"The Wedding Singer" Reviews

Well the only actul critic on that Drama Desk nominating committee is Matthew Murray who writes for talkinbroadway.com which isn't exactly the Times.

It's gonna be a long night for this show. Can't say I disagree with the opening shot.

Speaking of Matthew Murray, Talkin Broadway is Negative (surprise, surprise):

"News flash: If you can't laugh at the 1980s, you're a stick in the mud!

An odd message for a musical, no? Yet there's no other discernible point to The Wedding Singer, the flashy, facile, and futile new show at the Al Hirschfeld. It spends two and a half hours mocking the trends, fads, and foibles of a decade, in hopes that will be enough to anchor a brightly colored, surface-level musical comedy.

It's not.

What's been forgotten by librettists Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy - like everyone involved in this robotically entertaining enterprise, from director John Rando on down - is that cheeky references are no substitute for wit. The dialogue encompasses such venerable '80s fixtures as The Clapper, New Coke, Mr. Belvedere, and Joanie Loves Chachi, which all do evoke the period in a general, harmless way. And there's no lack of attention to detail in the blinding pastels and California-influenced colors of the costumes (Gregory Gale); the mile-high-meets-low-flow-showerhead hair (David Brian Brown); and the choreography (Rob Ashford), which slavishly recreates all the era's defining dance moves.
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Do other things work? Sure. Scott Pask's scenery is attractive and inventive, as is Brian MacDevitt's lighting. And Rando's direction, for once, brings out the best in the material.

But there's just not a lot of "best" here; "good enough" is the predominant offering; this is exemplified by the two visual gags that bookend the intermission. The second act opens with an entr'acte recreation of the trailblazing videogame Pong. It's very funny, yes, to see lights recreate those ubiquitous paddles and that ever-bouncing ball, but Pong was 1970s news; by 1985, even Pac Man (1980) was approaching passé.

Spanger herself is responsible for the other: She ends the first act in a nightclub's go-go box, striking an evocative pose on a chair, and yanking a chain that thoroughly douses her with water, a la Flashdance. Why, you might ask? Why not, you can almost hear Rando and the authors respond. They might have spared Spanger the drenching: She, as with so much else in The Wedding Singer, was, like, already all wet."



http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/WeddingSinger.html

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Updated On: 4/27/06 at 06:33 PM

"The show did seem to please the audience..." And that, is really all that matters, isn't it?

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But is it the job of the theatre critic to echo the audiences response, or give their personal opinion?

When did Benanti get the ugly wig?

That wig is even worse than in Seattle. She sort of looks like Laurie Metcalf on ROSEANNE.

Yeah, her Seattle hair was much better. Maybe they're trying to make her look like Drew.

Thats what I think. I remember a discussion on this board a few days or weeks ago when people were saying that they wanted a blond Julia. Its not that unlikely that producers and poeple inolved with the show came to a similar conclusion.

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Remember that "All Shook Up" didn't get any nods either. And it had good sets...

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That wig is awful. I wish they'd left her hair the way it was in Seattle. At least then it looked like it could belong to her.

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I'm sure they'll get a couple of Tony performance nods, and maybe a Best Score nom by default.