'Times They Are A-Changin' Reviews

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 6:57pm

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/26/arts/NA_A-E_DAN_US_Theater_Times_A_Changin.php

It is hard to tell what Tharp, who conceived the show, had in mind, judging from the confusing, surreal production on stage at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The diffuse plot is as ragged as the tattered overalls worn by the production's creepy clown chorus, an able, gymnastic bunch of dancers awash in scary pale makeup that make them look like refugees from Cirque du Soleil.

There are clues to Tharp's intentions in the theater program where the setting is ominously described as "sometime between awake and asleep" and where the musical is called "a fable." Forget life being a cabaret. In "Times," it's a small, seedy circus, a garish, colored-light world wonderfully created by designer Santo Loquasto. Allegory, anyone?

The story, if you can call it that, concerns a father, a son and a woman who seems to come between them. Dad is a gruff, grinning sadist called Captain Ahrab; son Coyote, an unhappy Candide-like youngster; and Cleo, a circus performer of mysterious origin. None of them is particularly well defined — or interesting.

Visually, though, there are some arresting moments, particularly when Tharp's dancers are hurtling across the stage. Whether bouncing on trampolines, using hula hoops, jumping rope or tossing beach balls (shades of the unlamented "Good Vibrations"), they have an unflagging energy that almost makes up for the nebulous love triangle.

Tharp uses a few of her dance regulars here, including John Selya, Ron Todorowski and an amazing Charlie Neshyba-Hodges. They are all veterans of "Movin' Out," the choreographer's Billy Joel-Vietnam era musical that had a lengthy Broadway run.

Special kudos should go to Michael Arden, a genuine find. He portrays the show's budding hero with an appealing earnestness that transcends the thinness of his character. And while not a dancer, Arden holds his own against the more experienced movers on stage.

Brescia does deliver an affecting version of "Don't Think Twice It's All Right," sung to a dog, portrayed with floppy-eared sweetness by Jason McDole. That mutt is one of the evening's meager attempts at humor, a quality sorely lacking amid all the pretension Tharp piles onto this lame coming-of-age parable.


Updated On: 10/26/06 at 06:57 PM

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 7:01pm

At least Brescia and Arden got good notices...this review was a bit too kind about the production I thought.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 7:02pm

That review was already posted in this thread, but whatever:

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=914975&dt=23

[TomMonster]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 7:24pm

Well, at least, so far they don't say anything bad about Sesma... He's an old friend, and as much as I disliked the show, I don't like seeing friends (or anyone for that matter) being dissed in public...

Unfortunately, his "character" is set up to be hated by the audience from the get go... Hopefully, the critics won't blame him for that. His vocals are terrif.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:38pm

The New York Times is a pan:

And now for the latest heart-rending episode in Broadway’s own reality soap opera, “When Bad Shows Happen to Great Songwriters.”

If you happen to be among the masochists who make a habit of attending the entertainments called jukebox musicals, in which pop hits are beaten up by singing robots, you may think you’ve seen it all: the neutering of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in “Good Vibrations,” the canonizing (and shrinking) of John Lennon as a misunderstood angel-child in “Lennon,” and the forcible transformation of Johnny Cash from Man in Black to Sunshine Cowboy in “Ring of Fire.”

But even these spectacles of torture with a smile, frightening though they may be, are but bagatelles compared with the systematic steamrolling of Bob Dylan that occurs in “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which opened last night at the Brooks Atkinson Theater.

Read on...

Tharp and Dylan, A-Knockin’ on the Circus Door

Updated On: 10/26/06 at 10:38 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:46pm

Dylan a la Ingmar Bergman, add clowns and you-name-it?

Hmmm...

How is the average theatre-goer going to feel about this? Left out?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:49pm

Gotta love Brantley....the only critic who figures out how to bash other shows in his reviews.

"If you happen to be among the masochists who make a habit of attending the entertainments called jukebox musicals, in which pop hits are beaten up by singing robots, you may think you’ve seen it all: the neutering of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in “Good Vibrations,” the canonizing (and shrinking) of John Lennon as a misunderstood angel-child in “Lennon,” and the forcible transformation of Johnny Cash from Man in Black to Sunshine Cowboy in “Ring of Fire.”"

That paragraph, alone, is worth it.

I wouldn't even call that alone a pan - I'd call that a close-on-opening-night review. Updated On: 10/26/06 at 10:49 PM

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:50pm

Does anyone know if Michael Arden was well enough to perform opening night?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:54pm

Brantley's review does mention him, though it would have been written before.

I wonder if they'd delay or change the review if someone else performed on opening night.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:54pm

I hate Brantley, but this review is pretty accurate, I must say! The show is awful.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:55pm

Thanks to Frank Rich, opening night reviews are written days before the show opens. Critics don't see the actual opening night performance.

Since Arden only missed the last critics preview, only the 2nd and 3rd strings missed him - Talkin' Broadway, for one.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:57pm

Musto too.

[TomMonster]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 10:57pm

Well, I thought Brantley would either give some fun dish, or a pretentious rave.

So--we got fun pretentious dish.

Works for me...

[Julian2]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:06pm

Not suprised at the reviews. I just watched the press release video and the line struck me "So don't critisize what you don't understand" And its for that reason I think no living creature on earth will EVER be able to critisize this show.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:10pm

To think of all the money and all the work of putting a show together.

And the odds are so tough if you're not a Disney. Even if you have a good show it still needs bigtime marketing and money and experience to do that.

[Princeton78]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:13pm

And even if you're Disney....look at "Tarzan"
*shudder*

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:16pm

I haven't seen Tarzan. But it has has months with large grosses and I have heard tourists saying they liked it afterward.

