Thank the lord! 101 Dalmatians musical to close after Madison Square Gardens!- Page 2

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 2:16pm

BT is a wonderful director whom I have had the pleasure of working with on multiple occasions. Some folks here are a little harsh. And they probably didn't even see the show.

[romgitsean]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 3:05pm

It couldn't have been that bad, could it?

[emo_geek]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 6:47pm

I wonder what the pantages will do. It is still on their website

[tdl83]

Posted: 3/21/10 at 7:13pm

Despite all the negative comments on here...I have to report that I saw it in Atlanta the last weekend in October......It was TERRIFIC show. Period. Well done in ALL areas.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/22/10 at 10:21am

And I can assure you that I saw the show (AND a workshop of McNicholl's "The It Girl" back in 1990), and I found the book for Dalmatians to be among the worst I've ever seen. If you want to put your faith in a Providence reviewer, fine, but I'm just expressing my opinion here. Granted, it's a strong one, but I don't see anything wrong with that. When I love a show, I express strong positive opinions, too. To me, Dalmatians was death on stage.

As for The It Girl, it was a workshop and I don't know how much it changed by the time it got a full production, but I found it to be not a good work - a light musical comedy that had no laughs, but a few good tunes.

[beautywickedlover]

Posted: 4/16/10 at 4:19pm

David Rooney didn't like the show.

"Any child who saw Disney’s 1961 “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” remembers Cruella De Vil. “I worship furs!” this PETA Enemy No. 1 cried, scheming to skin those spotted whelps for coats and accessories. The terrifying image of her behind the wheel of her speeding roadster, red eyes blazing and skunk-striped hair flying, was imprinted on countless impressionable minds.

Judging by the young audience’s fidgetiness at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, where “The 101 Dalmatians Musical” recently began its New York engagement, no similar grip on the imagination is taking hold.

That diluted energy doesn’t fill the vast Garden auditorium. While this Jerry Zaks production is not short on garishly colorful design elements, the show thinks small, starting with the dogs.

It makes none of us feel younger when hair-metal relics start writing children’s musicals. Mr. DeYoung, a founding member of Styx, doesn’t let the fact that this audience wasn’t around in his heyday deter him from cranking up late-’70s-style power ballads. Mostly, though, the innocuous songs veer from TV theme tune to Lerner and Loewe-lite. They rarely advance the narrative, instead marking time between plot points or belaboring the key theme of family bliss.

Ultimately nothing onstage rivals the magic of a disarming moment one recent evening, when a trained dog slid on some snowflakes and botched its trick, then bounded back to get it right the second time. For the creators of this charm-challenged mutt of a musical, it’s too late for a redo.


Roll Over and Beg, Cruella, and Let the Fur Fly Updated On: 4/16/10 at 04:19 PM