PARADISE SQUARE reviews- Page 3

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:02am

I am so continuously impressed by Helen Shaw's writing. 

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:09am

I think it's a really hard time for new musicals. I think the post-pandemic public wants comfort food-whether that is revivals or big stars (Crystal, SJP) that make them happy and forget their troubles. Add to that I don't think folks want musicals with heavy themes. 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:11am

Helen Shaw does the laser-sharp analytical work here: 

"Nelly has been placed in the play’s protagonist position, but the writers can’t think of a single interesting choice to give her. People keep saying various decisions are up to her, but she has very little agency in the plot itself. Even her reactions to crises are strangely delayed and muted. Her bar is threatened by evil party boss Frederic Tiggens (John Dossett), so she decides to run a dance competition to raise funds … in a month. When her beloved husband gets chewed up by the war, she (several scenes later) sings about … wanting to hang onto the tavern. “Why must it hurt to hold space for a dream?” she wonders, in cloying lyrics by Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare. Her big moment comes when Washington Henry shows up late to the dance competition, and she reluctantly lets him perform. That’s it!  Now, Kalukango herself is amazing. She has a voice that blasts through the room like a train going through a junction, and Nelly’s 11 o’clock number “Let It Burn” ends on a note that pulls the theater to its feet, stamping and cheering. The plot, though, wouldn’t miss her. Cut the part, and the story wouldn’t change."

[LucasIvy]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:19am

Fade Up: Drabinsky Hotel Room. Midnight

The producer frantically working the phones to convince his investors they have a huge hit.

                                                        DRABINSKY

" I tell you this is bigger and more important than anything on Broadway this season. People are talking Pulitzer! We need to go big now! Carpe Diem!! I need you put in another $150,000 towards a massive ad campaign. You will get your money out fast. I tell you this will run for years!"

 

Drabinsky hangs up and yells at his assistants. 

 

                                                           DRABINSKY

"Order me another club sandwich, extra mayo and get Roy Furman on the phone. He has a short memory and a tall wallet. Okay, get me the hourly box office wraps. This is going to be a huge day!" 

 

Fade to black

 

 

Updated On: 4/4/22 at 09:19 AM

[John Adams]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:20am

jkcohen626 said: "To date, Sharon D. Clarke is the only performer to receive raves in a show that received raves without any significant detractions. I have loved all of the performances discussed for lead actress that I've seen, but at least three are vocally miscast, a few have been widely agreed upon to be better than their shows, and a couple didn't even get such good reviews. Clarke is the only one who doesn't fit any of those categories and I just don't buy that her show closing in January is going to ruin it for her."

True, but is Kalukango's reception in the role (from both audience and critics), and this particular show (given its reported flaws), a testament to her talent, and masterful skills as an actress? 

I think both have an equal chance at deservedly winning the Tony.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:23am

From the Time Out review:

"Director Moisés Kaufman stages all of the above with a sense of grave pageantry that gets a solid assist from Allen Moyer’s rotating set and Toni-Leslie James’s rich array of petticoats and vests. It’s a handsome production, with a talented and notably large cast; the exciting dance sequences, choreographed by Bill T. Jones, are among the show’s highlights, though one senses a missed opportunity in depicting the cross-pollination of Irish step dancing and Black tap traditions. (Even in the aforementioned dance-off—in which Owen and Joah compete to win money they each need badly—the Irish and Black camps stay largely separate, West Side Story style, and Joah’s movement seems decidedly modern.) The problem is that the writing doesn’t support the spectacle, yielding a ponderous hash of good intentions that often feels like a training-wheels version of Ragtime."

Actually, most of the review sold me on the show but I don't know if it's going to sell many full price tickets.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:24am

But many Tony voters see all the shows near the end, and once the noms have been released.  If they are seen Lenk NOW (instead of pre-pandemic) I think that could change momentum.   That being said, I've heard Clarke's performance to be amazing - but have no first hand knowledge.  For some reason,  that show has never clicked for me.  (I know, I know!)

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:26am

I’ll probably just settle for the cast album. 

