#1
Posted: 2/8/07 at 12:32pm
I am seeing the tour on Saturday and the production got panned here in Buffalo. Has anyone seen it and feel differently? I saw some photos from the production in the entertainment paper and it didn't look too promising. Below is the review from yesterday's paper.
Charitably, This Musical Is Nothing to Rave About
By COLIN DABKOWSKI
News Staff Reviewer
If you were a big spender, you wouldn't drop a dime on these girls.
The touring revival of "Sweet Charity" starring Molly Ringwald, which began its run Tuesday night in Shea's Performing Arts Center, was a wholly underwhelming production plagued by lackluster voices, uninspired acting and a star whose performance fizzled when it was supposed to pop.
Ringwald - most famous for her roles in various teen dramas of the 1980s and otherwise a talented actress - exhibits in the role of Charity Hope Valentine little of the sassiness and charm demanded by the role. On the contrary, her performance seems at points stilted, though her singing voice and dancing are passable. With predecessors like dancer Gwen Verdon and, in the Bob Fosse film, the charming Shirley
MacLaine, Ringwald's feet don't fill half of either one's shoes.
In Neil Simon's book, based on the Federico Fellini film "Nights of Cabiria," a naive and eternally optimistic dance-hall hostess named Charity runs up against love in the worst of ways. After a series of bad moves and Mr. Wrongs, Charity avoids the appeal of lovelorn despondence embraced so readily by her fellow employees, and continues to quest after an elusive love she knows can be hers. The other girls say she rents out her heart like a hotel, but Charity sweetly maintains that, "Without love, life has no purpose."
But without sizzle and talent, a show originally choreographed by Bob Fosse has no purpose, and this is evident right away when the popularsong "Hey Big Spender" falls flat on its face. It is too reserved, too nice, not nearly sexy enough.
The girls, costumed beautifully in a mishmash assortment of short dresses in hot colors, otherwise command no special attention. The attitude just isn't there, as if they were singing to a group of kindergarteners.
Ringwald, considering her company on the stage, might actually be one of the more shimmering sequins on this cheap dress of a show. As Vittorio Vidal, an Italian actor after Charity's heart for a night, Steve Wilson speaks (though thankfully does not sing) in a cartoonish accent somewhere between Transylvania and a Chef Boyardee commercial.
An outright embarrassing and off-pitch duet, "Baby, Dream Your Dream," by Amanda Watkins and Francesca Harper as fellow dance-hall hostesses Nickie and Helene, drags down the second act considerably. It's truly puzzling how a number of such abysmal quality was allowed on stage.
The lone saving grace of the show comes in the form of Charity's somewhat neurotic boyfriend, Oscar Lindquist, played brilliantly by Guy Adkins.
If there were a show to steal, Adkins would have it all to himself, as he exhibits some obviously hard-practiced physical comedy and seems to be channeling some frenetic combination of Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope and Steve Martin. The dance number, "Rich Man's Frug," was also danced admirably, though it, too, seemed somewhat tame in its satire of the aristocratic foppery that serves as the antithesis to Charity's naive world.
There are any number of further problems with this production, though none more evident than its sheer lack of visceral impact, that pop you would expect from a group of sassy prostitutes trying to seduce that fabled "big spender."
The totally inexplicable number, "Rhythm of Life," which never made sense in any version of the show, seems just as out of place here as it might have on Broadway or as it did in Fosse's film starring Shirley
MacLaine. The idea here, ostensibly, was to add some hippies for no reason in particular, and in that it succeeds brilliantly.
The show was updated only slightly, but not enough to make any noticeable difference or improvement. This is a show that wouldn't lend itself to anything but the most radical update, with its key period costumes, hyper-exaggerated by designer Edith Head, and in this version they are usually just as subdued as the music and its delivery.
Charitably, This Musical Is Nothing to Rave About
By COLIN DABKOWSKI
News Staff Reviewer
If you were a big spender, you wouldn't drop a dime on these girls.
The touring revival of "Sweet Charity" starring Molly Ringwald, which began its run Tuesday night in Shea's Performing Arts Center, was a wholly underwhelming production plagued by lackluster voices, uninspired acting and a star whose performance fizzled when it was supposed to pop.
Ringwald - most famous for her roles in various teen dramas of the 1980s and otherwise a talented actress - exhibits in the role of Charity Hope Valentine little of the sassiness and charm demanded by the role. On the contrary, her performance seems at points stilted, though her singing voice and dancing are passable. With predecessors like dancer Gwen Verdon and, in the Bob Fosse film, the charming Shirley
MacLaine, Ringwald's feet don't fill half of either one's shoes.
In Neil Simon's book, based on the Federico Fellini film "Nights of Cabiria," a naive and eternally optimistic dance-hall hostess named Charity runs up against love in the worst of ways. After a series of bad moves and Mr. Wrongs, Charity avoids the appeal of lovelorn despondence embraced so readily by her fellow employees, and continues to quest after an elusive love she knows can be hers. The other girls say she rents out her heart like a hotel, but Charity sweetly maintains that, "Without love, life has no purpose."
But without sizzle and talent, a show originally choreographed by Bob Fosse has no purpose, and this is evident right away when the popularsong "Hey Big Spender" falls flat on its face. It is too reserved, too nice, not nearly sexy enough.
The girls, costumed beautifully in a mishmash assortment of short dresses in hot colors, otherwise command no special attention. The attitude just isn't there, as if they were singing to a group of kindergarteners.
Ringwald, considering her company on the stage, might actually be one of the more shimmering sequins on this cheap dress of a show. As Vittorio Vidal, an Italian actor after Charity's heart for a night, Steve Wilson speaks (though thankfully does not sing) in a cartoonish accent somewhere between Transylvania and a Chef Boyardee commercial.
An outright embarrassing and off-pitch duet, "Baby, Dream Your Dream," by Amanda Watkins and Francesca Harper as fellow dance-hall hostesses Nickie and Helene, drags down the second act considerably. It's truly puzzling how a number of such abysmal quality was allowed on stage.
The lone saving grace of the show comes in the form of Charity's somewhat neurotic boyfriend, Oscar Lindquist, played brilliantly by Guy Adkins.
If there were a show to steal, Adkins would have it all to himself, as he exhibits some obviously hard-practiced physical comedy and seems to be channeling some frenetic combination of Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope and Steve Martin. The dance number, "Rich Man's Frug," was also danced admirably, though it, too, seemed somewhat tame in its satire of the aristocratic foppery that serves as the antithesis to Charity's naive world.
There are any number of further problems with this production, though none more evident than its sheer lack of visceral impact, that pop you would expect from a group of sassy prostitutes trying to seduce that fabled "big spender."
The totally inexplicable number, "Rhythm of Life," which never made sense in any version of the show, seems just as out of place here as it might have on Broadway or as it did in Fosse's film starring Shirley
MacLaine. The idea here, ostensibly, was to add some hippies for no reason in particular, and in that it succeeds brilliantly.
The show was updated only slightly, but not enough to make any noticeable difference or improvement. This is a show that wouldn't lend itself to anything but the most radical update, with its key period costumes, hyper-exaggerated by designer Edith Head, and in this version they are usually just as subdued as the music and its delivery.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
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