TAMMY FAYE Reviews- Page 4

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:10pm

Holdren in Vulture is negative.

Christian Nationalism, But Make It Fun: Tammy Faye

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-broadway-musical-tammy-faye.html

"

The last thing I need right now is to watch the architects of our current Christian Nationalist fascism do jazz squares. Michael Cerveris, I’m sorry: It’s not you. It’s Jerry.

I don’t think I’m alone, either. When most of Tammy Faye’s numbers reached their big finishes, the audience around me produced awkward bursts of lukewarm applause. My heart went out to the cast. They are, like any and every Broadway ensemble, working their butts off up there, but, in the words of my favorite fictional Canadian hockey player, for what? Who, especially in the middle of November 2024 in New York, is the fan base here? “Whoever you are and whatever you believe, welcome to Tammy Faye!” says the chummy opening announcement — and then Tammy’s make-up-caked eyes, projected in an enormous image on the show curtain, blink softly, their mascara runs, the pink clouds around them part, and the play begins. The blithe big-tent-ism (which also seems to be Elton’s go-to interview stance) feels pat. Clearly the production’s not all that interested in people with serious Christian-conservative leanings, unless they have a whole lot of patience for endless puns about Jesus being “inside her/him/me/you” and “the sound of the Lord, coming right in your ear.” And if you are, to quote Tammy Faye’s version of Jimmy Swaggart, a “liberal-loving Marxist,” you’re probably too heartsick to find all this much fun."

[chanel]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:14pm

Upbeat review from Village Voice, says Katie is a brilliant marvel.

https://www.villagevoice.com/review-the-eyes-of-tammy-faye-sparkle-and-cry-through-her-rise-and-fall/

[broadwaybaybee22]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:16pm

All reviews for Tammy Faye are available online. Sorry for the cast knowing how hard they all worked. Katie got many kind comments but sadly she wasn't enough to carry the show.   This type of negative feedback from so many critics won't help keep the show going at the Palace for very long.  Hope they can at least stay open til the end of December but who knows.  

Updated On: 11/14/24 at 11:16 PM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:16pm

Excerpts from the Washington Post review

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater/2024/11/14/tammy-faye-a-wonderful-world-review/

"The noncommittal tone is partly to blame: Too sincere to be camp and too scantily detailed for a tell-all, the show blandly retreads the plot many people may already know: Girl meets boy, they preach via satellite, build an empire and it falls. Director Rupert Goold’s production, with its efficient but uninspired “Hollywood Squares” staging (the set is by Bunny Christie), seems to rely on an exaggerated sense of Americanness in place of a coherent critique.

The absence of a clear point of view makes even memorably colorful figures tough to play. The score, with music by Elton John and lyrics by Jake Shears, often finds Tammy waxing about her bleeding heart, with indistinguishable country-lite tunes that sound like Dolly Parton’s cutting-room scraps. Katie Brayben does brave and appealing work as Tammy, but the triteness of the material is hard to escape. The host’s famous on-air embrace of an AIDS patient plays like flat emotional manipulation."

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:18pm

NY Sun

With a Big Assist From Elton John, ‘Tammy Faye’ Captures the Televangelism Era in All Its Messy Glory

Over nearly two and a half hours, the Broadway musical makes its case for the title character’s eventual ascent to heaven — loudly and ardently, with precisely the mix of earnestness and irreverence one might expect.

https://www.nysun.com/article/with-a-big-assist-from-elton-john-tammy-faye-captures-the-televangelism-era-in-all-its-messy-glory

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:21pm

Daily Beast

Broadway Review: Elton John’s ‘Tammy Faye’ Musical Is Far From Heaven

LIKE A PRAYER

Elton John and Jake Shears’ Broadway musical about televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker makes an unconvincing case for her iconic status.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/broadway-review-elton-johns-tammy-faye-musical-is-far-from-heaven/

"Faye advances the idea that because Tammy Faye and Jim seemed a little nicer and down-to-earth than the judgmental fire and brimstone of Falwell and Co., then their mission was in some way more honest and true. But it wasn’t. As the musical makes clear, Jim was prosecuted for financial mis-dealings, as well as being enmeshed in a cheating scandal. (Very late in the show, he breaks down as Tammy gently confronts him about being attracted to men.)

