"The Wedding Singer" Reviews- Page 5

[DG]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 1:50am

"it's not a critic's job to ignore shortcomings in the book, score, some of the casting and other aspects of this musical and just say "It's fun!" and leave it at that. That's for people on chat boards to do."

This pretty much sums up our little world, now doesn't it? I just have to laugh.

[overthemoon419]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 1:58am

I'd say the reviews were spot on...


...except for claiming Wedding Singer is better than Lennon. I enjoyed WS, but there's just no comparison.

Felicia Finley deserves a nod for her performance, undoubtedly.

I don't really like either of Benanti's wigs (San Fransisco or NYC), but I'm just glad they fixed Stephen Lynch's hair. When I first saw his hair in the ads, it literally made me NOT want to see the show.

WS is fun, but it is also crude. It's got cute numbers, but it then there are other moments (like the endless Dumpster scene) that make me wish I was at home watching the movie. Kevin Cahoon is adorable, as usual. I hope the show has a healthy run, and no awkward spur-of-the-moment closing (a la All Shook Up--which, by the way, was SO much better), but I highly doubt it will live past the Summer.

[bjivie2]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 2:43am

Wedding Singer played Seattle, not San Fransisco.

[overthemoon419]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 2:50am

Whoops. Slip of the tongue. But, same difference.

[BROADWAYFAN3]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 6:30am

My review is -- it is a feel good fun show.

If a show can turn a frown upside down its a winner with me.

Shakesphere no. Comedy Central - yes

[BROADWAYFAN3]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 6:33am

Theatremania...
If there can be summer movies, why can't there be summer musicals? The Wedding Singer sure is one. It's a nice, lightweight show that's going to bring a great deal of pleasure to a great number of people, especially couples who are dating and are either contemplating or planning marriage.
The music is tasty bubble gum

[SingOutLoud928]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 8:46am

Newsday Review:

THEATER REVIEW
That '80s show is one big party

April 28, 2006


Nostalgia for the '80s can be a dubious lure for people who actually remember living through them. Similarly, a musical version of "The Wedding Singer" might seem to be an especially bankrupt idea for a Broadway that should be weary of ripped-off movies with pleasant dispositions.

That said, the show that opened last night at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre is a good-natured, harmless, high-energy knockoff of the 1998 Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore romantic comedy about nuptial rituals of 1985.

Producers who brought us Baltimore in the '60s with "Hairspray" have caricaturized the movie's nonspecific suburb here to Ridgefield - that is, Silly-Slutty-Big-Hair New Jersey. John Rando, who directed the hilarious boundary-pushing "Urinetown," has brought enough of that precision-wrought mad streak to keep the familiar form from duplicating every pop spoof from "Bye Bye Birdie" to "Little Shop of Horrors," from "Grease" to "Hairspray."

If a happy-looking cast were all that was needed for a smash, "The Wedding Singer" could still be partying in 2085. Although Stephen Lynch and Laura Benanti are pretty generic as Robbie Hart, the nice singer for a wedding band, and Julia Sullivan, the nice banquet waitress, everyone cheerfully attacks the material as if "Where's the beef?" and Orange Julius and Ronald Reagan's jellybeans were absolutely adorable punchlines.

This is a world that celebrates the most gruesome aspects of tribal rites, a never-neverland where everyone wants desperately to be married at the catering hall and register for gifts at the mall. In Rob Ashford's aggressive but inventive disco choreography, mortals in Gregory Gale's satirical raunchball costumes also flip around in cartwheels and the women do plenty of inside-thigh splits.

Lynch, a famously impolite singer-comedian making his Broadway debut, is sweet but not dangerously Sandler-esque as the lead singer-guitarist for a band whose members have given up rocker dreams for steady work. A romantic who lives in his grandmother's basement, he is left at the altar by his rough-riding fiancee - played with lust and good humor by Felicia Finley.

In fact, the fast girls overshadow Benanti's down-to-earth Julia, engaged to a Wall Street insider-trading cad (Richard H. Blake). Most fun is Amy Spanger as Julia's waitress friend, a material girl entirely comfortable with her undersized clothes and oversized appetites.

The movie made the most of the '80s zeitgeist with songs by the Police, Elvis Costello and the Psychedelic Furs. For the Boy George wannabe (here, Kevin Cahoon), there was genuine Culture Club to shock the wedding guests. In lieu of such authenticity, we have useful little '80s-sounding songs by Matthew Sklar that keep the story moving and get repeated often enough to make us feel we have known them forever.

Chad Beguelin's lyrics find cleverness in surprising places: in the Dumpster where Robbie hides after turning vicious at a wedding, or the predatory MBA chorus to a patter that sounds like Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." "If you sell your soul," says a high roller, "at least you have made a sale."

The sets, by Scott Pask, manage to find both humor and poetry in catering halls, a Vegas chapel (with a fake Imelda Marcos and a fake Tina Turner) and a Jersey streetscape with a hovering water tank and tiny houses lit from within. Like so much of the show, the designs - with their disco ball and Rubik's Cube patterns - make sure we don't miss the obvious. And miss it, we do not.

[SingOutLoud928]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 8:51am

New York Times Review:

http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/theater/reviews/28wedd.html

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 9:15am

There can't be Summer Musicals because a three month run is a Money suckin' Bomb.

[Jane2]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 9:18am

I think the show will last because tourists will love it. Case in point-"I Love You, You're Perfect".

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 10:39am

The show sounds like it's pretty much what I expected.

Problem 1: The film relied too heavily on Sandler's comedic style (as do most Sandler films).

