New Musical, WILD, World Premiere at ART - Previews & Reviews

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 12/2/21 at 2:32pm

Dec. 5, 2021 - Jan. 2, 2022

WILD: A Musical Becoming is a new musical fable about a single mother struggling to hold on to her family farm and connect with her teenage daughter, whose determination to save the planet endows her and her friends with powers they never knew they had. Created by Tony and Obie Award-winning playwright V (formerly Eve Ensler; In the Body of the World, The Vagina Monologues), Grammy and Golden Globe-nominated songwriter Justin Tranter (Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Imagine Dragons), and songwriter Caroline Pennell (Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez) and directed by Diane Paulus, WILDfeatures Tony Award-winning performer and songwriter Idina Menzel (Rent, Wicked, Frozen).

Inspired by the show’s theme of caring for the planet, this concert production embraces regenerative practice and invites you to use your imagination to set the scene. Come join the becoming!

Book by V (formerly Eve Ensler)
Music by Justin Tranter & Caroline Pennell with contributions by Eren Cannata
Lyrics by Justin Tranter, Caroline Pennell & V (formerly Eve Ensler)
With contributions by Idina Menzel
Choreography by Chanel DaSilva
Directed by Diane Paulus

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/2/21 at 2:40pm

I'll be there Sunday, which I believe is the first preview.  I'll report back.

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 12/3/21 at 8:29am

I'd love to know what the "contributions by Idina Menzel" are. Especially, seeing as they have to be significant enough to warrant a line on the poster/credits page.

[OhHiii]

Posted: 12/3/21 at 10:21am

fashionguru_23 said: "I'd love to know what the "contributions by Idina Menzel" are. Especially, seeing as they have to be significant enough to warrant a line on the poster/credits page."

It's the Beyonce method. Change a word here and there and receive songwriting credits. 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 12/3/21 at 6:30pm

The plot sounds awful and I have no faith in V but I'm curious about the music. 

[alex814]

Posted: 12/3/21 at 7:32pm

OhHiii said: "fashionguru_23 said: "I'd love to know what the "contributions by Idina Menzel" are. Especially, seeing as they have to be significant enough to warrant a line on the poster/credits page."

It's the Beyonce method. Change a word here and there and receive songwriting credits."

The “change a word, get a third” practice long predates Beyoncé

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:01pm

Well. Um. Errr. 

I'm not sure i have the words to describe this...this...sermon.

Wow, possibly the worst professional show I've ever witnessed.

 

 

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:28pm

Go on...

[BoringBoredBoard40]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:29pm

V's off-broadway solo show a few years ago was so offensively bad and offensive I had zero interest in this 

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:47pm

I'll  try.......

The dialogue is horrific, as are the redundant lyrics. The melodies aren't awful.(But, thats not saying much.)  All characters are 2 dimensional, and lack illiciting any sympathy.

However, it's the book that is the show's biggest downfall. Its preposterous and felt like what a bunch of high schoolers would write thinking they wrote something meaningful.

The singing was good....but who cares?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:47pm

I'll  try.......

The dialogue is horrific, as are the redundant lyrics. The melodies aren't awful.(But, thats not saying much.)  All characters are 2 dimensional, and lack illiciting any sympathy.

However, it's the book that is the show's biggest downfall. Its preposterous and felt like what a bunch of high schoolers would write thinking they wrote something meaningful.

The singing was good....but who cares?

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 10:59pm

i didnt realize Eve Ensler had changed her name to V, but i am chortling that she is now V (former Eve Ensler). "I'm changing my name but also please remember me by my former name also." 

That said, im very curious what the lecture/sermon is about?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/5/21 at 11:13pm

Its environmental. (Its not a bad message ...just delivered with the subtlety of a jack  hammer)

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 12/6/21 at 10:28am

I mean I wish I could say I'm surprised by V's subpar work here, but after the painfully amateurish dialogue of the recent Wicked special on  PBS, I'm not. 

[SomeOtherMe]

Posted: 12/6/21 at 1:32pm

dramamama611 said: "Well. Um. Errr.

I'm not sure i have the words to describe this...this...sermon.

Wow, possibly the worst professional show I've ever witnessed."

 

Oh yikes. I was a bit worried that this would be preachy and cliché when I read the summary. Very bummed to hear that seems to be the case. Do you think this could be saved with some adjustments or is it DOA?

[TheSecretArden]

Posted: 12/6/21 at 2:30pm

I was there last night as well. I think the show's fatal flaw is its book, and fixing it would require a massive plot overhaul that just doesn't seem possible. My reasoning requires some spoilers, so proceed with caution.

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

The beginning of the plot establishes the relationship between Idina's character Bea - a farmer struggling to make ends meet - and her daughter Sophia - a "woke" Gen Z-er with a passion for environmental justice. When a big corporation threatens to buy out their farm to develop the land, Sophia riles up a bunch of other teenagers in her town to fight back and convince their adults to care about climate change. For this part of the show, I was mostly bought in, as heavy-handed as it was.

