Talkin' Broadway Dracula Review

"Dracula ranks as one of the saddest and most dispiriting Broadway shows in years. It's the type of empty, meaningless venture that only depresses and discourages those who believe musicals can communicate the full range of human emotions; Dracula inspires one response and one response only: apathy. This is not a show intended for anyone believing a musical can commit no greater sin than to be completely uninteresting and uninvolving from its first moment to its last."

Um.......Ouch
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/DraculaMusical.html

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I want to warn any readers before I begin: I have to unload some angst in my life, and this thread merely gives me a venue. I apologize for any long-windedness I incur.

I am not a Frank Wildhorn fan. I was thrilled when I first heard about J&H. Then I heard Liza sing "A New Life" and I despised the song, the show, the lyricist and the composer. And I used to love Leslie Bricusse. But he is dead to me now.

I saw a ray of hope when I first heard SP. It's still my favorite Wildhorn show, and I am a big fan of Nan Knighton, for I feel her contributions to that show are the best thing about it.

Next came TCW. Ugh. When I want to see a bunch of beefy male models with headset mikes singing generic pop songs about a major moment in American History, I'll pop down to Knott's Berry Farm or the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center at the end of the Oregon Trail for a hoedown and Bar-B-Q.

That being said, I'm glad to hear that Wildhorn is not the one to blame in the case of Dracula. I hear he's trying to stretch in new ways, and for that I applaud him.

I'm in the process of writing a show myself. This will be my fifth musical. I'm having a hard time with the composer on this one. (I write the book & lyrics.) He insists that I write the lyrics first (the book was finished months ago), then has no clue how to set them to music. I provide perfectly scanning meter, no false rhymes, and interesting internal rhyme and rhythm. What do I get? In five different cases so far, I've gotten nine or ten sixteenth notes-all the SAME note! No invention, no variety...just freakin' NOTES!

As the Emperor said to Salieri, "Too MANY notes."

And so, I suppose I can understand Wildhorn's plight with his collaborators; one the contract is signed, then you are stuck with your partner for the duration. All I can do is drag my supposedly learned collaborator kicking and screaming through Musical Theatre Writing 101 (as laid down by Lehman Engel.) God what a waste of my time.

Hell just froze over: I am on Frank's side.

Updated On: 8/19/04 at 07:17 PM

I agree w/ you about that. They just love not liking this show. Something tells me these people decided they weren't going to like it even before they got their tickets.

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damn

Well, it's not as if they get together and decide that they're all going to pan the show. Each individual reviewer so far seems to have come to the same conclusion that 90% of the posts on this board and the other theatre boards have -- that this just isn't a very good show. The only dissenting opinions seem to have come from long-time Wildhorn fanatics.

Look critics don't have all that much power anymore -- if word of mouth is good it'll find an audience (the critics weren't crazy about MAMMA MIA either and that's been a mostly soldout hit since it opened in spite of the notices, because audiences had fun and told their friends to go). Face it, only a small fraction of the potential theatre audience reads reviews anymore (or newspapers at all for that matter -- only 11% of Americans read newspapers on a daily basis these days). Most people have no idea who Ben Brantley is and even a rave from the Times isn't any guarantee that a show will run (look at ASSASSINS and NORMAL HEART).

Given Wildhorn's name and the universal popularity of the title and subject matter, if DRACULA flops, it won't be the critics' fault, it'll be because not enough of the audience enjoyed the show enough to encourage friends, family members, and co-workers to go see it.

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Updated On: 8/19/04 at 09:17 PM

Ashes to ashes ....

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At least "Dracula" doesn't have any numbers involving tugboats ......

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