Soft Power at the Curran

Caught the first preview tonight, though I overheard production members saying it's really just a continuation of the LA run since they did not rehearse between cities. That strikes me as a real shame because this could be a truly great theatrical experience. They deserve all the time they can get to work on things- particularly the love story that evolves within the musical. However, I fear I might be stating the obvious here...this show will never, ever work with the music it currently has. It's all composed as if a Chinese composer listened to great American musicals and then lifted the best parts and crossed with the traditions of Chinese opera. It's cute on occasion, like the momentary glimpses of Rodgers and Hammerstein. But in the end, there is no passion in the music so it doesn't draw us in. The American actress character has a monologue before the musical section starts where she talks about "The Delivery System." This is the tool musical theater writers use to pull at our heart strings. When Jeanine Tesori's music starts, it's anything but a Delivery System. It's very much in the vain of the washing machine from Caroline or Change. No investment in the emotional life of the characters. Pity. They will never replace her. But she is what is bringing this show down.

Updated On: 6/22/18 at 02:19 AM

i saw the first preview from 3rd row aisle.

Went into this with low expectations somehow, and was surprised, challenged and ultimately entertained. There was a lot of strong humor, especially political and cultural humor, and I thought the Tesori's score was strong and .

the leads were played with a lot of heart and passion. the sets were somewhat cheesy (i think they were meant to be) and the choreography was an interesting mix of classic broadway, and chinese dance.

i think a satire about modern american culture and politics and multiculturalism could easily find an audience on broadway, especially now

I agree with most of the la times review here and the summary that it is "big, bold, overly complex and spectacularly unique"

.http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-soft-power-review-20180518-story.html

The complexity and story within a story was confusing for my seatmates....i had read about the show ahead of time so was ready for it. It would benefit a lot from guiding the viewers more smoothly through the story in a story transitions.

this is advanced and edgy musical theatre-probably not a good choice for a first musical...

I'm recommending it to my musical theatre friends, partly because im so curious to see how they react to it....

My issue with the show is that if it was such a showcase for Asian talent, then why make the leading role be played by a Caucasian actress, especially when every other white character is played by an Asian. Surely, they can find an Asian actress who can sing the hell out of Hillary’s songs.

Also, they need to commit that it’s a musical and not just a “play with a musical.” The show is most interesting when it’s a musical. I could have done without the beginning of the show when it was a “play.”

It didn't work in LA and these cocky people, having that entire run to fix and futz, did not ONE thing. Then they did not ONE thing before the Curran. They take this to NY I predict a big, very big, huge THUD. For me, it did not work at all. I can see people in this thread already just aping the LA Times because I don't know why but all you need to know about the LA Times is that that critic loves anything that's pretentious, arty, and not standard musical theatre. And even he knew this didn't work.

Soft Power, which I saw Friday night, wasn't even the hot mess I had been promised. David Henry Hwang's "play with a musical" is so enamored with its own conceit that it just assumes you will be too. And there will be people who will enjoy the bits with The King and I, the Hillary Clinton plot, and the pretend musical that replays the events of the 2016 election with the twist that it's Chinese musical theater writers in the future treating Americans of today as dangerous and barbaric. See the review I posted above for an example.

Hwang is smart enough to toss out some interesting ideas, but then he repeats them endlessly. If you missed anything in the play that starts the show, don't worry. It will all be repeated in the musical, word for word. But even though he drums home his main themes, Hwang makes his musical unnecessarily confusing and convoluted. At a discussion after the show, the very first question came from an audience member puzzled by the conclusion of the Chinese "musical," which features a song by the Hillary Clinton character that would never have been in the Chinese musical - especially as a finale or 11 o'clock number. Hwang is reduced to trying to explain that it was supposed to be a torch song, which is not how it's performed, and he concedes that he probably should make things more clear in the show.

Even though I knew the outlines of the plot before going to the show, the shift from play to musical is disappointing and murky. There's no a-ha moment. Instead, the "reality" of the play morphs from a speech by Hwang's character to the increasingly over-the-top characterizations in the musical. The satire was often blurry and lazy. Is it a sendup of classic musical theater tropes about Asian characters? Is it a satire on America now from a fictional Chinese perspective? It's both, I guess, but the humor is hit and miss - to put it politely. Staging a campaign rally at a shiny McDonald's, as if that's biting satire in 2018, feels hopelessly dated. Hillary Clinton is eating pizza and ice cream after she loses, one of several scenes that feels like a bad Saturday Night Live sketch.

