NBC will present THE GRINCH musical this December starring Morrison- Page 5

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 1:56pm

The reviews for this have been devastatingly bad.

[Sunny11]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 3:14pm

Some of those criticisms where unnecessarily personal towards Matthew Morrison. They just used his role on Glee to attack him. That show ended almost 6 years ago.

One countered their own argument the very next sentence saying that he didn’t make his own interpretation and then going on to describe his interpretation , like Elvis. Also there was the critic that that he was between over the top ( Carrey) and understated Cumberbatch)” which means ... normal!

Also the Grinch wasn’t “comedic” originally. I grew up thinking of grinch as a straight up a- hole. It was a reasonable choice for Morrison to play it seriously where he did.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 3:29pm

I enjoyed the scenes with the Whos but the rest was just not good. Denis seemed half interested for the most part, BooBoo was game tho. The weakest link was the title character.
Morrison was horribly miscast. He's a very capable triple threat performer and I've had a crush on him since I was a kid and saw him in 'Hairspray' but he was totally wrong for the part. He seemed like he had cramps most of the show, only seemed to get better in the last 20 minutes or so. this would be understandable if this was a live show and there was a build in the performance, but this was done with multiple takes, so they had the ability to get even the beginning scenes right .

Was I the only one who was bothered by his weird sucking inhale sound he made after virtually EVER line and found it to be incredibly annoying?! I mean if it was a problem with the prosthetics, they should have fixed it. To quote Tatiana- Choices

Updated On: 12/10/20 at 03:29 PM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 4:05pm

I’m kind of disappointed they felt the need to pander and add “Where Are You Christmas.” That would be like adding “My Heart Will Go On” to the Titanic musical. Otherwise, I thought it was fun.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 4:44pm

Just finishing now.....and shaking my head.   Lordy, this is painful.   I do think it's far more the material than ANY performance.  And I LOVE the original Grinch animation.   I guess part of the problem I have  with it has to do with that - it was PERFECT  in 26 minutes -- why more than TRIPLE the running time?   Ugh.  (Hopefully I'll enjoy the NBC Special more -- as well as The Prom!)

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 5:05pm

I personally think the material itself works. You get the essence and flow of the show from the cast album, so I recommend anyone new to the show to listen to that. Patrick Page is a Grinch more akin to the original animated version and John Cullum is a such a warm narrator as Old Max.

The problem with this TV version was in the really weird direction. The stage version presented the story as the book come to life, which included the red-and-white-only color scheme in the sets and costumes, contrasting with the Grinch’s greenness. Jokes land far better onstage because they were meant to be ad libs and breaking the fourth wall, reaching out to the kids of all ages in the audience. And then the snowing over the audience at the end, always a magical touch. All of that was lost here. Pacing was deadly, the script was unnecessarily beefed up with unnecessary lyric changes as well.

I thought it was interesting that this is the first of the musical events to be a show not well known, while it is based on a famous property. I so was hoping this presentation wouldn’t sour people’s opinion of the musical, which I’ve found so charming onstage. I’ve always thought it captured the heart of the original book.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 12/10/20 at 8:10pm

Not disagreeing with the faults already enumerated. I guess they figured we'd be so desperate for new production we'd accept brass and call it gold. They was wrong.

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 12/11/20 at 2:08am

The direction was not good. The actors were posing  and illustrating. It was slow moving and the energy was not there. It reminded me of a bad children’s theatre production. I had a feeling that the director purposely did not rush the dialogue to counter the rhymes and verse.I would not have worried so much about the poetic dialogue and allowed the actors to have fun with it. It seemed the actors were very aware of the camera rather than letting the camera find them. It should have been a one hour special. It is so hard to outdo the cartoon which is a classic.

I did not mind the art direction however.

[WigWerk]

Posted: 12/11/20 at 2:19am

I don't want to bag on Matthew Morrison, partially because his performance is genuinely not worth dissecting. He isn't the Grinch. I am all for the power of transformation with any actor, but this wasn't a test of transformation. Because our modern culture has mainly seen the character of the Grinch through the live-action Jim Carrey version, WHICH IS ICONIC, most audiences associate the character of the Grinch as a "more comedic and smarmy Scrooge". The Grinch story is a beautiful story but the only way it works is if it's done with the campy-ness and stylization that the Seuss world exists in. Matthew Morrison was in a completely different show than everybody else during that filmed production. 

As far as the concept of the special, I thought it was cute. It was long, it dragged, and I could've used less musical numbers with the Grinch and Max. I thought this would have been better executed if they actually tried to adapt the musical to the screen as opposed to the other way around. Filmed productions are obviously hard. Musicals are ridiculously hard. I loved the idea of the pop-up book! I wish they would've just tried to not film it like a sitcom or "live musical" and actually make it a made-for-television movie musical! If I was a kid, I'm not sure if I would have the patience to sit through that thing. 

The live-action movie is successful because the audience watching the movie realizes that this children's book is coming to life and because it's a full length story, naturally there is room for breaking the 4th wall. But in the NBC-whatever-I-watched-production, it felt like the 4th wall was already broken and down to begin with. I desperately wanted to connect with the characters but I rarely did. Maybe children were entertained? I hope. Maybe it will inspire some little kids to pursue acting and singing? That would be nice. 

Also, the lack of audience gives the viewer at home such blue balls. NBC please keep trying to showcase musical theatre on your network. But maybe try and figure out a way to merge the mediums. Because it is ignorant to think that theatre translates to film easily....and vice versa.

[SmoothLover]

Posted: 12/11/20 at 3:05am

The musical seems like it would work better with an audience of live children who would boo, hiss and applaud forcing the actors to interact with the audience, much like a children’s theatre performance.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 12/12/20 at 1:03am

When I’ve seen it onstage, the kids in the audience tried to help the Grinch say “Merry Christmas” when he can’t make out the phrase at the end of the show. In that moment, you knew the show had them under its spell. Quite magical, melting the coldest of hearts.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 12/21/20 at 8:52pm

Had to turn this off after about thirty minutes, possibly the worst music I’ve ever heard from a show that was (somehow) on Broadway twice.