'Times They Are A-Changin' Reviews- Page 2

[BSoBW2]

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

defyinggravity - are you watching the WB CW11?

The commercial just came on.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:08am

USA Today gives it Three out of Four stars:

"It's tempting to say that the more of a purist you are about Bob Dylan's music, the less you'll like director/choreographer Twyla Tharp's The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Tempting, but not quite accurate.

Part of what makes Dylan's songs so compelling and enduring is that their appeal transcends his personal style, and those of his more famous folk and rock interpreters. His melodies and lyrics, as much as Stephen Sondheim's or Rodgers and Hart's, are as open to different artistic approaches as they are universally moving.

So it shouldn't surprise that Times, which opened Thursday at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, is, if uneven, more imaginative and intriguing than Tharp's last Broadway outing, the Billy Joel showcase Movin' Out. That was in essence a rock ballet, with a band led by a singing piano man cranking out faithful versions of Joel's hits.

Times actually invites more comparisons to another jukebox musical, last season's Johnny Cash tribute Ring of Fire. As Richard Maltby Jr. did for the latter show, Tharp uses characters inspired by and themes drawn from her subject's work — and imagery associated with his legend — to craft a narrative song cycle.

________________________________________________________________

The performances through which these folks express themselves may challenge certain fans' (and rock critics') notions of Dylan as a stringently unsentimental maverick. Just as Fire didn't bow to the hipster image of the man in black, acknowledging the softer and more spiritual leanings that made Cash a complex icon, Times mines the sweetness and vitality that are as central to Dylan's popularity, and importance, as any other qualities.

There are, to be sure, corny and clumsy moments in Times, but not dull or dishonest ones."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2006-10-26-review-times-a-changin_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:09am

"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?)"
-Theatermania

Ouch.

Updated On: 10/27/06 at 12:09 AM

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

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

I dont expect this show to make it till Thanksgiving, and with that review it will be lucky to make it to the end of this week. Ouch...I usually agree with Brantley (Isherwood is a completely different story) and this is no exception. This show is AWFUL!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:11am

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter is Negative:

"It doesn't seem lightning is going to strike twice for choreographer Twyla Tharp, whose "Movin' Out" -- essentially a modern ballet danced to the music of Billy Joel -- was a surprise Broadway smash.

"The Times They Are A-Changin," her follow-up effort featuring the oeuvre of the commercially resurgent Bob Dylan, is a far less accessible work that never coalesces into the fantastical theatrical experience she had intended.

Working in a more abstract mode than she did with the reasonably linear "Movin' Out," the director-choreographer here has devised a surreal, barely there narrative involving a traveling circus.

_______________________________________________________________

It all plays like an overconceived concert, with Tharp's choreography, as vibrant and physical as it is here, lacking the variety of her earlier work. A lot of it is inspired by the circus theme, including the incorporation of such big top staples as tightrope walkers and contortionists, and much use is made of the trampolines placed strategically downstage. At times, the staging succumbs to cuteness, as when the dancers are forced to imitate various circus animals. But there also are many clever ideas on display, including the adroit use of flashlights for the eerie number, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

The seven-member dance ensemble goes through their paces with virtuosic athleticism, but the fact that the show's lead characters mainly sing rather than dance robs the choreography of much of its emotional impact. While the Dylan songs are performed with strong conviction, they often display an inevitable blandness compared to the originals."


http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reviewsNews&storyID=2006-10-27T031211Z_01_N26192942_RTRIDST_0_REVIEW-STAGE-TIMES-DC.XML

[RentBoy86]

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

It's been selling well...er...decent? I hope they record it.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:14am

I'm not sure what it's weekly nut is, but it doesn't appear that it's been doing too badly so far -- attendance in the mid-80s every week, though with a low average ticket price, due to discounts. The reviews will hurt, but I imagine it should stick around until the end of the year.

[leefowler]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:15am

I was with a friend for dinner, and I predicted that it would get pans...except for that nutty USA Today critic. And I'm right! Dear God, when are they going to get rid of her?

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:16am

For USA Today to use a comparison to RING OF FIRE as a way to say that TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' is good, doesn't create much of a positive argument.

Updated On: 10/27/06 at 12:16 AM

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:19am

It makes me sad that we won't have a recording of Michael Arden's incredible voice singing this show

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:21am

Talkin Broadway is Negative:

"The revolution will not be uncivilized if Twyla Tharp has anything to say about it. Trampolines, jump ropes, teddy bears, and oversized beach balls might not be the expected weapons of any counterculture's uprising, but if you really need to bludgeon your elders, preciousness will do in a pinch.

