Here's the review/video from NY 1.
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/Living/theater_reviews.jsp "...like its equally tacky, boneheaded predecessors, "Dance of the Vampires" and "Dracula," "Lestat" takes the stuff of horror movies and turns it into a musical that, yes, totally sucks.
The Review:
When a movie does killer box office, Hollywood studio heads try to crank out a bunch of imitations. But in the bizarro-world of Broadway, different rules apply. Apparently, if producers watch a concept flop not once but twice, they just gotta to try it again.
Case in point: "Lestat," the third vampire musical in as many years. And like its equally tacky, boneheaded predecessors, "Dance of the Vampires" and "Dracula," "Lestat" takes the stuff of horror movies and turns it into a musical that, yes, totally sucks.
Obviously the producers of this $12 million disaster believed the synergy of Anne Rice's beloved characters plus Elton John's soft-rock score would be enough to make a hit. But they forgot a little something called story. Lestat's book, by Linda Woolverton, is unfocused, bombastic and wildly nonsensical at times.
Based on Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" books, the story takes place in Paris, New Orleans and throughout Europe over the course of about a century, but Woolverton never finds a way to weave all those plot elements into a coherent story.
There are some fine actors whose talents are completely wasted here. As Lestat, Hugh Panaro strikes the right note of tortured, romantic heroism, but his lines and lyrics never succeed in establishing a compelling persona. As Lestat's dying mother, who finds newfound power as a vampire queen, Carolee Carmello has a rich, belting voice and offers welcome flashes of comedy but again, her character has nowhere to go.
Only in Act II, when the scene shifts to 19th-century New Orleans, does the story pick up. But by that point, you¹ve already stopped caring about who's bitten whom and which bloodsucker you¹re supposed to root for.
The production lacks humor, shocks, sex and gore. Oh, but there's plenty of third-rate music. The 15 or so Elton John tunes blur into one forgettable mush of 80s-style pop without a single catchy melody. Finally, the lyrics, by longtime John collaborator Bernie Taupin are like the demented diary entries of a goth teenager.
Anne Rice's novels, with their erotic and tragic undercurrents, could conceivably inspire an interesting play or even the libretto for a new opera, but in rock-musical form her characters come across as wooden and their struggles like campy hysterics.
"Lestat" may not be the worst vampire musical to swoop down on Broadway but let's hope it's the last, and this undead trend stays in its coffin, never to haunt our dreams again.
- David Cote,
Time Out New York
"I've lost everything! Luis, Marty, my baby with Chris, Chris himself, James. All I ever wanted was love." --Sheridan Crane "Passions"
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"Housework is like bad sex. Every time I do it, I swear I'll never do it again til the next time company comes."--"Lulu"
from "Can't Stop The Music"
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"When the right doors didn't open for him, he went through the wrong ones" - "Sweet Bird of Youth"
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"Passions" is uncancelled! See NBC.com for more info.