Egghumor, you make very good points as well. First of all, I apologize to everyone for being so surly on this thread, but I really don't like this show. So much so that I never even listened to the recording in spite of my admiration for both Alice and Emily and their work in the show.
Second, many musicals have great scores but are not great musicals. For a long time I too found Company not only flat and unimpressive but also badly dated (not that it was so good to begin with), but recently it has grown on me. Esparza almost made me love it, but not quite. It was the recent Philharmonic production that finally won me over. I still think the show has problems but for me Price broke the code, directed the scenes to perfection (musically the production may have run the gamut, but that's another story completely). It still has problems, but I can now finally see that there is something of real value there, beyond the first rate songs.
Finally, when we hear a great score of a show we have not seen, we can't help but imagine all the wonderful ways it might connect seamlessly with an equally strong libretto and be brought to life through all the magic of theater. Hope springs eternal and sometimes our expectations are matched or even surpassed. Other times, not so much or quite the contrary.
Listening to Mack and Mabel at home it is easy to imagine it being as or nearly as good as On The Twentieth Century. But I think it's safe to say that most who've actually seen both shows would agree that On The Twentieth Century is a first rate musical and Mack and Mabel is a major disappointment.
Updated On: 1/15/12 at 04:55 PM
