Talkin Broadway and Matthew Murray

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 5/18/04 at 6:40pm

What is wrong with this guy? Is he not getting any lovin' in his life? I feel this man can't enjoy a musical and holds his nose in the air after reading these reviews. Does anyone else feel this way?

"In most other years, it would be little more than a curiosity trampled on by bigger, more forbidding shows. With its main competition this season being lackluster star vehicles, over-inflated puppet shows, and bewildering, bothering, but not bewitching exercises in revisionist literary history, Bombay Dreams takes the lead simply by being more than the sum of its parts. " - Bombay Dreams

"Responsible for that is director Joe Mantello, whose musical work (including A Man of No Importance and Wicked) insists meaning and sense be checked with audience members' hats and coats. Unwilling or unable to invest his musicals with the same naturalism-embracing qualities he brings to his plays (Take Me Out, Mantello's Tony-winning success, is an excellent example of him in his element), he instead relies heavily on gimmicks." -Assassins

"But did the orchestra have to be onstage, hidden behind John Lee Beatty's attractive yet somewhat chintzy combination of scrims and mostly representative set pieces? And did David Ives's Encores!-style "book adaptation" need to be retained? Or could Kathleen Marshall, a prime Encores! mover and shaker herself, not provide direction and choreography that might release more of the inherent energy in the script and score? The lighting and costume plots (by Peter Kaczorowski and Martin Pakledinaz) are more complete and effective, but everyone should have gone full-out." - Wonderful Town

"Director Joe Mantello is demonstrating once again (after last year's A Man of No Importance) that he has little or no working knowledge of how or why a musical is different from a straight play. He can't make dialogue scenes between numbers lilt and sing, he doesn't understand how musicals move or should be paced, he doesn't seem to have acknowledged how awful the "musical staging" by Wayne Cilento (doing a bad John Carrafa imitation) is, and it probably never occurred to him that Kristin Chenoweth (a neutron star of concentrated theatrical energy), in the secondary role of Glinda, might draw attention from the less flashy central role of Elphaba and the less exciting actress (Idina Menzel) playing her." -Wicked

Updated On: 5/19/04 at 06:40 PM

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 5/18/04 at 6:42pm

No, this is not an extension of the Gay Men In Theatre discussion

[Broadwaylilhead]

Posted: 5/18/04 at 11:20pm

Talking Broadway

sucks.

[Plum]

Posted: 5/19/04 at 12:16am

Thank you for that well-thought-out insight. At least ATC doesn't allow polls, so people discuss something other than their favorite and least shows and performers.

[Tesse]

Posted: 5/19/04 at 10:58am

Matthew is entitled to his opinions. And we're entitled to disagree, if we're so inclined, or to not read his reviews in the first place.

Why do you feel that Talkin' Broadway sucks? I'm very glad that there are so many wonderful theatre sites on the web, and that they're all so different. The unique-ness of each site and its respective boards is what makes them fun. And if you don't like the flavour of one site, you can easily find another that's more to your taste.

~Tesse, who enjoys both BroadwayWorld and Talkin' Broadway very much.

[robbiej]

Posted: 5/19/04 at 1:09pm

I agree that Matthew is entitled to his opinions...it's just the way he expresses them that puts me (and apparently others) off. His condescension is palpable. I find his reviews more loathsome than John Simon's (and you are hearing from someone who has been 'Simonized').

Tone goes a long way to making a review have impact.

[daphnerocks]

Posted: 5/19/04 at 1:18pm

Matthew is a freak. He is entitled to his opinions, but has ZERO credibility. Saying that DOTV was better than WICKED. He is obviously insane.

And who "reviews" for Talking Broadway. Come on. Doesn't he work for another theater site? Wierd they allow him to do that.

[Tesse]

Posted: 5/19/04 at 1:48pm

*sigh* Once again...

You, like everyone, including Matthew, are entitled to your opinions. If he feels that DOTV is better than WICKED, you don't have to agree. Name-calling, however, is unnecessary. It doesn't further discussion of theatre (which is why we're all here, I imagine!), and only hurts feelings.

