THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews- Page 2
THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#25
Posted: 2/19/09 at 7:45pm
Still not looking good enough.
I think this musical will close tomorrow.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#26
Posted: 2/19/09 at 7:46pmlolol i doubt it
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#27
Posted: 2/19/09 at 7:47pmlolololol *rolls eyes*
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#29
Posted: 2/19/09 at 7:57pm
Not nice, guys.
Boy, at this point, Will Chase's career has taken more lumps than an ice cream scooper.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#30
Posted: 2/19/09 at 8:17pm
Yeah. Sorry I said that.
Let's have at least some hope for Will and Malcolm, two actors/singers who I just love.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#31
Posted: 2/19/09 at 8:27pm
Talkin' Broadway is MIXED-TO-NEGATIVE:
"Anyone can put their baldest emotions on a stage and mildly move or gently touch a viewer; good luck coming away from Bartram and Hill’s outing without thinking about the decades-long friendships that have irrevocably altered your life - that's just the way proximity works. But the greatest shows in the musical theatre canon, the ones that engage the inner circles of your spirit, are those that translate the petty concerns everyone experiences in searing words and music that make them dramatic and universal inevitabilities. Deeply felt as Bartram and Hill’s story may be, it never makes the leap from their existence to ours. Its isolation makes it superficial, and its superficialiaty makes it a really tough slog.
Staying involved - to say nothing of staying awake - would be all but impossible if not for Chase. Unstoppably energetic, whether depicting Thomas’s bullet train ride to adulthood or his writer’s block-inspired lethargy as an adult, he’s absolutely right in every way as the man who’s forever lost within himself, and who’s built everything he has on lies that derive from the truth. Chase’s rock-modern voice may have been put to better use as the lead in High Fidelity (the last role Chase originated on Broadway, over two years ago), but he’s singlehandedly responsible for keeping this show from being as old-fashioned as Bartram and Hill apparently want it to be.
Gets is playing, well, what Gets usually plays: nerdy, neurotic, and impish, an eternal outsider with his nose pressed against the window. It’s mostly right for Alvin, who operates on a wavelength Thomas couldn’t find more foreign. But it’s far too familiar and easy a choice; Gets doesn’t say anything in any way you haven’t heard from countless times in the past.
That makes him not that much different from The Story of My Life itself. Like Alvin, the show is genuine: the truest and sincerest new musical Broadway has seen in the last couple of seasons, and a welcome antidote to the synthetic excesses of the likes of Billy Elliot, 13, and [title of show]. But it prides itself on regurgitating ideas and feelings others have described more originally, more specifically, and more richly elsewhere. When Thomas and Alvin describe their disintegrating relationship with lines like “The symbolism was glaringly obvious” and “The usual platitudes hung in the air,” it’s heartbreaking how intimately you understand exactly what they mean."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/StoryMyLife.html
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#32
Posted: 2/19/09 at 8:32pm[tos] is a "synthetic excess"? Oy.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#33
Posted: 2/19/09 at 8:32pm
I PERSONALLY have to agree with the negative reviews and agree with much of what they have said: including that the PERFORMANCES are not to blame. I LIKED both Chase and Gets, but couldn't get invested in the story at all. And DITTO to the comments to the likeness of SITPWG....there were moments bordering on THEFT.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#34
Posted: 2/19/09 at 9:06pm
It's all going to come down to Brantley....and lets face it, this isnt something he's gonna like.
...expect closing notices tomorrow.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#35
Posted: 2/19/09 at 9:48pm
Word of Mouth is 2/3 very positive. The two women here loved it, but the man thought it was only mildly interesting.
http://www.broadway.com/Broadway-com-VIDEO-ON-DEMAND-Word-Of-Mouth-Reviews/broadway_information_html/5015935
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#34
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:19pm
The New York Times [with Ben Brantley] is VERY NEGATIVE:
"...the creators of this production, which is directed by Richard Maltby Jr., have taken their reducing program a little too far. In addition to jettisoning the usual excesses of tourist-trapping extravaganzas, they have tossed away such niceties as originality, credibility, tension and excitement. I don’t think it’s spoiling anything to tell you that Mr. Gets’s character is dead when the show begins. So, for all practical purposes, is “The Story of My Life...”
Aside from “Beaches” and its ilk, the chief source of inspiration for “Story” appears to have been the musical “Merrily We Roll Along,” the beloved flop from 1981 by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth about an egotistical showbiz success (memorably played by Mr. Gets in a 1994 Off Broadway revival) who turns his back on his old friends.
Certainly Mr. Bartram’s music — which is pretty but repetitive, registering as a blurred series of intricate vamps — might be described as sub-Sondheim. And the lyrics of “Story” pose, verbatim, a question asked by Mr. Sondheim in “Merrily”: “What was the moment?” or when did life take the turn that brought its characters to their disillusioned adulthoods. Tom, the writer, keeps saying he doesn’t know how to answer that self-evident question, which makes you wonder about his bona fides as a sensitive artist.
