Tarzan got mixed reviews? — Page 3

I was looking through a scrapbook of reviews I've written on shows I've seen. I would post them more often, but I don't particularly think they're good. But my review for Tarzan, which I spared posting because I felt it would seem redundant after all of its pans, I feel, perfectly hits the nail of the head and sums up the critics complaints.
(Oh and my little OC remark is in regards to the third season. Some of the dialouge in the fourth season was quite good actually. Didn't want any fans to kill me.)

“Tarzan is a miserable failure.”
(on Tarzan: The Broadway Musical- no stars)

It’s been a very weak season for new musicals. One show, The Drowsy Chaperone, is a complete success and a second, The Color Purple, has a talented cast, a great design concept and some interesting songs, but a weak book and weak directing. Other than those two entries, in my opinion, every new musical has failed. Tarzan isn’t as weird as In My Life, but it’s on the same level of stupidity. The sad thing is that theatre professionals (with the exception of its songwriter) have created it.
The one person who is making his Broadway debut in the creative team is Phil Collins and sadly, his score is the weakest element of the show. It’s just bad. There’s no other word to describe it. Although I’ll admit that I found his songs for the Disney animated feature charming and tuneful, onstage, they sound bland and annoying. His new material is worse. One number performed by the ape parents of Tarzan is a weird, tribal version of “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” that has no wit, no tune and no rhyming pattern. It’s on the verge of pretentious. The same goes for a song that Tarzan’s love Jane sings at the end of Act I. It first starts shooting Latin plant names at the audience and then goes into a banal pop chorus.
The cast of the show doesn’t better the weak songs. In fact, you might say that the young man playing the child version of Tarzan made his forgettable song worse.
The book by David Henry Hwang is lame. The Lion King’s book was lame as well, but this is awful. The jokes don’t go over well and the dramatic lines sound like lines from the weaker episodes of the current season of The OC. The structure of the book is also hard to follow. Hwang also changes the Disney screenplay and the Edgar Rice Burroh’s novel drastically. He turns Jane’s uptight British fiancé of sorts into a manic Southern killer among other weird changes.
Bob Crowley tries his best to stage and design this mess, but it doesn’t work. You might even say his designs are tacky. The man who designed the brilliant sets and costumes of Carousel and Mary Poppins should feel ashamed of his work here. The set is green. Just green. Green ropes, green scrims, green flooring. It looks like a green screen used on special effect shots in films. This green set doesn’t work. Crowley’s costumes don’t work either. The ape characters are dressed in stringy wigs that make them look like unclean pot dealers. The character of Tarzan is also dressed this way. However, his costumes for the humans are passable.
Natasha Katz’s lighting, though far from her best effort, does give a sense of professionalism to the production.
Now onto the cast. What a disappointment! Josh Strickland as Tarzan is atrocious. His acting, or lack of it, is awful. His singing is constantly off key and his swingingdancing is unnoticeable. Jenn Gambatesse is also off kilter. Her English accent gets in the way of her performance and her off key croaking of her songs don’t help much either. Shuler Hensley could give a great performance. He seems to want to give one. However, his material is so bad, he can’t. His sub par performance was the best of the evening.
Tarzan may be the weakest new musical of the season. It’s, poorly written, poorly staged and designed and poorly performed.

Updated On: 4/7/07 at 11:31 PM

Oh I know it's hard to get work in any industry, especially theatre. Did I say that the chorus kids were awful? No. I just said that Josh Strickland and company, who certainly weren't starving on the street, were pretty terrible.

Well thread-jacked, my friend.

What CAN I say?

Love will out.

"If it cons money out of nimrods like the fanboy shills on this board, then huzzah and hurray for showing them to be the fools they truly are. "

The only fools here are you close minded ***hole "thesbians" who cant let people enjoy what they want to enjoy. NO ONE is ever a fool for liking a show. EVER. Its why we have opinions, its why we are who we are. If you dont like a show, it is your DAMN OPINION but dont ever call people fools for liking a show because it just makes you look immature and mindless.


"Get a life, folks. TARZAN is a piece of BS that should be an embarrassment to the Disney name. "

So does that mean every person associated with Pirate Queen should be ashamed and considered an embarassment to theater, or is Tarzan only an embarassment because it is a Disney show? Pirate Queen got WORSE reviews than Tarzan so I guess in your words Pirate Queen is an embarassment to Schönberg.

The reason why Tarzan is still playing is because its produced by F*CKing disney. It's not like it is being done by a group of producers who are loosing tons of money each day a flop prodcution of thiers plays. Disney knows that tarzan isn't doing as well as they had hoped but to them they aren't making much money keeping it open but they aren't loosing any money eaither. I get the feeling that they think that they might as wel keep it open so they can milk it for all its worth and realy on the fact that tourists are comming to see this show because they see that it is disney thus it is good.

Had this show been produced by any other producer it would have closed a long time ago.

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No pun intended, right, taz?

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>> The only fools here are you close minded ***hole "thesbians" who cant let people enjoy what they want to enjoy

Sigh. Reading comprehension time again, I see.

Did I say you couldnt enjoy it? Nope. If you want to waste your money (or, as is the usual standard around here sometimes, getting other people to waste their money so you can get the cheap tickets available to very few), that's fine with me. Go for it. Knock yourself out. There's an audeince out there for everything, including TARZAN and BROOKLYN and even VIA GALACTICA.

Does that make any of those three good theatre? Not a chance, bucko. Does that make of those three worth the millions spent in presenting them to a gullible public? Not one whit. But if you want to enjoy them, Mouse Magic (and if that handle doesnt scream "shill", nothing does), have a great time. It's your choice (and I can anticipate the response: a decisive stamping of the foot and a petulant "Darn right I can!"). Just remember, I actually saw this piece of twaddle. It was two-plus hous of my life I can never get back.

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Now, I'll admit that I skimmed over most of the thread, so I'm coming in new.

Bah - you are indeed correct that Tarzan has rarely (if never) lost money week-to-week. For proof, just check out the grosses.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/grossesshow.cfm?show=TARZAN&year=2006

I saw Tarzan twice (once on my own, once as a birthday present from a friend). I didn't enjoy it either time, but it certainly wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. I saw an early preview of it and it was in significantly worse shape then than it was six months later when I saw it the second time. Shuler Hensley was visibly bored throughout, Josh Strickland and Jenn Gambatese weren't very convincing, Hwang's book is awful, and the only one who even looked like he was having fun was Chester.

A terrible show it ain't, but it certainly isn't a very good one, either, IMO.

I'd place the blame on Disney completely. They took a risk with Bob Crowley, a very inexperienced director, and failed. They took a risk staging much of the show in the air - not realizing (or ignoring) the fact that the last 5-7 rows can't see a blessed thing.

Curtains isn't a thinking show.

Yankeefan007: Hwang's book was bad? I'm SHOCKED! Absolutely SHOCKED!

Seriously, I love M. Butterfly and all, but he needs to stick to straight plays and get the heck away from musical theatre.

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Hmm, you're right. I hadn't considered that.

And, yeah, I adore his writing. Like I said, M. Butterfly is one of my favorite plays, ever.

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