THE GLORIOUS ONES Reviews

Talkin Broadway is Negative:

"Ambition: If you don’t have that, there’s no point in going on - change with the times, or get off the stage.” The delicious irony of these words is that they emanated from the pen of Lynn Ahrens, who inserted them into her new musical The Glorious Ones, which just opened at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center. One would hope that the lyricist and librettist, who’s been at the musical theatre game for nearly 20 years now, would know better than to toss out such live ammunition. But if she’s willing to throw, I’m willing to catch: This is not only the least ambitious musical Ahrens and her partner, composer Stephen Flaherty, have ever written, it’s also their direst and dreariest.........

....That makes this the first Ahrens and Flaherty show that all but outwardly dismisses human emotions as useless affectations. Even the duo’s less-successful shows - among them the recent Seussical, A Man of No Importance, and Dessa Rose - tapped into the hearts of characters lost amid tricky situations, which made their attempts at musicalization, if flawed, at least admirable. They’ve never matched their breakout success Once On This Island, but have never before strayed this close to apathetic soullessness.

No moment better exemplifies the show’s crippling creative disconnect than a late-show moment that invokes modern analogues to the commedia archetypes. “A little man with a moustache and a bowler hat eating his shoe,” one person cries, just before another identifies “a woman with carrot-red hair stuffing chocolates in her mouth.” Pointing up the triumphs of Charlie Chaplin and Lucille Ball only reminds us of the expertly executed comic genius that inarguably derived from commedia, but is utterly missing in The Glorious Ones."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/11_05_07.html

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Variety is Mixed:

"Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens have written a customarily intelligent score for their new musical, "The Glorious Ones," and Marc Kudisch gives an especially fine performance in the central role. But this musical in commedia dell'arte style never quite engages the audience's attention, resulting in an admirable but only intermittently amusing evening.............

...The low comedy on display here, simply put, is unlikely to set many theatergoers rolling in the aisles.

Director-choreographer Graciela Daniele doesn't help matters much. Production is simple, in keeping with the commedia tradition, but there are some nice touches (and an impressive stage transformation late in the proceedings) from set designer Dan Ostling and lighting designer Stephen Strawbridge. Lincoln Center Theater provides a customarily first-class mounting, this being the sixth Flaherty/Ahrens offering under LCT artistic director Andre Bishop's tenure.

Selection of source musical can be tricky and treacherous; a musical based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem sounds far more iffy than one from the pen of Dr. Seuss. Even so, this team's recent musicals -- "A Man of No Importance," "Dessa Rose" and now "The Glorious Ones" -- while well-crafted and worthy of admiration, have been self-sabotaged by the choice of material.

Flaherty and Ahrens remain one of the most talented teams of contemporary musical theater dramatists in the field. Let's hope for a stronger starting point for their next opus.


http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117935315.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

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"They’ve never matched their breakout success Once On This Island"

I see what the intention of this statement is, but hello- Ragtime???

And these negative reviews are very sad. I thought the show deserved better reviews than this. Come on, New York Times!

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The NY Times (Isherwood) is Mostly Positive:

"A jolly group of itinerant actors sing of themselves in “The Glorious Ones,” a new musical about the roistering life of the clowns who paved the streets of 16th-century Italy with sight gags and sex jokes. With buoyant music by Stephen Flaherty and a bawdy book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, the show mixes the lowdown pratfalls of commedia dell’arte with the rosy sentimentality of classic American musical comedy. It encourages sn*s in one scene, as we watch the players perform classic comic sketches on a scrappy wooden stage, and sympathy in the next, when we sneak behind the scenes to lend an ear to their hopes, fears and heartaches.

This is something of a forced marriage, the aesthetic analogue of the calculated matches that the young lovebirds in a commedia dell’arte scenario would connive to thwart. The resulting musical is a sweet but strange hybrid, both joyfully naughty and totally innocuous. It’s like a whoopee cushion that emits a wistful sigh.

Still, Mr. Flaherty and Ms. Ahrens, longtime collaborators best known for “Ragtime” and “Seussical,” among other shows, are adept and agile songwriters. If their scores are rarely groundbreaking, they are nicely varied, melodic and satisfying. “The Glorious Ones,” which opened last night at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in a plushly scruffy production from Lincoln Center Theater, includes a trunkful of well-made songs that showcase the lyric gifts of its high-spirited cast......

Despite its roots in a novel by Francine Prose, “The Glorious Ones” is short on narrative thrust. It really is just a sung valentine to the actor’s life, with its joys, hardships and sorrows, set during a period when the comic theater was beginning to shed its vulgar roots and evolve toward a greater refinement.

Fortunately, once the show moves beyond its opening thicket of acting-life clichés, the bright glow of the performances dispels the faint whiff of treacle."


http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/theater/reviews/06glorious.html?ref=theater

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Updated On: 11/5/07 at 10:21 PM

LOVED this in Pittsburgh, hope it does well.