I'm not really big on children's shows, but families need them.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:22pm

Man I hope this lasts until December.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:26pm

Dare I ask why?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/26/06 at 11:55pm

Variety is Negative:

"Choreographer Twyla Tharp has frequently and successfully looked to unorthodox musical inspirations to create her distinctive dance pieces, among them the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, David Byrne and, notably, Billy Joel in her first foray into musical theater, "Movin' Out." While that show was a danced narrative set to music performed live by a singer and band separated from the action, Tharp attempts to expand her range by integrating song and movement to the music of Bob Dylan in "The Times They Are A-Changin'." But the mercurial dance innovator slips up badly in a plodding, literal-minded fable that's vibrant and busy but also chaotic and narratively incoherent.
________________________________________________________________

But after its tepid reception at San Diego's Old Globe in February, "Times" appears to have made little progress en route to New York. Watching the unengaging mess onstage at the Brooks Atkinson, it's hard to imagine how it could have been helped. The impression is that Tharp's auteurial command prevented anyone from pointing out that the concept is just plain lame.

Unlike Joel, a "piano man" whose songs tell self-contained stories that could serviceably be manipulated into a larger narrative, Dylan comes with a daunting load of iconic baggage attached. The singer-songwriter has been a figurehead for countercultural America, for the civil rights and anti-war movements, for the spirit of protest and unrest. Harnessing all that and a stylistically restless five-decade career in popular music to a silly story about a circus owner, his son and the animal trainer they both love feels like random trivialization -- regardless of the numerous references in Dylan's lyrics to circuses, carnivals and clowns.

_______________________________________________________________


The generic father-son conflict is limiting enough; the greater problem is that Dylan's songs are introspective compositions generally not suited to the emotional overkill of Broadway-style reinterpretation. (Michael Dansicker arranged, adapted and supervised the music, sharing orchestration duties with Dylan, which mystifyingly indicates the latter must have approved the approach at some point.)

Playing ill-defined archetypes, the three leads work hard and sing well, but "Blowin' in the Wind" is simply an aberration when mutated into a pumped-up, overwrought anthem.

Tharp also has no idea how to make the songs dynamic, either planting the singers in declamatory deadlock or having them stride about aimlessly while assorted clowns skip, tumble, flip and bounce on the trampoline surfaces of Santo Loquasto's junkyard set. Even when the songs do summon some emotional intensity, all the awkward, hokey buffoonery going on in the background (in unfortunate Leigh Bowery-esque costumes and makeup) smothers it.



http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117931974.html?categoryid=1265&cs=1

[defyingravity11]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:00am

That's so funny! Just as I was watching the review video on Broadway.com, the commercial came on on tv. The commercial actually makes it look better than the reviews make it out to be.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:00am

Cause I'll be in New York in December (fingers crossed). I'd really like to see Arden live. I've been a fan of his voice for a while now. He's one of my Broadway idols.

[Over_the_Moon]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:02am

Hoping it lasts long enough for a cast recording...

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:03am

Theatremania is Negative:

"Twyla Tharp got in on the jukebox-musical ground floor. Way back in the 1970's, she raided the Beach Boys catalog for her dance pieces Deuce Coupe and Deuce Coupe II. Subsequently, she tackled the Frank Sinatra canon in Nine Sinatra Songs, and with the more recent Broadway musical Movin' Out, she lionized Billy Joel. Now she's conceived, directed, and choreographed The Times They Are A-Changin', a Bob Dylan entry that lands somewhere between dance piece and musical. But where Movin' Out is a work of art, The Times They Are A-Changin' registers only as hard labor.

_____________________________________________________________


But after rummaging through the Dylan oeuvre, she's imagined something else entirely: an allegory set in a seedy circus run by an oppressive ringmaster.

At least, that's what a program note says, but it's doubtful whether the narrative will come across to anyone who hasn't read the summary. I'm certainly not convinced I would have known what in blazes was going on if I hadn't. To fill you in, I'll just quote from that helpful foreword: "Captain Ahrab [taken, I suppose, from Dylan's "115th Dream"] is a tyrannical leader crippled by greed. Coyote sees the faults of his father and wants his life and everyone else's to change. Cleo has found shelter at the circus and is trying to survive."

That's about all you need to know. Indeed, it may be much more than you'll want to know about the plot, since none of it is as edifying about the human condition as Tharp would like to believe. Whatever the often rewarding dance purveyor is doing, it doesn't jibe with the Dylan material. Indeed, what Tharp does to some of Dylan's songs -- amid Santo Loquasto's gaudy sets and costumes and Donald Holder's flashing lights -- shouldn't happen to a dog. (By the way, there is a dog onstage; well, a dancer impersonating Cleo's dog.) For example, Tharp lops off a crucial section of the superb torch song "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," discarding the emotionally stunning lyrics: I once loved a woman -- a child I'm told/I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul." Yes, the song is belted by Cleo (Lisa Brescia), the unhappy performer torn between Ahrab (Thom Sesma) and his son, Coyote (Michael Arden), but the gender references could have been changed without harming Dylan's casual meter.

It gets worse. The Up-With People staging of "Blowin' in the Wind" is so cheesy it even elicited boos at the press performance I attended. (When was the last time you heard boos during a Broadway show?) And while Coyote sits on a floating crescent moon to sing "Mr. Tambourine Man" (and thereby conjuring Mame's Bea Arthur warbling "The Man in the Moon Is a Lady"), Tharp has a shadow-play skeleton appear. Clearly, she believes that Mr. Tambourine Man is the Grim Reaper, which is obviously her right."



http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/9314

Updated On: 10/27/06 at 12:03 AM

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:05am

defyinggravity - are you watching the WB CW11?

The commercial just came on.