Starlight Express--can ANYONE defend this show?

I'm not too big into Frank Rich's reviews but as snarky as this is his opening review for Starlight Express is dead on:

"IN a full-page program note, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber modestly explains that he conceived his new musical, 'Starlight Express,' as an entertainment 'event' for children who love trains. Over two numbing hours later, you may find yourself wondering exactly whose children he has in mind. A confusing jamboree of piercing noise, routine roller-skating, misogyny and Orwellian special effects, 'Starlight Express' is the perfect gift for the kid who has everything except parents. "

Add Starlight to my guilty pleasure list. I love it.

I saw it in Philadelphia on tour, and I loved it a LOT. It was a really fun show. One of the most catchiest Webber scores ever. Although I do chide the guys for the synthetic orchestrations, that show was the show that made me love the whole "doozh doozh" drum sound effect in those '80s pop songs (because I'm a keyboardist), and made me relisten to those songs all over again. It was awesome.

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Ah so maybe I woulda had to have seen it--it just feels like it would be kinda creepy and overtly commercial to me.

That said I get completely what both of you guys mean--I can be a huge theatre snob but I also can really enjoy a well done over the top extravaganza (and I've been surprised by Lord Andy before--I saw Whistle Down the Wind in London expecting it to be a huge flop that I could tell everyone I saw and ended up really enjoying it...).

I have to say the idea of the 3D tour (and isn't it to recorded music?) just sounds *hideous* to me and like it would ruin most of the appeal

(as for the Mama Mia thing I'm a big ABBA fan and I guess I get what ya mean though I hope you're not comparing the music )

And Josh I'm a huge fan of synth music--so I get what ya mean too.

ALthough I sitll have to say on the original cast the sexism and weirdness of many of the innuendos creep me out :P

I can't really explain why I like Starlight Express. It is sort of Cats on wheels, but I like Cats too. and I like the fantasy and other worldly elements of Starlight Express. It's a great story. It's a neat show visually and it just clicked for me. I can understand why some people wouldn't like it and I do enjoy shows with a little more substance as well, but I'm also a Webber fan and the show just works for me. If it doesn’t work for you there’s no real point in trying to make it. Maybe come back in a few years and try again, but if it’s not your show then it’s not your show.

Different strokes I guess.

You know, with me, I heard the German Cast Recording before I heard any English one and maybe that had something to do with it, but it is firmly one of my guilty pleasures (and I detest CATS).

I think it is maybe because it is glitz and surreal and a little fast paste it helps brush over the holes, but it just works for me.

Starlight Express was the second big West End show I saw when I was 11. I loved it back then, it was magical to me (as CATS had been the year before), the spectacle of it - a whole track that went around the audience and what seemed like incredible feats of skating WHILST singing. I was in heaven.

The chance came for me to see it again (for free) with a company I was with when I was 14. I had a completely different experience. I thought it was boring, over-the-top and messy plot-wise...This was the same show I'd seen 3 years before, but it was different to me.

Now, I've seen a lot of theatre in my time and am now much more discerning in my tastes than I was when I was 11, but when it was still the second proper show I'd ever seen and I sat in the auditorium/racetrack and heard that kid's voice come over the loudspeaker I got goosebumps. You couldn't shut me up about it for weeks.

I think you mean Josie Lawrence, who has had her time on the west end stage as well. She was in the revival of The King & I, and i think she took over from Elaine Paige.

Stephanie Lawrence took over from Elaine Paige as Eva Peron in the original london production of Evita...Spooky huh

My mistake. I didnt release that Marti Webb took the role of Evita on. I would have liked to see her in it.

Hated it. Loud, screechy, obnoxious. Couldn't wait for it to be over.

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Stephanie Lawrence has a really good CD out of all ALW music called "Footlights" She was an amazing Mrs. Johnstone in Blood Brothers. She also played the title role in "Marilyn!" You can find a CD out there of some of her songs from the show which was recordered well after the show closed but the recording is quite muffled. Stephanie was also in Time.