The Chinese musical runs through a string of silly musical numbers that include references to a number of familiar American musicals. Some are reasonably funny, and one that tries to explain the electoral college is a barbed standout. The ensemble does their best, with choreography by Sam Pinkleton, but it grows tiresome after a while. The songs by Jeanine Tesori are forgettable, and I didn't realize until the discussion that there are 16 of them. It's tough to pull off a series of over-the-top musical numbers that hit the satirical target while being enjoyable to hear and watch, especially when they're supposed to be ridiculous and clueless about Anerica today. That is Hwang's joke, and part of the show's admirable ambition, but it's hard to sustain actual entertainment during a "musical" that turns into a long slog.

Conrad Ricamora, who plays Xue Xing, was out on Friday. Understudy Billy Bustamante, in his first performance as the male lead, did a capable job. Alyse Alan Louis, as Hillary Clinton, had her moments but is saddled with a role that feels almost unplayable. Francis Jue did well as Hwang, the playwright. But this was not a show in which the winning performances prompted me to forgive the problems with the story or score.

I really did want to like this musical, especially because Hwang and director Leigh Silverman are trying something different at a time when too many shows are relying on old movies and jukebox musicals. I was glad I saw it, as the show is funny and clever at times. But I was relieved I didn't drag my family to see it. While my appetite for reliving the 2016 election and its aftermath was always limited, I hoped the creative team could pull off a good satire. Sadly, they didn't come close. The whole thing felt smug and self-indulgent. While I can think of some ideas to tighten the story and avoid confusion, I don't know that the show is fixable.

Updated On: 6/24/18 at 05:50 AM

Another rave for the show by Sam Hurwitt in the Mercury News. So it's getting a lot of critical praise by San Francisco Bay Area critics, who seem to like it a lot more than most of the folks on this board, most of whom have been mixed to negative.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/23/review-soft-power-is-a-bold-new-style-of-theater-at-sfs-curran-theater/

Updated On: 6/23/18 at 05:45 PM

Saw this Saturday night 6/23. What a bloody mess of a show. How can a new show in 2018 about supposed events that took place in 2016 feel so dated? The first 20 minutes of "play" just needs to be eliminated. Wasted time and then the character of the author has to explain whats going to happen next anyway. Shouldn't you have done that in the "play" part? At intermission the people sitting next to us who we didn't know asked us if it was over. Wishful thinking. No song stands out, they time travel after intermission for no reason at all and an almost impossible to follow the story line. Hillary Clinton? Really? I mean really, really? What were you thinking. And I loved Caroline, or Change and Fun Home.

Don't pay full price if you feel you have to see this train wreck Purchased rush tickets the for the Saturday night performance for $25 each plus $5 service charge at Today's Tix. Our seats were in the orchestra. I just went to the Curran site to see the actual price per ticket, $175 each. These seats are sold as "prime" orchestra. The orchestra was maybe 2/3 full and I'm being generous. Pride weekend in SF, ever hotel room sold out and an empty house with bargain basement pricing? You think there might have been some theater fans in town? Go on to NY if you must but go off Broadway, no chance at all on Broadway.

Trust me, Bay Area critics know very little about musical theatre. I don't say that to be shady, and I'm very much rooting for this show (though haven't seen it), but it's true.

I'll say this for Soft Power. It's been five days since I saw the show, and I'm still thinking about it. Unfortunately, I'm thinking about why I disliked it so much. There's plenty of star power behind the scenes, with David Henry Hwang writing the book and most of the lyrics, Jeanine Tesori writing the music, and Sam Pinkleton doing the choreography. In the case of Tesori and Pinkleton, I love Fun Home and Great Comet, respectively. So I had cautiously high hopes, despite the very mixed reviews I had seen of the LA run.

Part of my problem with the show, and I feared this going in, was that a musical that features a Hillary Clinton character in the 2016 election and its aftermath - no matter how satirical and deliberately absurd - was going to be a hard sell for me. And even more than I expected, Soft Power is a Trump Era musical, complete with specific references to the current president and characters in his administration. Good theater is often political, but I am not eager to be reminded of all the news I am headed to a show not to think about. Others will feel differently.

