Unpopular theatre opinions — Page 3

I LOVE the Hello, Dolly movie. I was in the show my freshman year of high school and remember literally watching it on repeat for days.

Assassins has got to be one of the cleverest and well-written musicals ever. Period.

I like the music in Bonnie & Clyde, it's fun and gets the point across.

I didn't like Hadestown. I really thought I was going to, as I love Great Comet and heard it was similar. I'm also really into Greek mythology. I like about half a dozen songs, and the others seemed excruciatingly boring.

The Prom was boring.

Tootsie is funny.

King Kong wasn't attrocious.

The Hairspray movie is good.

Aladdin is terrible. (Seems like the popular opinion on these boards, but unpopular in general.)

Beetlejuice is a good show. (Vice versa of the above: unpopular here, popular opinion elsewhere)

Updated On: 6/13/20 at 07:09 PM

As enough of an expert on Tanz der Vampire / Dance of the Vampires to be interviewed for a forthcoming article on the subject in a major periodical (because apparently this is still a story worth retelling), I can confidently assert an opinion that is definitely unpopular among Tanz fans: Tanz and DOTV were not nearly as different as the fans (and Jim Steinman) assert.

The vast majority of the score, many of the events in the story-line, and most of the characters, while not portrayed exactly the same as in Europe, would still be very familiar to someone who only knew the German version. Further, the problems present in the American version already existed in Vienna. Neither Tanz nor DOTV could decide whether they were fish or flesh, comedy or serious drama, and as a result don't fall into either category.

(Think about it. No matter which version you watch, this show requires its audience to swallow "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- Total... Eclipse... of the Heart! -- as a serious love duet between a vampire and his potential victim at the top of Act II, and as if that weren't enough, it shares space with a song later in the same act where said vampire lectures the audience on how our greed will be our doom, monologuing about the existential pain of eternal life and of losing everything and everyone he loves. How's that old song go? "One of these things is not like the other..."?)

The only significant difference is simple. As George Abbott once put it, "If you play it for comedy, it won't work. If you play it for real, it will." There's never been a better example; as any John Waters enthusiast could tell you, trying to be camp is not how camp works. DOTV played it for laughs and died after playing more previews than performances, with only Spider-Man outdoing its financial devastation; Tanz played it straight and ran off and on for decades (12 languages, 15 countries, over 8.9 million viewers at over 8,500 performances) until COVID-19 ground everything to a halt. The results speak for themselves.

Updated On: 6/13/20 at 08:43 PM

Hot Pants said: "JuneJune said: "Tootsie is funny."

That’s not unfunny. The backlash was a vocal minority."

If I'm recalling correctly, quite a few members on this board that didn't hate the show with a burning passion thought that the book was mediocre and predictable.

I get what you mean about the vocal minority though.

Ehhh... no. I do agree with the popular grain there. If you try to be funny, it never works. They added a lot of slapstick, deliberately campy humor, which played against the earnestness of the songs rather than into them. Playing it straight worked much better, as the success of Tanz proves.

Had it opened any other time, I honestly think it would've been received rather like Young Frankenstein: "Okay, yes, we get it, it's a parody of mega-musicals, but we don't look back on those fondly enough to laugh with this, and we don't need a broad, silly send-up to laugh at them."

I hate The Fantasticks. The score can be lovely but is often saccharine and jars with the vulgar book. The story thinks it's an uplifting coming-of-age romance. It's actually an ugly tale of child abuse.

The idiot kids are gaslit and infantalized by their fathers. Then assaulted physically, and nearly sexually, by El Gallo and his players. They attempt to leave town and are punished for it. Only to sing a lovely song about how they should stay together and never ever leave their abusive home. ("There must always be a wall." The older audiences around me tend to sigh contentedly at the end. But I leave feeling depressed and angry.

Updated On: 6/14/20 at 08:38 AM

Dolly80 said: "Lin Manuel Miranda cannot sing.

And why the hell was he in Mary Poppins? He ain't British, would not have sold ONE ticket because he was in it, and that opening song showed that he is not a singer[like Dick Van Dyke], or an actor. Not even pleasing to the eye--IMHO.

Thank you for the links, g.d.e.l.g.i.! I'm pretty sure that that is the translation of the libretto which I read actually. I wasn't sure what exactly it was though, and had wondered if it was somehow the 'campy' Broadway version rather than a translation of the German version. I did enjoy it regardless.

Updated On: 6/15/20 at 04:15 AM