AWFUL. Why did I bother to previously say more. One word sums it up.
But, with an edit or two. I will re-post:
In 21 years of being a Broadway professional, I have never walked out of a Broadway show until tonight. Everyday Rapture is worse than Starmites, Nick and Nora, Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public and Chu Chem, just to name a few. It isn't a musical. It is an overblown cabaret show. But, not just that. "The cabaret" show that every intelligent professional in the industry warns people against doing: "How I got to NY." (In this: after my partial Mennonite upbringing). How I fell in love with the Musical Theatre. Plus, an offensive though slightly humorous Jesus tribute. The entire same old boring done thing. It's been done, and done, and done. It includes: "Why" I do this. It even adds a touch of "Oh, poor pity me. I lost my friend to AIDS." Finishing with "Ain't Children Grand?" (At least as I was told by the person I attended with who liked it significany more than I.)
Ms. Scott sounds like she often does live: pinched and pitchy. It takes her way too much work to produce sound that is often unlistenable. Thank goodness she has Lader as a voice teacher. She has little to no upper voice. Yet, attempts to use it poorly in a scratchy: "I just smoked half a pack way." At the Last 5 Years, sitting in the second row, I thought her larynx was gonna pop out her nose and land in my lap, causing her to bleed uncontrollably. (Although, partly that can be blamed on JRB and his band playing too damn load so that she and Mr. Butz had to screech over them.) I find her quite listenablle on recordings. But, all live shows I have seen her perform in she has been in far less than ideal voice.
Pop/Jazz/Showtune arrangements of recycled songs from Mr. Roger's neighborhood do not make a musical. No one besides Judy or the like (Streisand, MacDonald, Mazzie) should ever attempt "The Atchison..." or "Over The Rainbow." David Byrne and Henry Nilsson are featured as well proving what? That more inappropriate, recycled songs should be accepted as appropriate and well crafted "new musical" material.
Backed up by two lovely, zoftig women with better chops (barely) than her's. She is placed center between them, quite often, which only emphasizes her freakish figure: melon breasts, a waist line that looks like she strapped on and squeezed into an industrial strength rubber band to make it so pinched it almost doesn't exist, enormously pronounced odd shaped hips and skinny legs in pants too long for her heels. (I was just waiting for her to trip. Why wear the heels if no one will see them?) Is she worried she won't look skinny enough? (Quick call Intervention and tell them "Karen Carpenter alert".) Where is a good costume designer when you really need one? Or was it Carnahan making continually poor casting choices who urged her to go with them behind her? Isn't it time for that talent light casting geezer to retire?
This is simply a write off for the Roundabout. It got poor reviews off-Broadway. So, move it to Broadway? Yes! Just write the flop off as a tax write off in a season of the worst musicals in years. I don't know anyone who wouldn't prefer to have a season like Sunset Blvd's. Which won its awards for attempting fine craft and because nothing else was up against it.
Nothing Appealing. Everything appalling. Not even close to any comedy seen tonight.
AricCartman Wed.4-21-2010
Updated On: 4/23/10 at 01:50 AM