Updated On: 4/4/22 at 09:26 AM

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:28am

There is a reason so many shows try to open as close to the Tony deadline as possible. It's often tough for a performer whose production closed early in the season to be remembered. Sharon Clarke also missed a fair amount of performances later in her run (when most Tony voters would have been seeing her show). I would not say she is a slam dunk to win in her category.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:40am

Deadline is devastating just quoting from the book:

Characters often speak in blunt, awkward, exposition-heavy phrases that teeter between fable and plain old bad writing: “Paradise Square saloon owned by Nelly Freeman,” says the corrupt, top-hat wearing political boss Frederic Tiggens (John Dossett) as he arrives on stage. Lacking only a money bag with a $ sign on it to complete his Monopoly Man get-up, this Simon Legree without a mustache makes no secret of his desire to close down Paradise Square. “She’s created a haven of social depravity and political ascension,” he continues. “Never have so many Irish voted against us. My strategy is seeded here, gentlemen.”

In case we don’t full comprehend his villainy, Nelly greets Tiggens thusly: “The Uptown party boss who torments the Five Points. I know who you are.”

And its pretty soft indictments of the musical's blindspots: 

In fact, some bluntly stated distancing from Foster’s music infuses Paradise Square with no small amount of anachronistic debate over cultural appropriation – arguments that would have been so much more enticing if the musical was self-reflective enough to consider its own many artistic liftings. One waits in vain for some good-faith discussion that teases out the difference between the theft of appropriation and the artistic enlargement of cross-pollination. Such nuance never arrives. Easier to cast one man as the clueless art thief whose musical success creates a template for cultural plundering for centuries to come.

In fact, Paradise Square, with a book by Christina Anderson (Good Goods, Inked Baby), Craig Lucas (The Light in the Piazza) and Kirwan   – excellent writers one and all – has an unfortunate, even disastrous, tendency to lay blame on its cartoon villains rather than the murky depths of its good-natured common folk. 

[...] A saintly lesbian couple arrives out of nowhere near the end, their characters unexplored and used merely as a contemporary prop. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 9:58am

There is, I think, something positive to take away from this show for just about everyone, and I think the reviews reflect that. It seems pretty inconceivable that we've read anything here that is a formula for success. And the cherished WOM that is Garth's peculiar strategy is not going to change that. This is not Wicked. In the final analysis, I think many of us see the unrealized path to a very good show here, and I would lay the shortcomings at Garth's toes. This is a failure of producing, from finances to nurturing the creative talents that knew how to make this so much better than Garth was willing to allow. I don't think this enterprise says all that much about the musical form; I think it says a lot about incompetence at the highest levels. And ego, of course. 

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 10:02am

Does Theatermania have the weirdest opening to a review this season?

"I was technically married in the Five Points. Of course, New York's most infamous slum is nearly unrecognizable now, occupied by government buildings, the oldest sliver of Chinatown, and the eyesore prison where Jeffrey Epstein took his last breath."

Also, whatever energy this is trying to bring, I hate it.

"One can at least appreciate the irony of the writers dinging the father of American music for cultural appropriation while simultaneously sampling from his songbook ("Camptown Races," "Old Folks at Home," "Angelina Baker," and "Oh! Susanna" all make appearances). It's the dramaturgical equivalent of the perfunctory land acknowledgement: Yes, someone stole this thing I'm now enjoying, and I feel bad about that, but I'm not giving it back. #SorryNotSorry."

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 10:11am

QueenAlice said: "I am so continuously impressed by Helen Shaw's writing."

Dance and history and race and loss tempered with hope — what a subject for a musical this would be, if only Paradise Square had managed to theatricalize it. There’s room for it in its two hours and 45 minutes, but the gluey (and clearly glued-together) book by Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas, and Larry Kirwan uses the real setting and events without, somehow, actually telling their story. Production queasiness is part of the problem, as is the script’s upside-down logic. Corruption-by-a-thousand-fixes accounts for the rest."

"Nelly has been placed in the play’s protagonist position, but the writers can’t think of a single interesting choice to give her. People keep saying various decisions are up to her, but she has very little agency in the plot itself. Even her reactions to crises are strangely delayed and muted. Her bar is threatened by evil party boss Frederic Tiggens (John Dossett), so she decides to run a dance competition to raise funds … in a month. When her beloved husband gets chewed up by the war, she (several scenes later) sings about … wanting to hang onto the tavern. “Why must it hurt to hold space for a dream?” she wonders, in cloying lyrics by Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare. Her big moment comes when Washington Henry shows up late to the dance competition, and she reluctantly lets him perform. That’s it!

