Thoughts on N2N 4/12 matinee

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 6:57pm

I found the show very, very moving. i kinda knew the story going in- but i was still surprised at various plot points. a really moving (if unsatisfactory) tale that i think everyone knows all too well, in one way or another.

Alice Ripley is delivering a real powerhouse of a performance- she totally throws herself into the role. i am, to be honest, not a big fan of her voice- it always seems to me she doesn't really have control over it- but it works well with her character here. i dont know enough about the other contenders to grant her a tony award or anything, but i was really impressed with her today.

i thought aaron tveit and jenn damiano were also highlights. i thought tveit was perfect- his voice was the strongest of anyone today- and did a great job walking the fine line between tragic and selfish. jenn damiano doesn't outshine ripley- until you realize that shes gotta be something like 20 years old and is going head to head with a pro like ripley. i didnt bring my playbill home with me, but the song about the invisible girl and superman was fantastic.

my real gripe with the show is the score- the show is sung-through, but there are no really memorable haunting melodies that carry the show forward. "I Miss the Mountains" and "Im Alive" and that searing "i am the one..." are all great- but many of the others are fairly monotonous. the LYRICS were great but the vehicle meant to carry them- a little weak.

i was also underwhelmed by j robert spencer- my guess is that he suffers from his surroundings: his children and wife quite simply outsing him, outact him and out-charisma him.

it was nice to see the theater relatively full- probably a solid 75%. tamara tunie from law and order was sitting just in front of us, and i am pretty sure i saw megan hilty as well. if it was her, she looks amazing.

lots of press there- i saw the powers that be handing out press packets to lots of people i would never recognize by face but almost surely know by name. im hoping the show takes a night off before opening night- alice needs to rest that voice.

you should all definitely get to the booth theater and see this show. i dont see it catching on as a huge hit- it doesnt have the score to get the teenagers buying the soundtrack and seeing the show a million times, and wont be luring tourists in either. but i hope it enjoys a few months of traffic from the regular theater crowd... it certainly deserves to be seen.

[snl89]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:05pm

jenn damiano doesn't outshine ripley- until you realize that shes gotta be something like 20 years old and is going head to head with a pro like ripley.


Actually she's only 17 And she's definitely pretty darn frikkin fantastic considering! Hugely talented girl.


Thank you for the lovely review! That's interesting that you found the score to be weaker- it's actually always been one of my favorite things about the show :) I can listen to nearly all the songs over and over again and not get tired of them. But different stokes for different folks, of course!

But I'm glad you enjoyed the show over all- it really is incredible

[KingKong]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:08pm

There was an interview posted the other day that ripley did where she talked about how talented Jen was and jokingly said something like "I hate her, she's only 17 years old and so talented"

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:11pm

<< That's interesting that you found the score to be weaker- it's actually always been one of my favorite things about the show :) >>

Agree. Best score I have heard since "Taboo" and "Hedwig".

And Jen is amazing !!! (Not to mention gorgeous !)

[snl89]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:13pm

Yeah, seriously, how is it even fair that Jenn is so talented AND gorgeous?? Her voice is one of the most gorgeous voices I know of, she's soooooo pretty, and is a wonderful actress. Why can't I be her!?

lol jk jk. But seriously, I envy her :P

[jordangirl]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:16pm

Spoilerish...

Slight goof today ~ Alice slipped back to "just 18 months old" in "How Could I Ever Forget". I wondered if Bobby would slip it in with "He was a baby" but he didn't.

Alice did correct herself in "Maybe" when Diana's telling Natalie about Gabe. "Seventeen years ago, your brother died of an intestinal obstruction. He was eight..." (insert a look of "rememberance" here) "months old."

[TJ2]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:20pm

I thought she did a great job covering the goof. The way she paused before saying 8 months made it seem as if she was remembering more clearly now than she has earlier (when she had said 18 months).

[steven22]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:21pm

thanks for the review

this bothered me..sorry..It is superBOY and the invisible girl
lol

[KingKong]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:22pm

Last night Louis flubbed his line in My Psycho.... Instead of saying train, he said tree. He tried his best to cover it up but it was just a mess after that and he finished with "then how many trees would it take..."

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:42pm

that was a goof! ha!

i was thrown by that- i thought maybe she was remembering it fuzzy, and we were supposed to realize she wasnt quite sure exactly when the baby died, but she knew she lost him...

im guessing it used to be eighteen months in some previous version?

[jordangirl]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:42pm

Oh yeah. She did a fantastic job! When she sang "just 18 months old" I whispered "F*&#!" to my friend. But she pulled it off really well. And it totally made sense.

[KingKong]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 7:51pm

yeah, Ole Chum, up until a week ago or so, it was 18 Months.

[Testing1232]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 8:06pm

<< Last night Louis flubbed his line in My Psycho.... Instead of saying train, he said tree. He tried his best to cover it up but it was just a mess after that and he finished with "then how many trees would it take..."
>>

Yep... that was a bad one--- I thought he was going to say "If a tree falls in a forest..."

[KingKong]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 8:08pm

so did I, and then all of a sudden the tree was leaving New York. And i got confused.