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Newsday is Positive:

"But "The Glorious Ones," inspired by Francine Prose's 1974 novel, turns out to be an overextended but pithy little valentine to the twilight of improvisation - the moment before those tyrannical playwrights took center stage. The songs may have a debt to "Into the Woods" and "Cabaret," but the overall effect is goofy and sweet.

Then, too, the project is blessed by the presence of Marc Kudisch, as close as we get today to a dashing leading-man from the golden-age of musical theater............

And Kudisch gets to do "I Was Here!," a big climb-every-mountain/impossible-dream number that, for all its oversized foolishness, manages also to be a testament to the artist's immortal quest. As Flaminio proclaims at the start: "A wooden stage. An audience. And a great actor. This, my friends, is my idea of heaven!"

Well, not heaven. It is, however, a nice place to visit."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/stage/ny-etglor5447440nov06,0,1601813.story

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What exactly went wrong with A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE? I saw the wonderful film with Albert Finney and it seems like it would be perfect stuff for musicalization. What happened? Margo? Anyone?

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I really liked the A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE recording. The music is really great, but sometimes leans to cheesy.

In my opinion the best crafted of their shows will still be Once on This Island, and their epic masterpiece will be Ragtime.

However, right underneath those two, I would place the Glorious Ones. It provides sweeping, powerful emotions that make the audience laugh, cry, celebrate, pity, the score is subservient to these emotions so don't expect lots of "catchy tunes" a la Once on This Island or Seussical, but there are a few great ones:

- The Glorious Ones
Absalom
The World She Writes
My Body Wasn't Why
and I Was Here especially are really great character pieces.

There are some humerous and interesting moments such as "Making Love", "Flaminio Scala's Historical Journey to France".

Rise and Fall" functions as almost a homage to Fred Ebb. The music is in a Kander-ian vein and Ahrens does a decent job at giving us Freddie's Liza Minelli voice.

Overall a far more delectable score than anything playing at the moment, and a more powerful message than Phantom, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Xanadu, etc.

The NY Post gives it Two-and-a-half Stars:

"The show delivers extensive examples of commedia-style sketch comedy - which inevitably feel tired - and more than two dozen musical numbers, many of them commenting on the struggle and nobility of the artistic process.

Several of these, including the title song and Flaminio's big ballad "I Was Here" (stirringly sung by Kudisch), are quite lovely. But their relentless procession ultimately has a numbing effect. And the final number, in which the performers comment wondrously on such comedic descendents as Charlie Chaplin and Lucille Ball, feels forced.

Graciele Daniele has staged the proceedings with her usual grace and fluidity, and the seven-member ensemble, which includes Natalie Venetia Belcon as the leading lady, John Kassir as the dotty doctor and Julyana Soelistyo as the troupe's resident dwarf, does sterling work. Still, the show never lives up to the promise of its title."



http://www.nypost.com/seven/11062007/entertainment/theater/despite_a_fine_cast_its_not_so_glorious_452007.htm

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Updated On: 11/6/07 at 10:30 AM

The Newark Star-Ledger is Mixed:

"Director-choreographer Graciela Daniele's lively production boasts significant charms, notably leading man extraordinaire Marc Kudisch's juicy performance as a great big hunk of prosciutto cotto. But although there is typical craft and smarts to the estimable "Ragtime" makers' latest score, "The Glorious Ones" proves to be only fleetingly satisfying.

After a promising dramatic arc rises as the story's seven characters undertake theatrical adventures that will whirl them from Venice to Paris -- and from fame to ill-fortune -- the intermission-free tuner gradually winds down in energy. Worse, the show virtually gives up on laughter. Penultimate scenes undoubtedly meant to be bittersweet in mood get lugubrious.
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Making effective use of designer Dan Ostling's rustic setting and Stephen Strawbridge's warmly-hued lighting, Danieles' artless presentation romps along agreeably. By the time spectators finally realize the musical is repetitious in format and surprisingly thin in content, the show has ended with a nearly-touching epilogue.

Enhanced by Daniele's inventive staging, Ahrens & Flaherty's smooth craftsmanship and the proficient ways of a tasty ensemble, "The Glorious Ones" is a forgettable musical that thrives very pleasantly on a moment-by-moment viewing basis."



http://www.nj.com/theatredance/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/1194328058147540.xml&coll=1

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Well, I'll have a go at it, even though it seems to have gotten mostly negtive reviews.
At least to encourage the producers to do more original shows with Flaherty&Ahrens

"They’ve never matched their breakout success Once On This Island"

I see what the intention of this statement is, but hello- Ragtime???

Actually, I would agree. I love Ragtime's score, but as a show, it just didn't work for me. Way too many book and staging problems.

In my opinion the best crafted of their shows will still be Once on This Island, and their epic masterpiece will be Ragtime.

I think Ragtime came very close to being an epic masterpiece, but it just barely missed the mark. With a revised, more cohesive book it could one day be an epic masterpiece, but as it stands now, it's still a really pretty mess with occasional moments of clarity.

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