However, about a third of the way in, the plot flies absolutely off the rails. When the adults rebuke the teenagers, Sophia makes the decision to turn herself into a seahorse. There are some minor clues built into the book prior to this moment that foreshadow it, but the reveal is still so over the top that many members of the audience audibly laughed. YDE literally walks onstage wearing a coral-colored seahorse tail and a cardboard headdress. Over the course of the half hour that follows, the rest of the teens in the town turn into endangered animals as well: an ocelot, a peacock, a lion, etc., each with their own DIY-style costume piece made of upcycled materials.

As the plot advances, the grown-ups continue to double down on invalidating their kids' perspectives. The dialogue is a mess on both sides. The grown-ups' lines have all the nuance of villains in an afterschool special, but worse in my opinion are the kids', which are obviously the projections of what a middle-aged author believes modern teens sound like. As a middle school teacher, I was a little offended on behalf of my kids. The plot clearly frames the young people as the heroes, but the dialogue caricaturizes them. The worst offender is Michael Williams' Bicker Rail, who is drawn as a Biff Tannen bully with a redemption arc so lopsided it almost tips the Loeb Center into the Charles.

This is not even to mention the B-plot of Luke Ferrari's Possible and their transphobic father played by Javier Muñoz who learns to accept their child by the end of the show. Between Jagged Little Pill and this, Diane Paulus has really developed a knack for flattening serious social issues and shoehorning them into her shows under the guise of giving voice to marginalized communities. As a Queer person myself, I'm deeply disappointed that underwritten characters such as Possible are passed off as milestones for inclusion. If the struggles of nonbinary young folx are stories the A.R.T. wants to tell, then devote an entire production to them. Don't make them plot points for the sake of moral authority.

These details aside, it's not all bad. Of the ensemble, Josh Lamon impressed me the most, adding humor and heart to a small collection of characters undermined by the script. While much of the score is forgettable, Justin Tranter throws in a few powerful bops that I would add to a Spotify playlist if they get a recording. Idina's vocals are in great form and will only get better as she gets more comfortable with the score. The young ensemble gives it their all, and the production benefits from the participation of real teens from the Boston Children's Choir who provide some much-needed authenticity and vocal power behind the rock-ballad-packed score.

I'm all for tasteful suspension of disbelief, but when the subject matter is as serious and real as climate change, the fantastical direction of the plot and subdued production design create paradoxes for the audience that left me feeling cold (no pun intended). At times, V tries to play the plot with some level of self-awareness, using the adults as narrators to name how strange the plot twists become, but these read more to me as cringey than campy. Add to that the childish vocabulary the show tries to develop in its world-building (referring to the transformed teens as "chimals" - child animals - and naming the evil corporation the "Extracticals", for example), and you've got yourself the first draft of a B-rate DCOM script. 

TL;DR: Fixing the show would require a substantial plot overhaul, and this cast deserves better. See it if you enjoy folk-rock music with a modern twist (think Next to Normal meets Six) and Idina. Otherwise, save your time and money.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 12/6/21 at 3:02pm

^Pretty sure I agree with nearly everything you said.  (Except I thought the lyrics were nearly as bad as the book.)

[heybaby]

Posted: 12/6/21 at 3:35pm

Oh, woah. I had only seen the title and totally thought this was a musical adaptation of the Cheryl Strayed book of the same name. 

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 12/6/21 at 3:53pm

Who thought it would be a good idea to hire V, a dramatist who has written almost exclusively collections of monologues for her entire career, to write the book for a narrative musical.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/7/21 at 11:34am

It's called "Wild: A Musical Becoming"??  

I can smell the mindful vegan farts from here.  

Updated On: 12/7/21 at 11:34 AM

[bethyd]

Posted: 12/8/21 at 2:48pm

Saw this last night. Yes, the plot is ridiculous and the book is a trainwreck. However, for some reason I see potential in this, maybe I'm just overly optimistic. It's a work in progress, and Diane Paulus came onstage pre-show and basically said that. It's not ready. I'm hoping the awful elementary dialogue is just some sort of placeholder for future development. I physically cringed and recoiled at some of the ridiculous things that were said.

However, the footstomping anthemic folky music put a smile on my face and kept my toe tapping for the entire time. It was joyous and the story is supposed to be a fable. It could work well as an animated movie or something like that. 

That young cast knocked my socks of with their talent. And Idina was Idina. She's great. 

I told my husband when we walked out that it was equally the best thing I'd seen, and the worst. I hope it is developed into something spectacular, it DOES have potential. 

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 12/10/21 at 2:09pm

 

 

[Dolly80]

Posted: 12/11/21 at 2:32am

YDE? WTF? Can someone explain to me? 
 

will Idina now be known as ID ?

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 12/11/21 at 2:43am

Sophia makes the decision to turn herself into a seahorse. 

I can't.

[Broadway Flash]

Posted: 1/23/24 at 3:26am

Is this dead?