[vlegra]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 8:29pm

I am a huge fan of this show. I saw this show 4/9 at 8 pm and loved it so much I had to buy tickets for Saturday 4/11 at 2pm. Alice truly deserves the Tony Award for this role without a doubt. I do see teenagers running out there to buy the cast recording.

[steven22]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 8:35pm

I'm a teenager and I ran out (online, itunes, haha) to buy the cast recording

[snl89]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 8:38pm

Just for what it's worth, the cast recording is at #78 right now on itunes, but it WAS at #19 for a little while just after it came out, in top albums! I was floored to see it sell that well- I was impressed it could even chart at all

So yeah, it definitely has some wide appeal, score wise. Not to say there's anything wrong with not liking it, but, I feel like most people do- which is a very cool thing

[TJ2]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 8:44pm

<< Last night Louis flubbed his line in My Psycho.... Instead of saying train, he said tree. He tried his best to cover it up but it was just a mess after that and he finished with "then how many trees would it take..."
>>

I felt really bad for him. Like you said, he tried to recover but kind of just froze because how can you transition from tree to train? Fortunately, Bobby started singing "Who's crazy?..." and everything went ok from there.

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 9:00pm

i should clarify: i didnt DISLIKE the score.

I just found it...not all that hummable. There were bright moments- it sounded good, it never offended my ears... but other than the few songs I mentioned earlier, I cant really think of any other tunes in my head...

didnt mean to beat up on the show. i wish it all the best and i definitely enjoyed it...

[breakfree303]

Posted: 4/12/09 at 11:03pm

If I may ask, Ole Chum, what specifically about J. Robert Spencer's performance "underwhelmed" you?

I'm a very big fan of Spencer's, and I've heard some mixed reviews about him, and I was just curious as to why.

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 4/13/09 at 12:20am

Not really sure I can put it into words?

He has a lovely voice- he was particularly good towards the end of the show. But I was constantly drawn to Ripley, Tveit and Damiano. He never held my attention- and just got lost in the brilliance of the rest of the cast.

Nothing specifically wrong with the performance I can think of, though. i do think he reads kinda young for the role, at least from Row N of the orchestra...

[Luisasabh]

Posted: 4/13/09 at 12:20am

I absolutely LOVED the score and I just can't stop listening to it!

About the eighteen - eight - months I confess that I got a little confused, but I guessed she might have got confused too!
Alice is brilliant in the role, she absolutely deserves the Tony! Her voice is not my favorite, though... at some times, it sounded to me that she was struggling, specially in the high notes, but it was not bad to hear at all =)

This is to me one of the best shows I've seen on Broadway!
=P

Ohh... and I did see Megan there!

By the way... I don't know if people will create a thread for it, but how unpleasant was the Rush today?!
I got there REALLY early (7:30am), and was the 1st one on line, because I wanted to make sure that I would get good seats... Aside from the fact that people who were WAY behind me on line got better seats (the seats were not 1st row today), the security that was supposedly "controlling" the flow in the lobby during the rush was SO RUDE, and so was the guy at the BO.
Before the women open the door to the lobby, she said: "If you guys don't be quiet inside, I'm going to kick everybody out"... C'mon... people had been waiting for HOURS in a freezing cold to be treated like garbage?
Then when I found out that the seats were not 1st row, I asked the guy at the B.O if there were other rush seats available, because the ones he gave me were TERRIBLE... the answer I got was: YOU GET WHAT YOU GET... in a very very nasty way... I hate that guy!
After my friend and I got our tickets, we were checking where our seats were, and that women literally started kicking us out of the lobby... Then, she got mad because we where there, she went outside and brought inside and elderly woman who were at the END of the line to buy rush tickets... tickets that she would NOT get if she waited in line, because she got there 5 minutes before the BO opened... Because the nasty lady did that, she prevented people who had been waiting for at least 2 hours from getting rush tickets...

While I respect the elderly, I think that if this is a RUSH, the old lady should NOT have priority because of her age... this just doesn't make any sense... the name says: RUSH! There's no rule that says that elderly people have priority to get tickets... and I think I like student rush better now!

when people started complaining about what happened, the nasty lady got EVEN more nasty! She started yelling at us; one guy asked for her name and she said: I don't have to tell you my name... then he asked for the manager's name and she said: Find it yourself hahahhaha
Then she went inside to bring a security guy to tell us to get out of there... when he came out, he was going to be really rude, but once we started talking to him and explaining what had happened, she said that we did have a point and we should talk to the house manger...
About the house manager I'd rather not even talk about... SHE told us to go there at a certain time to talk to her, and even though she was very polite, you could see how ironic she was and she couldn't care less if some patrons were not satisfied about what had happened...


To me, it's just a shame that such an amazing show is in such bad hands at that Theater...

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 4/13/09 at 1:13am

Uhm, the House Manager personally brought people from the last rows of the mezz down to the back of the orchestra. completely unnecessary, very nice of her... she was lovely.

not sure about your experience but the house manager was awesome.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/13/09 at 1:40am

Ummm given that the rear orchestra seats are partial view, I'd rather stay in the mezz.

Also the house manager there is lovely until she has to deal with a problem. Then she gets put off. Updated On: 4/13/09 at 01:40 AM

[Ole Chum]

Posted: 4/13/09 at 2:00am

I was dead center of Row N or the orchestra and they were absolutely not partial view.