The musical never locates the charm of Tammy beyond her scatty outlandishness, and also does not take her seriously as an adult at the apex of a massive media empire. It never asks about her own complicity with her husband. She does not admit fault or moral or any other kind of failing. She is simply allowed to play the victim.

Songs like “Look How Far We’ve Fallen” and Tammy Faye’s big 11 O’clock number “If You Came to See Me Cry” are offensive baloney. We haven’t come to see her cry; there is nothing about her, as presented on stage, that would merit such engagement."

Updated On: 11/14/24 at 11:21 PM

[DrMonicaDeMoneco]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:23pm

I hope everyone involved enjoys the opening night party and parties until the cows come home!  Shame be damned! Throw caution to the wind! 
Then wake up the next day with a bad hang over and the reality of being in a flop.  If only they had made some MAJOR changes. Sigh.

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:38pm

One star from NY Post

‘Tammy Faye’ review: Elton John’s Broadway show is a disaster of biblical proportions

https://nypost.com/2024/11/14/entertainment/tammy-faye-review-elton-johns-broadway-show-is-a-disaster-of-biblical-proportions/

"Two years ago, the sinfully long show still included many of John’s same Saltine-cracker songs that are forgotten the moment the audience applauds and a book that’s seemingly allergic to insight and fleshed-out humans. But boring, it was not. 

Perhaps our sustained interest was due to the close proximity to the actors. The Almedia seats 350, while the Palace has room for 1,600. The energy was definitely helped along by the showbiz effervescence of Andrew Rannells. More on that later.

Gobbled up in New York, the musical, with a score by John, lyrics by the Scissor Sisters’ Jakes Shears and a book by James Graham (“Ink”), has gotten significantly worse. 

Directed by Rupert Goold (“Patriots”), usually the UK’s go-to guy for sleek and mechanical stagings, “Tammy Faye” is neither. Rather, it’s amateurish with lots of dead air and little focus."

...

"Brayben and Borle have a shared dourness, as well, so they don’t fully come to life until the second half when Tammy and Jim’s ritzy existences crumble as the press delves into their funny finances. 

Rannells played Jim back in the UK, and his zest is missed. Jim was not the performer Tammy was, granted, and he struggled on camera. But actors in a musical should not be awkward to watch, and Borle is."

[pablitonizer]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:41pm

Well, what's next for the Palace?

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:48pm

DTLI Consensus: Broadway’s latest biomusical, courtesy of Sir Elton John, is disappointingly hell-bound.

7 negative (including the NYT), 6 mixed, 1 positive.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/tammy-faye/

 

[bwaylyric]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:48pm

pablitonizer said: "Well, what's next for the Palace?"

Ben Platt: The Holiday Concert

[nativenewyorker2]

Posted: 11/14/24 at 11:57pm

pablitonizer said: "Well, what's next for the Palace?"

Ruben & Clay’s Second Annual Christmas Carol Family Fun Pageant Spectacular Reunion Show

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 12:00am

EDSOSLO858 said: "DTLI Consensus:Broadway’s latest biomusical, courtesy of Sir Elton John, is disappointingly hell-bound.

7 negative (including the NYT), 6 mixed, 1 positive.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/tammy-faye/

"

Even the ones they are considering mixed are leaning negative. These reviews are pretty bleak and match the word-of-mouth reviews. We need to go back to the times when they really did overhaul shows during the preview period. Superficial changes can't fix something fundamentally broken, and this sounds like it is fundamentally broken. 

[Kad]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 12:08am

These reviews are largely dead-on.

This is a show that has Tammy Faye being told, "It's not hemorrhoids, it's cancer," as one of its very first lines, and that is apparently a line intended to be taken seriously, and that tells you a lot.

Tammy Faye is reduced to a small figure here, with no clear wants or even a clear arc. We're told she cries and wears a lot of mascara, we're told she connects to millions, we see almost none of it. She is treated extremely deferentially, even as she seems to have benefited from Bakker's crimes and played a large part in defrauding the faithful (and the concoction of a Lady Diana moment, giving a gay man with AIDS a hug, is a particularly galling fiction as depicted here). The musical falls into some standard bio traps, particularly a plot that seems driven less by character struggles and desires and more of a rote historical "and then this happened, this happened, this happened," particularly in the second act, even as so much is fictionalized or left unaddressed. Jim Bakker doesn't fare better- we never really get a clear sense of how a doofy Christian puppeteer with little charisma became a philanderer and white collar criminal. He just.. does. 