These items, and so many more, materialize from the suffocatingly thin air enveloping the precision mayhem in The Times They Are A-Changin', Twyla Tharp's implosive stage interpretation of Bob Dylan's music that just opened at the Brooks Atkinson. That Tharp needed to fill the play's 90 dawdling minutes with props, specialty acts, and even more specialty effects ("Mr. Tambourine Man" sung while sitting on a floating moon, an ensemble member doing an extended pantomime as a dog) suggests a lack of inspiration with Dylan's catalog that ultimately proves this show's biggest stumbling block.

No, lightning hasn't struck twice for the choreographic impresario who shepherded the dance drama Movin' Out to supersonic success four years ago. I was not especially fond of the Billy Joel-inspired Movin' Out when it opened on Broadway in 2002: It struck me as a rather obtuse, self-interested ballet with little business on Broadway. But it moved effortlessly, was beautifully realized in dance terms, and its artistry was unquestionably evident.

This discordant spectacle seems to exist only to distance itself from that one, and thus has no opportunity to engage on its own terms, assuming it even can: Tharp has given The Times They Are A-Changin' the appearance and feel of an everted haunted house, complete with an ensemble resembling homeless people squatting in a Halloween costume rental store, seldom an enticing way to spend an evening.

_______________________________________________________________


Hailed for a work that excited while challenging preexisting conceptions of both jukebox musicals and pop ballet, she's been forced to follow up with something radically different to protect her status as a free-thinking theatrical artist. But envisioning her as the young rebel is the only way to get much out of The Times They Are A-Changin' - she's otherwise distorted Dylan's voice of the disrespected masses into something with less impact than silence: a rambunctiously ridiculous musical.
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/TimesChangin.html

[DG]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:29am

I feel badly for Mr. Arden - his talent deserves better.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 12:47am

Dare we say, "Not since In My Life!"

[camthom]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:04am

While the reviews are indeed negative, there is nothing about this show that smacks of "In My Life."

Personally, I enjoyed the show and thought it was refreshing to see someone trying to do something different and artistic as opposed to drudging up some bad movie and turning it into a bad musical. Yeah, maybe Twyla tried too hard and maybe she was unclear about how she transferred her thoughts from paper to stage, but I can't fault her for at least having a unique voice.

While I'm not dismissing the (rather confusing at times) storytelling, I saw some of the most beautiful stage pictures I've seen in years during "The Times..." I know it's not all about pretty stage pictures. But thank GOD it wasn't about some 20 year-old shreiking high E's for no apparent reason.

I left the theatre thinking about the show, thinking about this art form that is uniquely American and I'm really glad that I got to see something that wasn't a revival, a show based on a bad 80's film, or a Disney cartoon on roller skates.

That being said, I still can't tell you what the show was about, but it did what theatre is supposed to do-it made me think, question and consider what it is we do.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:11am

And now, a few words from the infamous John Simon:

"``The Times They Are A-Changin'' is director-choreographer Twyla Tharp's second go (after the better ``Movin' Out') at a musical in which a story is told mostly through dance.

There's also a lot of singing and some talk in her new show, but they don't help. Neither do Bob Dylan's songs, on which the show is based, lend themselves to the underlying story Tharp has concocted. And telling a story in dance is not her strength.

A brief program note proclaims that story ambitiously and unpersuasively. Without it, however, you could deduce nothing from what you see and hear. Except that the colorful but impoverished circus that serves as the locus is run by Captain Ahrab (get it?), who has a tyrannical personality, a gimpy leg and a son named Coyote.

Both men are involved with a runaway girl named Cleo. There are also one female and five male clowns who impersonate some uncircuslike animals -- a sheep, a cow and, more convincingly, a dog.

We briefly get a huge inflated female doll and a bearded man on stilts supposed to be God. Small stuffed animals are tossed about, numerous big balls are danced with and on top of. A large, lighted crescent moon rises and descends with or without passengers. There are ladders for climbing and ropes for skipping; also, shadow play, unicycling and lots of whatnot.

Trampolines

Most prominently, there are trampolines downstage and upstage on which Tharp's gifted and extremely acrobatic dancers perform dizzying routines. With only one ring, this exhausting (for the audience) circus has enough bustle and bounce for three.

Though the clowns do some singing and are involved in the plot, they lack individual personality. But then so do the hard- working and talented principals -- Thom Sesma, Michael Arden and Lisa Brescia.

Not much happens, except that Captain Ahrab loses his motley leg splint and seems to die.

Tharp can choreograph, and has quite a bag of tricks, although it is not deep enough to justify 90 minutes. No real story emerges, granted that Tharp is up against those Dylan lyrics that are hard to translate into dance and harder to make cohere.

Banal Lyrics

The lyrics are an unhappy marriage of pseudopoetic pretentiousness and banal platitudes. For instance:

Broken bottles, broken plates

Broken switches, broken gates

Broken dishes, broken parts

Streets are filled with broken hearts

Broken words never meant to be spoken

Everything is broken.

