Holy sh*t it was bad!!
Sitting in my hotel room last night, coming down from my Whitney Houston weekend, I thought perhaps I was going through withdrawl and just imagining how bad it was.
The sound was absolutely dreadful. Radio City Music Hall does no favors by being so huge that each show looked like a slightly different flea circus. Hardly any of the numbers (save the deliciously written and performed SPELLING BEE) came off particularly well. I was watching with a VERY casual theatre attendee and he kept saying the whole thing just looks amateurish. I had to agree.
That dance medley was badly put together and a dud. RAZZLE DAZZLE was not only badly performed (and I adore Martin...shoulda won the Tony for RENT), it was entirely inappropriate. What a bizarre song choice to honor the dead! I usually am a fan of the Hall of the Passed On shown on the Oscars, but this was so rushed, you could barely tell who was who.
What was most insidious was the fact that, at every opportunity, they mentioned film and television actors as these conquering heroes coming back to be lauded for deigning to show up on a stage. I mean...don't get me wrong...if someone were to offer me a sitcom, I'd be outta here...but that was just ridiculous.
I love me some Aretha (or as I like to call her, Re-Re), but she was in terrible voice. The best moment of the evening was Bill Irwin. The worst? The surgically altered producer of SPAMALOT who was perhaps the least gracious winner in recent memory.
"I'm so looking forward to a time when all the Reagan Democrats are dead."
