Unpopular theatre opinions- Page 3

[skies]

Posted: 6/12/20 at 11:26pm

AADA81 said: "Sondheim's later scores, starting with Sunday in the Park With George, are overwritten, too obviously clever and over-reliant on rhyming patterns."
 

Listen, Sondheim can be too clever, and sometimes a song's melody get's lost the maze and never gets out.  

[Leaf Coneybear]

Posted: 6/12/20 at 11:54pm

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.

[InTheBathroom1]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 12:40am

Also don’t get the hype around Dolly. Feels like everyone was laughing at an inside joke I wasn’t in on.

Also agree with Erivo. She can SING but I thought that her acting scenes were weak.

[Hot Pants]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 1:14am

Heathers is both terrible and highly offensive.

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 1:28am

Aspects of Love is the worst Andrew Lloyd Webber show by far, and it doesn't get enough talk about how bad it is. It makes Cats sound like Stravinsky.

[persephone88]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 11:47am

I was utterly underwhelmed by The Sound Inside. I thought the script was self indulgent, and I thought Mary Louise Parker was understated to the point of bland. The set and lighting was beautifully done, but that's about all I can say for it.

I hated Spring Awakening, thought the music was trying too hard to be "timely" and vastly prefer the original non-musical Wedekind script.

For as talented as High Jackman is, nothing could convince me to sit through The Music Man again. Corny, dated, and Shipoopi has to be one of the worst songs ever written for Broadway.

[Ahmy]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 12:28pm

I don't really like Sutton Foster's voice.

I also don't understand the hype for Six. I feel like it's one of those shows a person has to see live to appreciate, because the cast album kind of lacks energy.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 1:25pm

Enjoying any Wildhorni musical and hating Book of Mormon

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 2:45pm

Passing Strange is one of the best musicals of the 21st century, and it absolutely deserved the Tony over In The Heights.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 3:37pm

-I like some of the music from “In the Heights” and the show was enjoyable but it left me cold.
-The recent “A Little Night Music” revival was phenomenal.
-I had no issues with the book revisions in the recent “Kiss Me, Kate” revival. I also thought O’Hara was wonderful.
-I think “Light in the Piazza”, “Spelling Bee”, and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” are all superior shows to “Spamalot” (which I also like but beat them all for the Tony).
-“Groundhog Day” is a beautifully written show.
-“Dance of the Vampires” and “Disaster!” should both have had much longer runs.

[IronMan]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 3:46pm

The Matchmaker is a brilliant play.  Hello, Dolly! took the best of it and made the rest insufferable.  Same goes for Auntie Mame and Mame. 

Tom Kitt's arrangements and orchestrations are brilliant.  His original music is unlistenable. 

Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in The Music Man would be my punishment in hell. 

 

 

[JuneJune]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 7:09pm

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

[Hot Pants]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 8:08pm

JuneJune said: "Tootsie is funny."

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

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 8:43pm

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

[joevitus]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 9:02pm

Alex Kulak2 said: "Aspects of Loveis the worst Andrew Lloyd Webber show by far, and it doesn't get enough talk about how bad it is. It makesCatssound like Stravinsky."

I think that's a generally held opinion, actually, in America anyway. 

My own take--which I suspect is unpopular--is that it's his best show since breaking with Rice (though he wrote the music to some of the songs for different songs with Rice, and I think Rice originally suggested the material), including post-Rice hits  like Cats and Phantom, and the score is endlessly melodic, timeless and deeply underrated. 

Updated On: 6/13/20 at 09:02 PM

[JuneJune]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 9:06pm

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.

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 10:17pm

@g.d.e.l.g.i, my only point about “Dance of the Vampires” is that it could have been a hit even if they kept it exactly as it was on Broadway, camp and all. It had some of the most spectacular visuals I have ever seen, boasted a well known and dynamic cast, had a catchy score (including “Total Eclipse” which was absolutely a highlight), and was funny. The audience I was in ate it up. If it had opened at a different time and didn’t receive negative reviews comparing it to the European show and movie (neither of which is well known in the US), it could have run several years.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/13/20 at 10:23pm

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."

[Fan123]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 7:43am

Interesting to hear these views on Tanz/Dance. After watching the original film and reading a purported English translation of the musical's libretto awhile back, I did struggle to imagine how the Broadway version could have made the show significantly more silly than it already was, as is reported (by some) to have happened. (I don't necessarily mean 'silly' in a bad way, BTW.)

[MrsSallyAdams]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 8:38am

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

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 9:16am

Fan123 said: "Interesting to hear these views on Tanz/Dance. After watching the original film and reading a purportedEnglish translationof the musical's libretto awhile back, I did struggle to imagine how the Broadway version could have made the showsignificantly more silly than it already was, as is reported (by some) to have happened. (I don't necessarily mean 'silly' in a bad way, BTW.)"

It was really a difference of style. Tanz took that mish-mosh of dramedy and played it straight (a German-to-English direct transliteration is probably better to read than a purported English translation, as some of those floating around are just what the anime world would call fansubs), which, if it didn't solve the intrinsic issues of the material, at least camouflaged them better. As for DOTV, well... sometimes leaning into the joke and belaboring its point doesn't serve it well if you're trying to cut the foot to fit the shoe (in this case, The Producers had just been a hit, and post-9/11, they thought darker, more provocative humor wasn't a go, so they tried to lighten it and make it goofier).

Updated On: 6/14/20 at 09:16 AM

[SweetLips22]

Posted: 6/14/20 at 11:42pm

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.

 

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 12:26am

MrsSallyAdams said: "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."

I have seen productions where I would agree with you and left feeling sort of creeped out by the objectivization of the teenagers. But I've seen other productions where the kids and their maturation are the focus and soul of the show.

And parents--most parents, I would wager--DO tend to live vicariously through their kids, and try to manipulate their offspring into doing what the parents think is "best". This isn't something invented by THE FANTASTICKS.

MrsSally, you surprise me! Your account sounds awfully literal for someone I assume likes musicals. 

[Fan123]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 4:15am

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

[bryan2]

Posted: 6/15/20 at 9:13am

Cynthia Erivo...brilliant when singing...but so dull as an actress ...walked around like she was in a coma until she sang...Fantasia was a much much better Celle...but Erivo did just kill Im still here...not a dry eye in the theater.....