I knew Hillary Clinton was going to be a major character in the show, so I expected political satire. I knew it was going to be a The King and I twist, in which fictional musical theater writers in a dominant China of the future concoct a show based on the election. We're supposed to be amused by the fact that the Chinese writers get things wrong about the United States - as American musical theater writers in the Golden Era did about Asia. But Hwang is trying to do too many things at once. He's trying to have his musical satire while also taking shots at America now - its dangerous obsession with guns, its health care system, homophobia, the voters' decision to choose Trump instead of Clinton. Hwang tries to do both but succeeds at neither. The show's convoluted structure is distancing, and it's hard to care very much about anyone in what often feels more like an intellectual exercise than an engaging musical.

Some of the supporting actors - Jon Hoche as the chief justice explaining the electoral college, Austin Ku as the dimwitted ally Bobby Bob - bring a relish to the absurdity of a song or part of a scene that kept me amused enough. But the "musical" is too self-indulgent, relies on too many lame jokes, and ends with an incoherent attempt at inspiration. It tells the audience full of liberals what they want to hear while feeding their disgust with the people who elected Trump. For many folks, that will be good enough, and it got a standing ovation from most of the audience. But I was increasingly bored, and the musical left me with a sour aftertaste.

I was thinking about another show I saw earlier this year with an all-Asian cast that also mocked white Americans: Vietgone. That show is plenty silly, with its "white" characters talking in gibberish, a play on the way Asian immigrants have been mocked for their difficulty speaking English. It's funny but never crosses the line into meanness. When that show gets serious at the end, it soars, elevating everything that's come before.

Soft Power is a different sort of show, set in the imaginary near-present, but its satire is not sharp enough for a musical meant to draw blood. There were times when I laughed, or enjoyed some of the choreography and performances. And I did appreciate the ambitiousness. We certainly need creative artists taking more chances, instead of retreating to a steady diet of movie adaptations and jukebox musicals. I feel almost guilty being so critical of the musical for that reason alone. I was curious to see it for the same reason broadwaysfguy recommended it to his musical theater loving friends. As for the show's future, it's undoubtedly coming to the Public Theater, which co-commissioned it, at some point. Get rush tickets, though.

Updated On: 6/28/18 at 12:23 AM

I saw it yesterday.

I agree it's a mess, but I was still so thrilled to see such an original concept played out onstage. With so much drek and re-treating happening in musical theatre, it was exciting to someone play with the form in such a bold way.

I could have used more subtlety, less Hillary, and less of Hwang's stage representation of himself. In particular I thought that including the whole thing about his stabbing was unnecessary. The musical didn't have to exist in a dream world. It could have just existed within the world of the play.

But in general, I found it entertaining, creative, and thought-provoking. I find I have a high-tolerance for messiness when I feel like something interesting and worthwhile is being done.

In our exclusive mini-interview for BroadwayWorld.com, David Henry Hwang talks about what's next for ''Soft Power,'' which wraps up its San Francisco run on Sun. (July 8 ) at the Curran. He says he's been so proud of his actors and audiences. And he dishes about a Chinese show that ripped off ''The Book of Mormon.''

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Exclusive-David-Henry-Hwang-on-Whats-Next-for-SOFT-POWER-and-Why-Hes-So-Proud-of-His-Actors-Audiences-20180705

Updated On: 7/5/18 at 01:48 PM

MarkBearSF said: "WOW! It's interesting comparing these comments with the ones on the "other board" and the reviews in general. As I mentioned in a previous post, I really enjoyed it. This afternoon, as it's about to leave town, I decided to do a TodayTix $30 rush ticket and see it again.

I loved it even more. Yes, it's not entirely successful (and, as with shows like Follies and Merrily We Roll Along, it may never be fully successful) - but what's there is so well-done and holds such ravishing music and interesting layers, that it's as rewarding as it can be frustrating. I was again blown away by the beautiful music. The quieter songs were a pastiche of the best of classic R&H, and even the gag-filled production numbers were hung on solid songwritng.

I'm curious about the Chinese aspects of the show. While the "American style" numbers had a humorous blenderized mishmash performed by the blond-wigged cast, but the simpler "Chinese" ballads with Asian-dressed chorus dancing seemed organic to the song and composed of Chinese movements like Tai-chi and more harmonic and authentic. Can any with more knowledge of Chinese theatrical and movement comment?

Also, Conrad Ricamora was superb. I read that he's of mixed Filipino American heritage, raised in the US, so I'd assume that his Chinese accent and countenance had to be learned. Can anyone with a more discerning ear, tell me how he did?"

Um, the original production of Follies was fully successful in every way. The single greatest musical theatre experience I've ever had. To even mention Follies or frankly even Merrily in the same breath as Soft Power, well - that's what makes horse racing. Of course you went back and of course you loved it more. This is your thing :)