Problem 2: The film really didn't capture the 80s, but just borrowed haphazardly and inconsistantly from the 80s.

Problem 3: Most of the beloved music of the 80s were one-hit wonders. Trying to create a new score based on a huge variety of bands and styles without using any of the original songs will most likely disappoint fans of the 80s, which seems to be the target audience. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would have to be TOP-NOTCH.

Problem 4: If you're going to send-up the 80s, specifically 1985, do your research. PONG? What the hell were they thinking? 1985 introduced one of the most popular video games EVER....Tetris. A Flock of Seagulls hairstyle was already passé as well. Trends came and went VERY quickly through the 80s. Panama Jack was out and Miami Vice was in.

I've been working on an 80s musical for a few years now, but it's a jukebox musical, so I doubt anyone here would like it much. I don't care if it gets produced or anything. I'm just having some fun with it.

[gustof777]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:07am

I can't believe some of you??? what were you thinking going into the Wedding singer and thinking you were gonna see some big moving life changing theater??? honestly! this show isn't for you...its for people who wanna go and just have fun and smile and have a rockin good time at the theater and thats FINE!! Lord, i really don't understand...it seemed during the previews the buzz of the show was decent...there were definitley people with negative things to say (which is find I don't think that you should enjoy everything and I completely respect that you didn't enjoy the show) but it didn't seem to have THAT bad of buzz about it...then the critics come out and trash the show and you all just agree and join in...that is ridiculous and i can't believe that any of you even like theater? This show seems to be bringing in a decent amount of younger people to the theater and introducing a whole new audience to this art form we love. True, it's not an Ave. Q or a Spelling Bee...BUT THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!! Stephen Lynch is hilarious and do you know how many straight guys will be going to theater because he's in it?? thats very exciting...As I said, I understand if you were annoyed by it and didn't like...everyone has their own opinions. I just think that we should have room on Broadway for all kinds of different shows and I'm glad to see that a few reviewers are saying that while it wasn't their cup of tea...there are many people who would love this show.

[kyguy78]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:10am

I agree with what a lot of people are saying about tourists and so on. Our last night in NYC, my wife and I went and saw The Wedding Singer just because we wanted to see something goofy and fun plus we both really like Stephen Lynch. I think The Wedding Singer is going to skew to another type of audience the way Spamalot, Wicked, etc. all have their little niche audiences. The Wedding Singer is just a fun dopey The Producers or Spamalot for my generation.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:10am

"This show seems to be bringing in a decent amount of younger people to the theater and introducing a whole new audience to this art form we love."

I think Wicked has more to do with that than The Wedding Singer.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:18am

Well, hopefully the producers of WEDDING SINGER will market heavilly to college kids on their break, and will offer some deep discounts, because I really do think thats the only way this show would survive the summer.

The problem is that the word of mouth, so far, hasn't been what everyone here keeps claiming - if it were, the weekly attendence would be higher. Or maybe it is that the show is appealing most to people in their early 20s, but a show can't live on rush ticket sales and as I said earlier, most post college babies can't drop 110 bucks on a theatre ticket.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:24am

Why is it that everytime a "fun" show gets bad reviews, and people are critical of it, someone must go on about how people just "hate fun"?

There are many shows on Broadway that are "fun" that got great reviews and word of mouth. There are more of these "fun" shows playing now than shows that aren't.

It seems there the bar should be pretty high, a show can develop within this "fun."

Many of the critics of this show, and I don't mean just the official critics, know exactly what it was trying to be, and on that level still think it failed.

That does not change the fact that the show is enjoyable for some, it certainly is, but it also has flaws that make it far from enjoyable for others.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:27am

How many "straight" guys Will be going to see Stephen Lynch?
That's a strange concept.
I Love Theatre, when it's good, this just wasn't.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:31am

How many stars did the Post give it?

[MistressoftheHouse]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:32am

Actually, my older brother might. He's not one for theater and as a college guy fell asleep when we went to see CHICAGO and we were only in the 8th row! My family and I couldn't understand why a straight guy fell asleep with all those scantily clad girls onstage.

But, when I told him about THE WEDDING SINGER he was mildly interested, then I told him that Lynch was playing Robbie and he decided he definitely wanted to go. So you never know...

[kyguy78]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:32am

*raises hand* I'm straight and went to see Stephen Lynch

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:36am

I had never heard of Stephen Lynch, and he didn't make enough of an impression on me to make me want to find anything else out about him.

[gustof777]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:39am

How many straight guys??
I can name you like five off the top of my head that go to college that can't wait to see that show who have never seen a musical in their lives but they love Stephen Lynch for his frat boy style comedy. and while yes I think that Wicked is probably doing more to bring the kiddies in...WS is doing a great job as well giving an alternative. I'm saying that maybe if they wanna branch off a lil bit from Wicked maybe this is a good starting point? I'm not saying that the show is flawless and perfect...what i am saying is that there is room for everything. I think that there is nothing wrong with an entertainment and i don't know how if when you go see a show and there a people cheering and bobbing their heads and laughing that you can say it failed...just my opinion

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:41am

But how much did you pay for your ticket, Gustof? - that's the real point of this debate...

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:45am

This show is so clearly an attempt to pull another HAIRSPRAY out of somebody's dusty hat. Fans upset over the reception--don't weep for it. It has an audience-accessible title, roles for lots of kids, and will probably end up performed in stock and schools whether it runs past the summer.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/28/06 at 11:45am

There's too much "cheering and Head-Bobbing" going on in the theatre these days.
(just kidding)