MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET Reviews- Page 3

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 12:06pm

Hey, 'Ecstasy and Wonder Bread' was excellent, the "Tale of Two Cities" of gay porn start bios.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 12:12pm

SHOCKED by the positive reviews. Hunter Foster was horrible, the book was horrible. Between songs, all I could do was look at the Playbill to see how many songs were left. Unless it's changed, you don't even realize the show is over, it just blacks out after the picture and there's the curtain call.

Obviously the critics were in love with the performers and the music as much as I was, because when they sang it was stunning - but hardly enough to forgive some of the abominable dialogue and structure of the story.

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 12:20pm

Very surprised that this show got so many positive reviews, then should not be too surprised after all, especially with Isherwood reviewing, it's such a big treat for him to review a major Broadway production that he always awards positives.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 12:30pm

I'm almost in awe of what a moron Isherwood has become. He was my favorite critic a few years ago.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 1:27pm

http://www.didhelikeit.com/shows/million-dollar-quartet-review.html


Very good for them!

[allofmylife]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 1:40pm

Ripping this show a new one would be like kicking a pet dog. What would it prove? The Times and the other critics are saving their powder for shows with artistic pretentions.

Besides, as everyone says, this will be the year's Burger King of shows.

[Patash]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 10:01pm

"I found the plot to be very manufactured and repetitive at times..."


You mean like LIFE? It is a true story, you know, so it is less "manufactured" than most musicals -- I guess many would rather they abandon the true story and facts and invent something more exciting -- say a gay relationship between Cash and Lewis, or perhaps a car could come crashing through the studio wall and we wait to see if Elvis lives after being pinned to the wall?

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 10:02pm

What if the lighting fixture crashed to the ground?

[gcontini2]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 11:17pm

"...It is a true story, you know..."

Plenty of true stories are not interesting enough to put on stage... just a thought

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 11:30pm

True story: today, I woke up late, went on BWW for a bit, did some work from home, went to rehearsal, took a lovely walk, red a great book, and made dinner. Musical material? Well, if it's true, it must be.

Seriously?

I don't demand that dramatists create a false back-story relating to historical events for the sake of interesting theatre (though it should be said that this has worked in many instances--The Crucible, anybody?). I do, however, demand that a writer create compelling characters (the MDQ characters should have been compelling, but the book material was so weak that I just wanted them all to shut up) and thrust them into interesting situations so that I, as an audience member, care about what is happening in front of me.

I understand that MDQ chronicles an event that actually happened, but historical accuracy (of which this show cannot even rightly boast) does not always make for successful theatre.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 4/12/10 at 11:49pm

I love your story! ...that part about making dinner cries out for a good dream ballet

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/13/10 at 12:53am

It was a moment in history that is obviously beyond some people.

The two of you aren't interesting enough for anyone to care, but the characters in this show are legends.

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 4/13/10 at 7:35am

The moment is not beyond me.

I understand that, HISTORICALLY, this musical's circumstances are extraordinary. DRAMATICALLY, however, they are not; they fail to elicit extraordinary behavior from the characters who are themselves historically compelling figures.

The writers of this show failed to make interesting history into interesting theatre.

[gcontini2]

Posted: 4/13/10 at 8:08am

I have to agree with aspiringactress. The meeting of the 4 legends is simply the "inciting incident"...nice that it's true, but it should be the starting-off point for a STORY ....This is only the circumstance for a story...a one-line interesting factoid that the 4 legends were in the same room one night.... yes, and? what else happened next? oh, nothing? (besides an excuse for a music review)...

Being true or based-on true is not the problem...But you need an interesting story to happen on stage for the additional 90-160 minutes...As, for ex. Titanic, Jersey Boys, Parade, A Class Act, Fiorello, Evita, Will Rogers Follies did, interesting true is not just a one-line factoid


Updated On: 4/13/10 at 08:08 AM

[Patash]

Posted: 4/13/10 at 11:35pm

It isn't often that I feel my (old) age is an issue in my appreciation and understanding of shows, but I'm just dumbfounded that so many have no appreciation or understanding of what is perhaps the single most exciting night that ever happened in the history of rock and roll. Boring? My guess is that your lives are even more so. Characters not "worth caring about"? These were four of the greatest music legends of all times and the fact that some of you want some bizarre improvised story line because you aren't happy with such an amazing true story just helps to explain the reason so many people don't have an attention span longer than 15 minutes.

Not worth a show being written about it? Next we'll be reading comments about a documentary about the Revolutionary War and people stating, "I think they could have improved on the outcome" or one about the Civil War with the comment, "oh, it was just so predictable".

[gcontini2]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 12:20am

Patash, perhaps you are missing the point that several people are making here?

This is NOT about appreciating or not appreciating the event or those rock legends themselves...No one has said that at all. What they have indicated is that the telling of that event may not have been done in the most interesting way...

To demonstrate with your own examples: There was once this historical event called the Civil War. There have been lots of books and films that use that event as the basis for a story (the book/movie Gone With the Wind, for ex.) ....Some story versions making use of that event have been successful; others, such as the Broadway musical "The Civil War" - using the same event - have not.

By the same token, there were a series of events that made up the American Revolution....Using just a small part of those events became the basis for telling a more personalized and dramatized story that became a Broadway musical called "1776". That seems to have been successful.

In both cases of these shows, it was not the events themselves but a particular version of storytelling about them that made successful or unsuccessful (or, if you prefer, interesting and not-so-interesting) musicals on stage.

My opinion is that MDQ is ultimately just not very inspired storytelling of an (otherwise) interesting event.
Updated On: 4/14/10 at 12:20 AM

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 1:28am

We get it.

You didn't like it...

[gcontini2]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 6:43am

theatrediva - it's awfully cute of of you to keep making snarky little comments from the sidelines about a few of us in this discussion... but I never said I hate the show. We're talking about an aspect of its structure and how that was done... Updated On: 4/14/10 at 06:43 AM

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 7:36am

Those of you making this discussion about age or our appreciation for for important figures in Rock and Roll history are entirely misguided.

Nobody is denying that the event being considered in MDQ has historical relevance. What I AM denying is that the writers of MDQ have successfully dramatized that historically relevant event.

Patash, nowhere did I state that I wanted MDQ's writers to create an "improvised story line"; in fact, I'm not even sure what you mean my "improvised" in that context, but I will assume you mean "not historically accurate" because the discussion at hand is about whether historical events NECESSARILY make for good theatre.

I am arguing that they do not; while I APPRECIATE the historical significance of the event considered in MDQ, I felt nothing for any of the characters onstage, and so, for me, the evening was DRAMATICALLY unsuccessful. Also, although (or perhaps, because) I was familiar with the event going in, this treatment of the material did not manage to hold my attention.

I do not go to the theater for a history lesson. I evaluate a piece of theatre based on what happens IN THE THEATER. And, regardless of these people's or this event's importance as a piece of music history, I found the evening I had in the theatre to be boring, uninspiring, and--most problematically--unenlightening. Why choose to dramatize history, if not to bring to light something previously unconsidered in the historical figures we all think we know already?

Finally, those of you championing this musical's historical accuracy as the basis of its merit (and questioning mine and others' appreciation for the event itself) MUST know that the writers have taken several liberties with history in creating the show, so it's a little disingenuous to act as thought we all walk out of the theatre having witnessed a totally accurate rehashing of a famous night (and thank god for that...that's not what I'm arguing in favor of).

[gcontini2]

Posted: 4/14/10 at 8:27am

Also well said, Aspiringactress. Agreed.