Now, Kalukango herself is amazing. She has a voice that blasts through the room like a train going through a junction, and Nelly’s 11 o’clock number “Let It Burn” ends on a note that pulls the theater to its feet, stamping and cheering. The plot, though, wouldn’t miss her. Cut the part, and the story wouldn’t change."

"There’s some finger-wagging about appropriation, but we never actually hear that Foster made his fortune writing minstrel songs, nor that the Five Points scene was full of minstrel performers, both Black and white. For a musical about facing history, it’s very shy.

There are more playwrights even than the ones credited in the program — in Chicago, Marcus Gardley was on the team too — and composition by committee is not a great way to write. The decisions about what merits a scene seem baffling, and there are story fragments littered in odd places, usually to keep any accusations of political insufficiency at bay. Do we need to know that Washington Henry’s lover Angelina was rescued by a woman who wears trousers? No, but there’s a lugubrious flashback, so we know the creative team hasn’t erased the queer community. All this sweaty maneuvering to “fix” the original allows important things, deeper things, to slip. For instance, whenever Owen or the other two Irish dancers (Colin Barkell and Garrett Coleman) launch into their foot-flashing, high-springing dances, Howland’s music starts to reel, twanging with Irish bouzouki and tin flute. But when Washington Henry and the other Black dancers go into their choreography (by superstar Bill T. Jones), the instrumentation and rhythms refuse to follow them. Howland’s standard-issue musical theater works against their movements, so they stamp out beats that don’t exist. It makes the virtuosic Black dancers seem unmusical — but really it’s the musical itself failing to listen."

"There is one good thing about the way Paradise Square has been developed into the ground: The ensemble members have had plenty of time to figure out their parts. Allen Moyer’s tall, skeletal tenement set gives the two-dozen-strong cast plenty of places to stand, so director Moisés Kaufman often puts them on various levels, staring down at the floor of the bar. If the repetitive elements pall — you will start out amazed by the dancers, then those returns will diminish — you could always cast your eyes up, into the shadows. I had several favorites among the supernumeraries, including a guy who brought his baby to watch the competition and a mandolin player who fell asleep. Appropriately for a show about a neighborhood, the chorus gives us a sense of lives and passions moving just out of the field of focus. Everything down in the spotlight had been goosed into underthought melodrama, but at the edges of the space, there were hints of the dark and funny and real. Those were the places the show — and history — kept choosing to forget. So, feeling a little desperate, that’s where I looked."

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 10:17am

QueenAlice said: "There is a reason so many shows try to open as close to the Tony deadline as possible. It's often tough for a performer whose production closed early in the season to be remembered. Sharon Clarke also missed a fair amount of performances later in her run (when most Tony voters would have been seeing her show). I would not say she is a slam dunk to win in her category."

Sharon missed *maybe* 4-5 performances her entire run and every one of them had been announced well in advance. 

[BritCrit]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 10:23am

VintageSnarker said: "There’s some finger-wagging about appropriation, but we never actually hear that Foster made his fortune writing minstrel songs, nor that the Five Points scene was full of minstrel performers, both Black and white. For a musical about facing history, it’s very shy."

I wonder if the controversies surrounding The Scottosboro Boys have made producers wary about tackling the role of minstrelsy in American Entertainment between the 1850s and 1930s. The popularity of Foster's songs (which continue to endure even today) is one of the most notable examples of this, and the original concept (an entire jukebox musical about them) would have really dug deep into this...

 

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 10:40am

Jordan Catalano said: "QueenAlice said: "There is a reason so many shows try to open as close to the Tony deadline as possible. It's often tough for a performer whose production closed early in the season to be remembered. Sharon Clarke also missed a fair amount of performances later in her run (when most Tony voters would have been seeing her show). I would not say she is a slam dunk to win in her category."

Sharon missed *maybe* 4-5 performances her entire run and every one of them had been announced well in advance."

I'm pretty sure it was 8: 2 announced the day of, and 6 announced in advance, which was 1 2-show day on each of the 3 major holiday weekends. Regardless, it wasn't likely to impact Tony voters being able to see Sharon Clarke in the show.

