SISTER ACT Reviews — Page 4

Wickedfan:

It's the age old question of what's more important:

Pearly veneers & jazz hands, or depth of character and richness (not just pretty legit tone) of voice.

Patti & whoopi. Not the most attractive, but damn good actresses. And better actresses than foster or miller could hope to be at ANY age.
I don't really think anyone could argue that point.

And it's an actor's job to flesh out a character no matter how poorly it may be written or how small of a part it may be. If we don't believe Miller as street & tough in the first 20minutes, how will we believe her the rest of the show? If we don't feel a grittiness & "been there, done that" dirtiness from Reno, then how is she any different from the demure Hope?

That's my point.

If the Tony's want to award the finest actress, Murphy will win. The best vocal chops, Miller, the most "Broadway" showiness, then Sutton. Guess we'll see what the most important aspect of a performance is to the nominating committee.

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NY Post is a big rave. Says we will hear more from Patina come Tony time.

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/sisters_have_act_together_2Dy4bHdyV5KfCoCpxbgJZM

They predicted big things for the show here in the UK and when it opened it got very similar reviews. The show played strong at first but then starting fading away after about half a year in to the run.

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Daily News loved it too http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2011/04/21/2011-04-21_sister_act.html

EW gives it a B+ and says " It's been a season of ill-conceived or just plain disappointing stage musicals based on movies...Who'd have guessed that the latest iteration of Broadway's recycling trend, Sister Act...would be such a lark? It helps that the show boasts a genuine star turn by newcomer Patina Miller as aspiring singer Deloris Van Cartier." They LOVED Patina:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364394_20483465,00.html

So, if I'm right, so far it's:

Positive: amNY, USA Today, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Word of Mouth, NY Post, The Bergen Record, NY Daily News, Entertainment Weekly, NY1

Mixed: The Hollywood Reporter, NY Times, Newsday, TheaterMania, Time Out New York, NY Magazine (?)

Negative: Talkin' Broadway, The Village Voice, Variety


That's a very solid crop of reviews.

I literally can't figure out what the New York Magazine review would be classified as. I'm guessing mixed...?

Updated On: 4/22/11 at 10:36 AM

I see this show running for a long time at the Broadway. It was always a bit of an outsider in London and yet it had a great run at the biggest theatre in town. It will only do better in New York.

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Their StageGrade median grade is a 'B'(as of now), which is not bad I guess... There are only 3 new musicals with better grades: Book Of Mormon, Scottsboro Boys and Priscilla...

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Their new television commercial has the pull quotes in it, and even manages to claim that the New York Times "raved"!

Mr. Filichia seems obsessed with a point by point rundown of all of the non-sequiturs and dramaturgical choices with which he disagrees in Sister Act and yet he has now attended 3 times including traveling all of the way to London?

There is a lot about Filichia's column that's irritating (starting with the fact that he is taking everything in the show way too literally), but I can't let this go:

Later Deloris claims not to be Catholic at all. Are we to give her the benefit of the doubt that she either was a non-Catholic whose parents wanted her to have the discipline of a Catholic school education? (It’s happened.) Or does she mean that she was born a Catholic but abandoned the religion some time later? (It’s certainly happened.) Whatever the case, it should have been made clear.

Filichia clearly has no clue about Catholic schools and the inner city, especially in the 1960's, when Delores would have been in school. Most students that attended inner-city Catholic schools were not Catholic, and did so only because the public schools in the cities were so horrible. The same is true today. I had no problem believing and understanding why a non-Catholic like Delores, from inner-city Philadelphia, would attend Catholic school.

Panned is a strong word. He made it clear that it wasn't very good, but he didn't pan it.

Frankly, I think Sister Act got much better reviews than I predicted or it deserved.

The everyday average person and those who have not had the benefit of a decade or two of good musicals will probably see nothing wrong with Sister Act and have a good time.

In my opinion as a theatre professor, it doesn't make a good musical. It doesn't improve on the movie. The songs are unhummable. The characters are undeveloped. I miss Whoopi as Delores. And the book is a choppy mess.

It belongs in the "Why" Category. Why make a musical of a movie when you can't improve on it.

It will run for at least a year and make many people happy.
In truth, it is not as good as 9 to 5.