Overrated Shows- Page 4

[logan0215]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 4:34am

I didn't say you have to be Italian to understand it at all, but you cannot deny that there is a difference if you've experienced being the foreigner in a new country like Italy. I would venture to say in any country it would be the same for someone, but Italy especially is very different for an American, and this show embodies that in many scenes which can be related to by someone who has experienced it.

Speaking the language can also change someones perspective, but I feel the scenes in Italian are completely translatable through the emotions conveyed on stage. My main beef is with people finding it boring which I think really speaks on the level of spectacle people rely on to stay entertained by in recent times. The very pregnant pauses that Margaret takes and moments of silence on the stage speak louder than words and I have not found myself bored once while seeing it.

Updated On: 5/12/06 at 04:34 AM

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 5:17am

"The Wedding Singer - I saw opening night, the audience really made that for me. All of my friends loved it, the audience loved it, but I just have trouble falling in love. There are parts that I love and songs I love, but I was very underwhelmed. By the end I felt like it was a contest to see how many 80s references could be squeezed in which got tired. It is also such a far cry from the movie, it might as well have been marketed as an original piece in my mind. Just my thoughts... "

---> Is that such a bad thing? Would you rather it just be the exact movie dialouge with some songs thrown in to make it "a musical"? What's wrong with people. Why do people love to see the same thing over and over again? It's beyond me.

As for Piazza, again this is just opinion - as is the whole point of this thread/message board, I think some of the score is good, but I wouldn't say brillant. A lot of the songs are boring to me also, but I think it's just because of the lushness of the score. But - as my voice teacher pointed out to me - Guttell doesn't really write well for the voice and sometimes doesn't know what he wants the characters to say so he makes them sing on "Ah" which is kind of pointless. I realize a musical isn't going for realism, but it just seems...I dunno what the right word is.

As for Wicked, can you people explain to me what is so bad about the book? I've seen the show a couple times and I loved it. It lived up to everything I had imagined. Although, since I already knew the entire score in and out and I knew what was going to happen, it probably wasn't all that exciting.

Overated: Gypsy, most of the Sondheim stuff, West Side Story...

Also, doesn't overated mean that it had to be "critically acclaimed" in the first place? How does 'We Will Rock You' fit into that category?

[logan0215]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 12:25pm

I didn't say I want the show to be exaclty like the movie, because it isn't. I was pointing out the fact that people are so tired of adapted and movie-based shows that they could have made this an original work rather than riding on the TWS name because it does differentiate itself so much from the original. I'm certainly not saying that I would want to see the same thing over and over.

On the note of the actual show, I didn't think it lived up to all the buzz around it. My friends left really excited where I felt sort of let down. In the couple of days before seeing it I began to think if it was really something I'd enjoy, and was a little aprhensive hoping to be proven wrong, but unfortunately I was not. This has happened in the past with DRS and Sweeney but I left those loving both...

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 1:24pm

...weird...I saw DRS, Sweeney, and WS all in the same weekend. I loved them all. But then again, I don't go to Broadway much (or any) so I think I just loved it because I was sitting in a Broadway theater, which was a trip in it of itself.

[acrocksyo]

Posted: 5/14/06 at 11:26pm

Light's score is brilliant, but the lyrics and melodies are just not mu cup of tea, he would be amazing as a symphonic writer as opposed to a musical theater writer.

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 5/14/06 at 11:49pm

Spelling Bee 30 minutes too long? It's a pretty short musical as it is...

[tophertilson]

Posted: 5/15/06 at 6:36am

JERSEY BOYS. Fun, but not all that. Despite what its many, many shills claim.

TT

[kaboodles041]

Posted: 5/15/06 at 10:13am

I think the problem is too many people build up and build up a show and thus their great expectations, and so the show may be bound right from the start to then not meet these "impossible to meet" expectations. That's part of the reason why before I see something I read little to no reviews, and NEVER listen to the recording beforehand.

[mrslovett7]

Posted: 5/15/06 at 10:15am

Mama Mia- terrible, terrible show

[theevilgumby]

Posted: 5/15/06 at 5:51pm

mamma mia

RENT

Light in the Piazza