First off, the show is told primarily in the third person, preventing audience identification right outta the gate and making it hard to care. For such a concept to have succeeded, it would have required a greater theatrical, musical and lyrical imagination and brain power than McNally, Ahrens and Flaherty have demonstrated to date (oh, to think what Leonard Bernstein could have done with the opportunity!). The opening number, though effective in setting up the characters, is musically ungainly. The "Goodbye, My Love/Journey On" sequence which follows is a wordy, bombastic bore which nearly stops the show dead in its tracks before it begins. Finally, poor Coalhouse Walker, our leading man, isn't even given a character-defining song of any real substance but a throwaway number that smacks of minstrelsy (no wonder a black cast member dubbed the show "Cracktime.")And from this point on, the show never gains momentum again. Oh, yes, there are pleasant moments:the Henry Ford song, the baseball song. Typically, for an Ahrens and Flaherty show, there was very little humor to be found in the proceedings. And the one distinguished ballad, Wheels of a Dream, was essentially a car commercial for Ford, with the car prominently displayed throughout the number. Production-wise, what exactly was the point of the Grand Central Station set design anyway? What does a metaphor of embarkation have to do with a show that is essentially about revolution? Ultimately, audiences didn't come because they didn't respond to the show. Either a different approach to the story was required or, given the nature and structure of the material, it wasn't a good idea for musicalization in the first place.
Updated On: 5/1/08 at 01:00 AM