Mr. Bartram’s score has been orchestrated by the wonderful Jonathan Tunick (a frequent Sondheim collaborator) with an unobtrusive elegance that matches Robert Brill’s subtly designed black-and-white set. And as directed by Mr. Maltby, Mr. Chase (of “Lennon” and “High Fidelity”) and Mr. Gets (a Tony nominee for “Amour”) sing and act with winning (and, under the circumstances, merciful) restraint. It is to their infinite credit that even when they’re extolling the precious glories of snow angels and a butterfly’s wings, you don’t feel like punching them in the face."
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/theater/reviews/20stor.html
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#35
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:24pmWill Chase better line up a stint as Fiyero, because this gravy train just spilled over.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#36
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:25pm
Two weeks tops!
Updated On: 2/19/09 at 10:25 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/1/06
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#37
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:26pmj* ~ Is that how long you're betting it lasts or how long until you see it?
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#38
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:26pmJ*! Missed you, man!
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#39
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:29pm
Negative summary from Brantley:
"Now is exactly the time for a small and simple musical to conquer Broadway. Think of the relief that recession-scorched theater producers would feel if they learned that the new recipe for success was nothing more than the following: a short, modest human-interest story, some sentimental songs, a gifted cast of two and an almost naked set. I am here to report that a musical opened at the Booth Theater that possesses all these elements. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the commercially savvy will be rushing to copy “The Story of My Life,” a two-character portrait of a friendship by Neil Bartram (songs) and Brian Hill (book), starring the appealing team of Will Chase and Malcolm Gets. You see, the creators of this production have taken their reducing program a little too far. In addition to jettisoning the usual excesses of tourist-trapping extravaganzas, they have tossed away such niceties as originality, credibility, tension and excitement." — Ben Brantley
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#40
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:30pm
Two weeks to last~sorry!
After hearing the score~(have the sampler) I passed this at Goodspeed! I thought it was boring! OH.. I post once in a blue moon- just has not seen any new shows! Thanks! 
I still read BWW- I just have nothing to post. LOL.
J*
Updated On: 2/19/09 at 10:30 PM
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#41
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:32pm
I know some of my friends like this show (nothing personal) but unfortunately Brantley's review will kill this show! IMO.
J*
Updated On: 2/19/09 at 10:32 PM
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#42
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:38pm
TheaterMania looks MIXED-TO-NEGATIVE:
http://www.nyc.com/events/free_academy_awards_viewing_party_at_comix.1014713/editorial_review.aspx
From the sound of it, this reviewer wanted the show to be obviously MORE "GAY."
(Hmm . . . As a gay man, I'm not sure if I agree with that.)
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#43
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:39pm
Are the gay overtones really that apparent? Can't two dudes be best friends and one have a semi-strange fixation on the other without them being gay?
And I thought we'd made progress in this country. No wonder Prop 8 was passed. Stop the H8!
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#44
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:47pm
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/theater/reviews/20stor.html
That's a pan. Called it "Beaches" with men.
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#45
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:47pm
The producer is Chase Mishkin, who kept Urban Cowboy alive for a couple of months, so we'll see what she'll do here.
By the way, anyone else find it hysterical that the word p-u-s-s-y-foot got censored earlier in the thread?
"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#46
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:49pm
"While the authors clearly want their characters' relationship to be ambiguous, here ambiguity ends up being synonymous with cop-out, depriving theatergoers of the full story of these men's lives."
Again, as a gay man, I have to admit that TSOML is the "full story" of MY life. 9 out of 10 relationships I've had with men -- be they gay or straight -- has ended in "ambiguity" and "unrequited love." Having said that, I've received courage and inspiration from the interactions nonetheless.
Isn't that what TSOML is all about?
We don't need a full-blown male-share "Happy Ending!" to make this musical complete . . . Or do we?
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#47
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:49pm
I think it's just barely a VERY NEGATIVE: Brantley liked Chase and Gets, saying that "it is to their infinite credit that even when they’re extolling the precious glories of snow angels and a butterfly’s wings, you don’t feel like punching them in the face."
But in any case, it is a "close in one night"- kind of review.
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum
Stand-by Joined: 1/17/09
re: THE STORY OF MY LIFE Reviews#48
Posted: 2/19/09 at 10:49pmWord of mouth might easily keep this show going if perhaps it transfers to a smaller off-Broadway Theatre or a regional theatre. I still hope there is a chance that a recording will be made of its' score. For as many people who did not feel "invested" in this show, it also has many people saying they enjoyed it enough to return to see it. I guess it looks unlikely that there will enough of an audience to keep it going at The Booth Theatre until June or July. Another show that many people will not likely see. Too bad. I hope the same fate does not happen to Next To Normal and a possible return of Title of Show. I know it's unlikely that TOS will return but I wish I could have seen it.
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