Quite aside from their intrinsic lack of value, how do you enact those words? The music, which might mitigate the lapses, is humdrum hurdy-gurdy tunes souped up by Michael Dansicker and Dylan's orchestrations and arrangements, which arguably kill the spontaneity. And the singing of the cast, through no fault of execution, plus the occasional speaking, merely undercut Tharp's terpsichorean forte.

Santo Loquasto's set and costumes are tirelessly imaginative and Donald Holder, the lighting designer, knocks himself out to achieve variety.

Please forget about musicals, Twyla Tharp, and go back to straight choreography."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aoaAb2Xw2XMY&refer=muse

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:23am

How can you NOT think of In My Life while reading these reviews? It is the "What the Fwck were they thinking" factor that will bind the two shows for all eternity.

Does anyone know if Dylan showed up to the opening?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:31am

The Wall Street Journal is Negative:

"The buzz on "The Times They Are A-Changin'," the new Twyla Tharp-Bob Dylan jukebox musical, was devastatingly negative. Such omens of impending doom are usually right, but I hoped for the best anyway. Mr. Dylan is one of the greatest songwriters of the postwar era and Ms. Tharp one of its most admired choreographers, so how bad could it be? Now I know: "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is so bad that it makes you forget how good the songs are.

If you liked Ms. Tharp's 2002 Broadway hit, "Movin' Out," let me start by warning you that "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is nothing like its predecessor, in which Billy Joel's music was used as the soundtrack for a dance-driven show with a vestigial but nonetheless intelligible plot. This time Ms. Tharp, who is credited with the "conception" of "The Times They Are A-Changin'," has come up with a nonplot so hopelessly addled that you'll have to read her I-am-a-genius program note to know what's supposed to be going on: "A tale of fathers and sons, of men and women, of leaders and followers, of immobility and change, 'The Times They Are A-Changin' uses prophecy, parable, metaphor, accusation and confession -- like the Dylan songs which comprise it -- to confront us with images and ideas of who we are and who it is possible to be."

None of this is evident from the show itself, a maundering fable about a broken-down circus in which such Dylan classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" are performed by a trio of musical-comedy types accompanied by a Holiday Inn-style lounge band. The focus is on the singers, not the dancers, which makes next to no sense. Not only is the prettified singing all wrong, but there's nothing obviously theatrical about Mr. Dylan's poetic monologues, which Ms. Tharp has turned into a string of literal-minded vignettes in which the lyrics are visualized with the utmost triteness ("Masters of War," for instance, becomes a pantomime show about a whip-cracking ringmaster).

I've long had mixed feelings about Ms. Tharp's jumpy, unfocused choreography, but mine is a minority view, and in any case it had never before occurred to me to question her underlying artistic seriousness. If you went to see this show knowing nothing about her you'd go home assuming that she was a pretentious buffoon. Don't blame Mr. Dylan, who had nothing to do with "The Times They Are A-Changin'" beyond taking the producers' money. I hope he got it all up front."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116190298997805341.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:35am

Once again Brently's review is full of words no one understands
Do you think the audiences from anywhere in America reads him?
Word of mouth will make or break this show
it is no In My Life
it is Art and therefor
Open to discussion
I love it
and I see different stories each time I see it.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:40am

IN MY LIFE was the work of one person who had never set foot on a Broadway stage before he attempted writing it: indeed had never written a single line or musical theatre song ever!

Twyla Tharp and Bob Dylan are legends of their own genres. This show may be a mess - it may be ill guided, but it really can't be compared to IN MY LIFE, which is a once for the ages kind of flop.

Even critics who hate TIMES are for the most part still respectful of Tharp and Dylan's genius.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 1:48am

IN MY LIFE was the work of one person who had never set foot on a Broadway stage before he attempted writing it: indeed had never written a single line or musical theatre song ever!

That is not entirely true. Brooks wrote the musical version of Metropolis. And you just KNOW there are some out there that consider him a musical genius.

Updated On: 10/27/06 at 01:48 AM

[camthom]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 2:01am

Metropolis was never on a Broadway stage.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 2:08am

True, but he said that Brooks "had never written a single line or musical theatre song ever!"

[McFrenzied]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 2:33am

Wow. Pans across the board, except for the crazy USA Today woman. I wonder sometimes if critics will take the contrary position just so their name can be plastered across all subsequent advertising. I'm dying to see how the marketing team spins and twists these horrible reviews.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 2:39am

The NY Sun's music critic is Mixed-to-Negative:

"Hearing Bob Dylan's words come out of another's mouth isn't what makes "The Times They Are AChangin',"Twyla Tharp's new production based on Mr. Dylan's work, so strange. Singers such as Joan Baez, the Byrds, and Peter, Paul & Mary were performing Mr. Dylan's songs long before anyone outside the tightknit Greenwich Village folk scene ever heard of him. And long after. What makes the play stand apart is its sheer ridiculousness.

