough. It isn't good. It doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "good." And yet it's open, for the same reason that garbage shows like Mamma Mia!, Good Vibrations, and All Shook Up opened: The producers don't really care. So why should they give us any reason to care about Lennon?



http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Lennon.html

Updated On: 8/14/05 at 03:11 PM

[Plum]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 3:16pm

Oh, ouch. That's Brooklyn-level bile.

[ponine24601]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 3:21pm

oh man. that's tough. well, at least Marcy got wonderful recognition.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 3:35pm

Murray has a particular enmity towards jukebox musicals (which I share), so his review may or may not be in line with some of those to follow.

Updated On: 8/14/05 at 03:35 PM

[tmz814]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 3:38pm

ouch!!! that's all I'm gonna say

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 3:40pm

My favorite line:

"Isn't Yoko a part of all of us, too? Or something?"

Is this whole season going to be full of ego trips?

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 4:10pm

WOW. I can't wait to read the rest of these reviews.

[TennesseeTwang]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 4:38pm

That review was mean. But dang, if it wasn't a helluva entertaining read.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 4:41pm

very accurate review. can't wait to read brantley's.

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 4:55pm

If I was as bitter about Jukebox Musicals as Murray (and I do agree with him wholeheartedly about the trend) - my review would read just as bitchy. But hell...who care - not only is he spot on, but its one of the most enertaining reads in AGES from a critic.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 5:06pm

Broadwayworld is Positive:

"Not exactly a musical, definitely not a revue and certainly not a concert, Lennon combines the playful anarchy of the avant-guarde with the structured story-telling of musical theatre in an immensely entertaining and informative show that positively bursts with both silliness and sincere emotions while examining an artist who tried to use his celebrity to help save the world.
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Although Don Scardino is credited as director and bookwriter, it has been common knowledge among the theatre community that John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, has maintained creative control over the production. In an interview with BroadwayWorld.com's Robert Diamond, cast member Terrence Mann stated, "She’s been the final arbiter of everything that goes up on stage." And it's the awareness that you're watching his story from the perspective of his romantic soul mate and artistic partner that makes Lennon such a unique and often fascinating experience.
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Lennon, of course, does not have a happy ending, but it is a hopeful one, presented with taste and dignity. The closing moments may have you smiling through your tears. And perhaps imagining a better world.


http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=4372

[AnotherDay46]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 5:15pm

Well that shows a little hope for the show...I guess.

But I agree, the first one was indeed an interesting read. I just hope I semi-enjoy it when I see it this month.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 5:16pm

I doubt the rest of the reviews will be like that one.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 5:20pm

I'm so happy BWAYWORLD gave it such a positive review.

I have to disagree with TALKINBROADWAY. This is far from a jukebox musical. It's much more than that. It's so biopic and there is no story forced out of this music. If anything, the music is forced into the story and done so beautifully and seemlessly.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 5:27pm

BBC NEWS is positive:

"Lennon: The Musical has taken a long and winding road to Broadway, but this celebration of the life of the legendary ex-Beatle has benefited from the detour.

Director Don Scardino rewrote key parts of the show after it was panned by critics in April.

What has emerged is more than a "jukebox musical" in the vein of Mamma Mia (Abba) but something that aims to illuminate the "spirit and meaning" of John Lennon's epic life"
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"A Lennon musical with hardly a Beatles song in earshot, with nine people playing the lead - it sounds like just the sort of concept of which the singer himself would have approved."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4150222.stm

[broadway betty]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 5:27pm

That was painfully funny! Murray is very entertaining.

I'm not sure how I'll feel about the show but I'm dying to see Julia and Marcy. I just don't know.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 6:16pm

Theatremania is Mixed-to-Negative:

What can be said in favor of Lennon is that Scardino does a slick job as director, moving the show right along. (Choreographer Joseph Malone's standard routines are no big help.) Upon a cluttered stage, set designer John Arnone has positioned three screens that display any number of distracting projections; lighting designer Natasha Katz and sound designer Bobby Aitken have also done their utmost to make the show look as flashy as possible. Scardino directs an accomplished, nine-person ensemble, all of whom sooner or later impersonate Lennon (often in granny glasses) but only one of whom appears as Yoko; that's the pretty Julie Danao-Salkin, who smiles more often than the woman she's playing habitually does. Will Chase, Chuck Cooper, Mandy Gonzalez, Marcy Harriell, Chad Kimball, Terrence Mann, Julia Murney, and Michael Potts, dressed in period-familiar costumes by Jane Greenwood, toil like yoked oxen and sing with amazing gusto; but their unflagging energy isn't enough to convince anyone of this musical's enduring worth or to make its attempts at turning Lennon's anti-war statements into outcries over the Iraq conflict seem like anything more than cheap gestures.
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/6513

[shira467]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 6:46pm

Where's Brantley's? Ah, so impatient!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 6:47pm

It's still WAY early. I wouldn't expect Brantley's to be up for hours

[StarbuckQAF]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 7:03pm

I think, even by the reviews we've seen so far, that opinions are going to differ GREATLY (positive, negative, mixed...) --

If anything, it should be evident to people by this that they need to to go to see "Lennon" to make their OWN decisions... They could end up disliking it, but they could ALSO end up adoring it like many people have.

Just a thought.

[Thenardier]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 7:17pm

Of course the BBC is positive.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 7:28pm

What does THAT mean, Thernardier? Just because Lennon was from the UK doesn't mean that the BBC has to love it.

[StarbuckQAF]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 7:45pm

seriously... Does that mean that the BBC isn't a legitimate review?... I think if anything, the British press would be a LOT more critical about the show's portrayal of John, since he's so much a part of their social history.

Good reviews = a good thing... Isn't that how is should be? Why appear eager for bad press?

[TennesseeTwang]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 8:01pm

But strange enough, I've seen it suggested numerous times on this very board, that people should like the show simply because it's about John Lennon. They feel the quality of the show itself is secondary.

[gymman]

Posted: 8/14/05 at 8:04pm

Right you are, TT; I posted something negative about the SHOW, and got accused because I did not like John Lennon and his music. Geeezzzz....