And Talkin' Broadway has a large and well-respected staff of critics and columnists. (Gosh, I feel like a shill for TB today!) If you don't tend to like their reviews, you don't have to read them. Read the reviews of critics with whom you tend to agree, since what they say will give you a better idea of what you'd enjoy seeing.

~Tesse, who is not a shill for TB

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 5/19/04 at 7:00pm

I've said it once and I'll say it again:

This is America, unless you've got cash, we don't care about your opinion.

I use "we" loosely

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 1/17/16 at 12:27am

I'm really shocked to see in his review of Allegiance that he assumes today no one will agree with the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII. Come on, dude! You know there's one name scrolled and yelled incessantly on TV -- Donald Trump.

Updated On: 1/17/16 at 12:27 AM

[yfs]

Posted: 1/17/16 at 8:26pm

I guess my question is, of what use is Matthew Murray? It seems to me a critic ought to be either a pretty good assessor of what mainstream opinion is likely to be, and therefore a sort of decent consumer guide, or a very perceptive essayist with his or her own views expressed, contrarian though they may be, in ways that make you think, educate you, perhaps even change your mind because they're so smart and persuasive. The first group, you might say, was personified by Brooks Atkinson and Walter Kerr, though Kerr was a superior writer and a distinguished critic, but not for his surprising perceptions -- he just understood how theater was made and what made for a satisfying evening. The latter would be someone like Kenneth Tynan, who could really make you think. Matthew Murray certainly doesn't fit the first definition -- his opinions are much more often contrary to the general response to new shows than not. And he'd only fit the second definition if he really had some wisdom and the skill to express it. But he doesn't. He has a faux-insider's knowledge of the business and how it works, and seems to be consistently lecturing people who've had much more success than he has about how things should be done. But he's never made a persuasive case for why anyone should listen, unlike Tynan or John Lahr or Frank Rich, who sort of falls between the two definitions. So what's the point? 

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/17/16 at 11:00pm

What an odd thread to bump after 12 years. 

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 1/17/16 at 11:08pm

I was thinking the same thing Adam Greer.  I vaguely, vaguely know of him.  His most recent review is for "Noises Off."

 http://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/index.html

[GroupAGroup1]

Posted: 1/17/16 at 11:31pm

Ah, this thread is from 2004! I wondered why those review quotes were chosen! That poster didn't yet have Murray's many scathing attacks on John Doyle productions to draw from.

Look, the man is entitled to his opinions, and just because they're often contrary to other critics doesn't mean he's wrong.

(pause)

Having said that:

Murray once described the black experience as often seeming "that least inherently poetic of American subjects."

(pause)

HUH?

Updated On: 1/17/16 at 11:31 PM

[yfs]

Posted: 1/18/16 at 12:00am

Tell it to August Wilson! 

[uncageg]

Posted: 1/18/16 at 1:47am

adamgreer said: "What an odd thread to bump after 12 years. 

 

I was actually thinking about looking for a thread about him the other day so am surprised this thread popped up.

 

I always include him in my reading of reviews. I just feel the man has some issues. Only read the first few lines of his HAMILTON review while looking for another review and it seems that he did not like it. (Maybe he did and I should read the whole thing). I just always think he never achieved whatever he wanted to do in the theatre so he just tears down all of these shows out of anger. The last review I read by him was for Tappin Thru Life and it was just nasty. Amazes me that he gets press invites. But then his opinion doesn't carry as much weight as other critics. JMO

 

"

 

Updated On: 1/18/16 at 01:47 AM

[LarryD2]

Posted: 1/18/16 at 9:51am

I don't think Matt is a particularly good or particularly bad critic. His writing is middle-of-the-road and probably would not receive any specific attention were his opinions not occasionally the extreme outlier. I would also point out that, like all of Talkin' Broadway's "critics," Matt is an unpaid volunteer; he just happens to do it on a larger scale because he covers NYC.