Saw it in DC on tour and HATED it. (And I'm one of these people who at least LIKES almost everything...I even like CATS!)

Let's see...oh there was about 60 seconds I liked: The song that goes "Only you..." and "I am the starlight" over each other, during a cool laser effect. (I guess that's the Starlight Sequence referenced above.) That was good.

Well first off I will say that Starlight is the show closest to my heart for a number of reasons and over the years I have traveled all over and have managed to see every production mounted from Mexico to Japan and back to Ohio for the first armature production.

The Music: If you are just going by the Original London Cast album then you are getting a very dated version of the show. Remember when this show was written the music styles of the day were very much in line with what you hear there. Andrew was doing his best at bringing some of the younger sounds to the show, all be it with varying degrees of success. (The Rap off that album is still the worst thing ever recorded to the human ear in 2007, but was not bad back in 1984) As the show grew older Webber “matured” the score a bit, by adding some very good new songs while still trying to maintain a “fresh” sound to the piece. If you are able to get a hold of the double disc German recording you will hear the best presentation of the score ever and it has swayed more then a few haters of the show when I have played them bits of it. Webber was fresh off the success of Cats and so if that show did great why not try and make another like it. We see it with a number of composers and directors. Is the music Tony worthy? No, but it is very cleaver with its Peter and the Wolf use of marrying up music styles with the appropriate type of engine and coach. Most music today will find it’s roots in the old jazz and blues and all trains started out as steam engines so naturally Blues would represent the oldest and most base form of railway transportation, and so on and so forth with other styles. So there was SOME thought that went into the piece.

The Lyrics: Here is where even I come up short trying to defend it. Yea a bunch of the lyrics are bad...almost cringingly bad at times but then quite lovely at others. There’s Me and Only He have quite beautiful lyrics, but then you have things like Freight and The Rap…..yea.

The Plot: The show is basically the Little Engine That Could married with a kind of Cinderella story, and if you think about that this show was aimed at kids, it’s a plot that they can grasp and parents will remember with, hopefully, a fondness. Starlight has varying plots depending on the production you see there are characters that wonder in and out of the piece giving either a more complex or simple story. It’s full of the larger then life characters that were not only in most of Webbers pieces such as Cats and Joseph but at the time we had pop stars like Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Prince and many other outlandish characters taking center stage in the pop world, and I think that it was from this that Andrew took his cue.

The Staging: The show as been on stages, in soccer stadiums and on ice each with its successes and short comings. In London it truly was one of the most amazing sets you can ever imagine. People can knock the music and plot if the so wish but one can not knock the staging of this piece. It was an amazing piece of theatre showmanship. The production has only been staged better, in my opinion, in Germany. The Broadway staging was big, but cumbersome to use and watch. The Las Vegas production got it right with it’s smaller out still immersive set. It toured soccer stadiums in Japan with a double set of actors and was …interesting. When they put it on ice, not even I could watch it, it was so bad. The tours have had varying degrees of success with the current 3D tour actually being quite fun. The movies are just part of the showmanship and are pretty cool to see.

People love or loath this piece, for many it’s that CD hidden under a copy of Sweeny Todd for fear that a passing theatre snob may see it. I for one revel in this show’s Taoist complex simplicity and just grin from ear to ear each time I see it. It is a show that is just there as escapist entertainment, letting you know nothing more then that the underdog still does get the girl and being true to yourself is still the best way to go, nothing more. Some pretentious theater queens just write off many a show like because there is no huge revelation of the torched human soul or other deep meaning. To those people I say of you want a plot less piece like that just listen to Company. (Another show who’s cast recording sounds very dated in its original form) To each our own and that is what makes theater the great thing it is. We each get to escape to varying degrees into a world of music and lights. Some of us like it to be a deeper refection of life’s strife and others like it as a jewel box of color radiating the simple joys of living.