Boston Globe just panned the show:
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/02/01/the_gospel_according_to_andrew_lloyd_webber/ "Nothing's ever quite as bad as it might appear," says the character known as The Man in "Whistle Down the Wind."
No. Sometimes it's worse. Bad enough that "Whistle Down the Wind," the touring musical at the Citi Wang Theatre through Sunday, has music by Andrew Lloyd Webber that makes "The Phantom of the Opera" sound restrained. Bad enough that lyricist Jim Steinman, best known for his work with Meat Loaf, is shameless enough to throw in a winking reference to lovers "by the dashboard light."
Bad enough that The Man is either Jesus returned to earth or a convict escaped from prison, or maybe both; bad enough that every Southerner onstage speaks with a different accent, that the choreography is as cheesy and graceless as you're likely to see outside of "American Bandstand," that the book (based on the Hayley Mills vehicle of the same name and perpetrated by Webber, along with Patricia Knop and Gale Edwards) never bothers to make relationships clear or emotions believable, and that the gloomy-rustic set is made even more gloomy by shadowy, uneven lighting.
Updated On: 2/2/08 at 11:59 PM
