#1
Posted: 4/2/10 at 10:57am
So, I caught the show last night, and definitely went in with lower expectations from online buzz and what I had heard from friends. I'm not sure how much has changed yet, and what will still change, but hopefully quite a bit. Keep in mind that I am a huge Sondheim fan, which is perhaps why I was most disappointed in the show.
Act I was just a mess, I can't think of another word really. It just seemed really impersonal and sloppily put together. The song selection was just curious, and nothing seemed to be matching up towards anything thematically. I walked out on intermission feeling like even though I had never met Sondheim, I could have put together a more personal revue than Mr. Lapine did, and while I normally don't like to discuss shows at intermission, I had to be talked through what I had just seen. It was so painful that I remember thinking during the final number of Act I that they must have cut the show down to 2 hours intermissionless because it felt that abysmally long.
Act II is leaps and bounds better. I guess they saved all the great moments for the second half of the show. Williams/Cook's "Losing My Mind/Not A Day Goes By", Lewis' "Being Alive", Cook's "Buddy's Eyes", and "The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened" were the definite highlights for me, and I can't help but feel that with the Sondheim songbook there is no reason why the whole show shouldn't be made up of these kind of revelatory moments.
Overall, the show doesn't do anything better than "Side by Side by Sondheim", or "Putting It Together" and just feels ill-conceived and sloppy. The show kept missing thematic moments that would have helped it succeed so much better. At several points during the show, I was feeling how what Sondheim was saying was going to tie into a particular song, and then they would sing something completely unrelated. The worst of these is at the end of the show when Sondheim is talking about his teachers and mentors, and as Barbara Cook walks out I just knew that she was going to sing "Children & Art" to tie up the themes that had just been tying up the second act, and instead she sings "Send in the Clowns", which just perplexed me. They had me in a moment, and then took a complete 180 to end the show. I would also agree about the sentiment of there being too many cut songs. Other than the "Company" sequence, and "Smile, Girls", I didn't understand the point of the rest of them being there.
The cast is perhaps the next big problem, after the direction. Vanessa Williams was the highlight for me. She was the only one who felt consistently good throughout, although certainly not great. Barbara Cook does wonders with her standards, "In Buddy's Eyes", "Send in the Clowns" and "Not A Day Goes By", but she seemed tired and exasperated and even, perhaps, annoyed during the rest of the numbers she was in. She also seemed to be saving her voice in the rest of the show, as I was not impressed with her vocally until those songs in Act II. Tom Wopat is a bit of a disaster. There is absolutely no reason the male lead in a Sondheim revue should not be an incredible singer. Tom Wopat has a pleasant enough voice, but "Finishing the Hat" and "Epiphany" just sounded awful. It's not his fault that he can't pull off George Seraut and Sweeney Todd vocally, few people can, but Roundabout could have certainly found someone who could. Norm Lewis has a great voice, but I found most of his interpretations to be boring and unmemorable. The other four are instantly forgettable. I've always felt that Sondheim works best for actors with unique and powerful voices (Bernadette, Patti, Patankin, Stritch) and the ensemble of this show was the absolute opposite of that, pleasant and completely ordinary. I said to a friend afterwards that it is the "Julie & Julia" of Sondheim reviews. You have a show that's half-genius (Sondheim's video portions) and half-mediocre cutesy talent (the cast minus Cook and Williams) and everytime you switch out of the Sondheim videos I found myself groaning, because I knew what they were about to do was probably not going to measure up.
It's not good that with this show I would rather watch Sondheim talk about his music than listen to it sung. It's really a shame that this is the best show that Roundabout could come up with for Sondheim's 80th birthday celebration, as it sells short his genius.
Act I was just a mess, I can't think of another word really. It just seemed really impersonal and sloppily put together. The song selection was just curious, and nothing seemed to be matching up towards anything thematically. I walked out on intermission feeling like even though I had never met Sondheim, I could have put together a more personal revue than Mr. Lapine did, and while I normally don't like to discuss shows at intermission, I had to be talked through what I had just seen. It was so painful that I remember thinking during the final number of Act I that they must have cut the show down to 2 hours intermissionless because it felt that abysmally long.
Act II is leaps and bounds better. I guess they saved all the great moments for the second half of the show. Williams/Cook's "Losing My Mind/Not A Day Goes By", Lewis' "Being Alive", Cook's "Buddy's Eyes", and "The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened" were the definite highlights for me, and I can't help but feel that with the Sondheim songbook there is no reason why the whole show shouldn't be made up of these kind of revelatory moments.
Overall, the show doesn't do anything better than "Side by Side by Sondheim", or "Putting It Together" and just feels ill-conceived and sloppy. The show kept missing thematic moments that would have helped it succeed so much better. At several points during the show, I was feeling how what Sondheim was saying was going to tie into a particular song, and then they would sing something completely unrelated. The worst of these is at the end of the show when Sondheim is talking about his teachers and mentors, and as Barbara Cook walks out I just knew that she was going to sing "Children & Art" to tie up the themes that had just been tying up the second act, and instead she sings "Send in the Clowns", which just perplexed me. They had me in a moment, and then took a complete 180 to end the show. I would also agree about the sentiment of there being too many cut songs. Other than the "Company" sequence, and "Smile, Girls", I didn't understand the point of the rest of them being there.
The cast is perhaps the next big problem, after the direction. Vanessa Williams was the highlight for me. She was the only one who felt consistently good throughout, although certainly not great. Barbara Cook does wonders with her standards, "In Buddy's Eyes", "Send in the Clowns" and "Not A Day Goes By", but she seemed tired and exasperated and even, perhaps, annoyed during the rest of the numbers she was in. She also seemed to be saving her voice in the rest of the show, as I was not impressed with her vocally until those songs in Act II. Tom Wopat is a bit of a disaster. There is absolutely no reason the male lead in a Sondheim revue should not be an incredible singer. Tom Wopat has a pleasant enough voice, but "Finishing the Hat" and "Epiphany" just sounded awful. It's not his fault that he can't pull off George Seraut and Sweeney Todd vocally, few people can, but Roundabout could have certainly found someone who could. Norm Lewis has a great voice, but I found most of his interpretations to be boring and unmemorable. The other four are instantly forgettable. I've always felt that Sondheim works best for actors with unique and powerful voices (Bernadette, Patti, Patankin, Stritch) and the ensemble of this show was the absolute opposite of that, pleasant and completely ordinary. I said to a friend afterwards that it is the "Julie & Julia" of Sondheim reviews. You have a show that's half-genius (Sondheim's video portions) and half-mediocre cutesy talent (the cast minus Cook and Williams) and everytime you switch out of the Sondheim videos I found myself groaning, because I knew what they were about to do was probably not going to measure up.
It's not good that with this show I would rather watch Sondheim talk about his music than listen to it sung. It's really a shame that this is the best show that Roundabout could come up with for Sondheim's 80th birthday celebration, as it sells short his genius.