The show's tone is a major problem, whipsawing from wink-wink camp to earnestness to the point that the opening night audience was laughing at sincere moments or not laughing at things that seemed intended to be funny. Toward the end, Tammy Faye tells a nurse the gays always had her back- punctuated with a rainbow floor and a few chords of "I Will Survive." This was, of course, a thing she said and felt- but we never see it depicted in the show, and reducing it to a pandering gag is reductive. The show doesn't really seem to have much to say about anything despite the topic being fertile ground for a lot of discussion. The most it settles on is that evangelists are hypocrites and frauds, which... yeah, this is well-worn territory dating back to Elmer Gantry. The notion of an "electric church"- televangelism- is an interesting topic to explore, and I liked that the set was both a literal and metaphorical embodiment of it, but, again, all the show does is repeat that the church can now reach into homes.  I'm pretty sure an episode of Murder, She Wrote handled this topic with more depth. There are some feints at female empowerment and dealing with sexism in Christianity, but, again, so surface-level and ultimately undercut by the fact that all the writers seem to be willing to do is trot Tammy Faye out to wear a wig and suffer a bit.

Incidentally, it's Jerry Falwell who is the best rendered character here, as he actually has clear wants. And despite his villainous depiction and Tammy Faye getting a posthumous last word over him, it's Falwell who's had the last laugh in real life.

It's all superficial and glancing the surface of deep and relevant issues in American culture- but this is also a show that dilutes Tammy Faye's most famous feature, her makeup-slathered surface. So what are we doing here?

 As a bad musical, it's not nearly as fun as the firing-on-all-cylinders of bad taste Diana. It's just... so middling, with occasional bouts of camp, but long stretches of meh.

 

Updated On: 11/15/24 at 12:08 AM

[Robbie2]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 1:12am

guess nederlander knew this was going to bomb per word of mouth prior and now these reviews justify that AND the palace has another show ready to move in!

[jkcohen626]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 2:35am

These are closing in 16 reviews. I guess 20 with the weekend. 

[Dolly80]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 3:24am

I just hope they release a cast recording to preserve Katie’s performance.

But that aside - this appears to be toast. 

[Strange Lupone]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 4:59am

TotallyEffed said: "hyangsoo said: "There are people out there who haven't even seen the show who feel free to comment and tear a show down without giving it a fair chance."



Hi! So I actually saw the show and I hated it very much, hope this clears things up!"

 

Will you marry me?

[Lavieboheme3090]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 6:19am

I guess not everyone loved the puppets.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 6:59am

I'll guess and say this closes December 1. Unless the producers have very deep pockets and can keep it out through Christmas week.

[RW3]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 7:09am

What I keep going back to is the interview where Elton said that Tammy Faye was in better shape than The Devil. Wears Prada. Also, what a year for Goold and Graham. From the heights of Dear England to this…

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 7:28am

The tonal issues are reminding me of Queen of Versailles. At least that one revealed Siegel as pathetic at the end after trying to paint herself as a plucky heroine. I think a NY audience would rather see Faye skewered than praised. I've got a ticket for my January trip. It sounds like I should come up with a backup show for that slot.

[JasonC3]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 7:39am

Hoping Cerveris returns quickly to the stage since this show does not seem it will keep him around for long.

[quizking101]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 8:24am

JasonC3 said: "Hoping Cerveris returns quickly to the stage since this show does not seem it will keep him around for long."

When I left an early preview of the show, my only real positive thought was “My God, Michael Cerveris can really do ANYTHING.” Honestly, I thought he might be on the track to a Tony nomination.

It wouldn’t be unheard of. It happened the last time he starred in a London transfer of a musical (Evita) with confusingly mismatched leads (Elena Roger & Ricky Martin) that got essentially shrugged off in NYC.

[quizking101]

Posted: 11/15/24 at 8:37am

Also, is it me or does Sir Elton look like he’s evolving into Janet Reno?

Updated On: 11/15/24 at 08:37 AM