Updated On: 4/4/22 at 10:40 AM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 11:04am

Ah ok. I didn’t remember any “day of” announcements. But even 8 missed shows, 6 of which were known in advance won’t impact her Tony chances, in any way. 

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 11:21am

HogansHero says: "I don't think this enterprise says all that much about the musical form; I think it says a lot about incompetence at the highest levels. And ego, of course."

100%. Anyone proclaiming the 2022 audience unready for this piece's blistering honesty or historical parallels (the Chris Jones indictment of ticket buyers unwilling to sit in discomfort) should review musical theater history. This production will sink or swim based on its satisfying storytelling or lack thereof, not its messaging or refusal to provide some kind of traditional catharsis. A decimated population is forced into exile from Anatevka, the MC is last seen in a concentration camp, Quixote dies and Cervantes marches to his trial. (Hell, Miss Mona loses the Chicken Ranch and ends up homeless.) The form has always accommodated tragic trajectories. Whatever the eventual lessons here, they stem from more from hubris-driven creative decision making than a world unwilling to embrace tonal innovation.

 

 

Updated On: 4/4/22 at 11:21 AM

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 11:21am

John Adams said: "I think both have an equal chance at deservedly winning the Tony."

It will depending how long PS can run. If they close within 2-3 weeks, there's no way JK is winning because a sizable enough number of voters won't have seen the show. Voters see it after opening; nominators see it on press nights. And any producer would be idiotic to hedge their bets on an Acting or Choreo win, because those categories do not mean anything for box office (just for ego).

And don't talk to me about voters being "required" to see everything. It's very loose, because someone can just say they were comped in or went as someone else's +1. Especially tough with out of town voters.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 11:21am

Do you still have to verify that you saw each of the Tony nominees to vote in a category? If so, 8 missed performances will not impact the vote in any way.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 11:45am

Per Broadway Briefing: Eric Adams, Tish James, Hakeem Jeffries, and Bill DeBlasio were all at the opening last night, and Eric Adams made a speech onstage before the show. Nice to see New York's pols attending shows (same with Hochul and of course Schumer at a variety of shows this year), but I hope this one didn't scare them away from attending better shows in the future

I am happy to see Mayor Adams attending some theatre, after giving the DeBlasio-like energy of being a philistine, and I hope he doesn't limit himself to Broadway. It's very important for the Mayor of this city to be tapped into the cultural community at large, even if he isn't a "theatre buff."

Updated On: 4/4/22 at 11:45 AM

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 12:15pm

Our newest Mayor is NOT great but I'm glad he was there supporting. 

[LucasIvy]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 12:59pm

Sutton Ross said: "Our newest Mayor is NOT great but I'm glad he was there supporting."

 

The lead investor and former Senator asked to him to attend. You know the old saying; It's an honour and obligation. 

 

[JSquared2]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 1:02pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "John Adams said: "I think both have an equal chance at deservedly winning the Tony."

It will depending how long PS can run. If they close within 2-3 weeks, there's no way JK is winning because a sizable enough number of voters won't have seen the show. Voters see it after opening; nominators see it on press nights. And any producer would be idiotic to hedge their bets on an Acting or Choreo win, because those categoriesdo notmean anything for box office (just for ego).

And don't talk to me about voters being "required" to see everything. It's very loose, because someone can just say they were comped in or went as someone else's +1. Especially tough with out of town voters."

Not quite correct.  As of 3 years ago, Tony Voters have been required to log in to their Broadway League accounts and affirmatively confirm that they attended a performance.  Sure,  it's not a fool proof system and there are sleazy people who will lie and not get caught -- but for the most part it keeps the voters honest.

 

[Wick3]

Posted: 4/4/22 at 1:03pm

QueenAlice said: "There is a reason so many shows try to open as close to the Tony deadline as possible. It's often tough for a performer whose production closed early in the season to be remembered. Sharon Clarke also missed a fair amount of performances later in her run (when most Tony voters would have been seeing her show). I would not say she is a slam dunk to win in her category."

I agree. After all, Caroline or Change was originally scheduled for spring 2020. 

Sometimes I wish the Tonys had 2 seasons within a year (one in the summer/fall and another in winter/spring).