Unlike the Billy Joel songs featured in Ms. Tharp's last production, "Movin' Out" ("Uptown Girl" and "River of Dreams" leap to mind), Mr. Dylan's work doesn't lend itself to elaborate set pieces and aggressive Broadway vibrato. Yet, here it is, presented with campy costumes, synchronized dance steps, and decades of voice coaching.

_______________________________________________________________


But too often Mr. Dylan's rich tales are stripped down to mere moods — even moods at odds with the intentions of the songs themselves."Like a Rolling Stone," one of Mr. Dylan's most devastating songs, and his most popular, is performed with a sparkly red, white, and blue guitar and a phalanx of clowns performing tricks. "Never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all came down to do tricks for you," one character sings, smiling at the clowns as they roll around on rubber balls. It's as though he has no idea that the song is actually about a wealthy woman's fall into destitution (and probably prostitution).

Ms. Tharp and company do better simply interpreting the content of the songs. "Desolation Row" and "Rainy Day Women," with their topsy-turvy dreamscape imagery, probably inspired the whole circus conceit in the first place. They make for an entertaining, orgiastic medley. And "Mr. Tambourine Man," with it's dance imagery ("to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free / silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands ...", becomes a lovely shadow-dance set piece.

But the most affecting moments are the least theatrical. Thom Sesma (Ahrab), with his gravelly delivery and weak (by Broadway standards) voice, sounds the most like Mr. Dylan, and does him the best justice. Illuminated by a single spotlight, he performed a touching version of "Not Dark Yet" that blended, seamlessly, into "Forever Young."

Hearing the lyrics, it was easy to forgive and forget: "May your heart always be joyful / may your song always be sung / may you stay, forever young." One wishes the same for Mr. Dylan's music.



http://www.nysun.com/article/42391

Updated On: 10/27/06 at 02:39 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 10/27/06 at 2:47am

The NY Sun's theatre critic is Mostly Negative:

"‘The Times They Are A-Changin'," director-choreographer Twyla Tharp's garbled stab at converting Bob Dylan's song catalog into a sinister Felliniesque carnival, may fail as dance theater or as musical theater or even as basic entertainment. But at least it fails big.

Ms. Tharp is aiming for something challenging and profound, a visual analogue to Mr. Dylan's irascible roots-rock myths. And just as Mr. Dylan's weakest albums still eclipse so many of their contemporaries, I'd personally rather watch Ms. Tharp flounder than see so many other directors succeed at lesser tasks.

As rock 'n' roll's resident sphinx for more than 40 years, Mr. Dylan would appear to be resistant to the "jukebox musical" format, one of the more suspect trends to reach Broadway in recent years. Since shedding his earnest-folkie persona in the late 1960s, the cryptic Mr. Dylan has worn many hats and retained a crucial sense of mystery about his musical and lyrical choices, all of which could easily get in the way of creating a viable theatrical framework.

Ms. Tharp, a modern-dance icon whose "Movin' Out" marked a high point among jukebox musicals in 2002, has jettisoned any sort of naturalism and instead set more than two dozen Dylan songs within a ragtag, underpopulated circus. The wall-to-wall dancing that punctuated "Movin' Out" has given way to an array of big-top antics that wouldn't be out of place in a "Cirque du Soleil" ode to Americana, with the three lead performers singing at some remove from the intrepid seven-member ensemble. The result is occasionally galvanizing and usually misguided, but almost never boring.
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"...now and then, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" attains a dreamlike blend of illogic and inevitability."Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" works surprisingly well as a Broadway power ballad, even with Jason McDole's frantic performance as Cleo's dog upstaging the talented Ms. Brescia. Even less obvious is the oddly resonant juxtaposition of Mr. Arden gently crooning "Mr. Tambourine Man" from atop an airborne moon while the rubber-limbed Charlie Neshyba-Hodges supplies a supple dance on the ground.

More often than not, though, the yoking of music to narrative feels perfunctory.The stilts and tightropes and trampolines carry with them a whiff of bellsand-whistles hucksterism, an admission that the underlying material just won't hold audience interest on its own merits.This concern is borne out whenever the props get put away, as in a pointlessly rowdy "Please, Mrs. Henry." The would-be showstopper, a high-energy free-for-all set to "Like a Rolling Stone," feels so disengaged from Mr. Dylan's inscrutable imagism that the only possible response is to tap one's toes and pretend the song is completely unrelated to Mr. Dylan's original tune. Ms. Tharp's stage chops make this option more tempting than you might think, but not tempting enough."

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It remains to be seen what the Dylan faithful — who worked themselves into a lather over an electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, for crying out loud — will make of this undernourished mishmash. From a theatergoer's perspective, messes like "The Times They Are A-Changin'" don't come around very often. Perhaps they don't come around often enough. Or perhaps they do.






http://www.nysun.com/article/42406