Wonderland reviews?- Page 2

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:08pm

St. Petersburg Times is mostly negative, which is only significant because that's where Wonderland had one of its pre-Broadway trials (in Tampa). The review's interesting since it compares many of the differences between the two productions, some for the worse, some for the better.

"A musical that doesn't really know its central character is in trouble. That has always been the problem with Wonderland, which opened Sunday on Broadway, the destination of a long, winding road that began in 2009, when the show was developed and premiered at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa."

http://www.tampabay.com/features/performingarts/now-on-broadway-wonderland-still-struggles-with-central-character/1164435

[broadwayman17]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:33pm

EW: C-
"Considering the massive success of the Broadway juggernaut Wicked, it's actually quite surprising that someone took seven years to hatch a musical update of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland — a fairytale that appeals to children and adults, an age-old story that crosses all language barriers (perfect for non-English-speaking ticket buyers!), a colorful storybook setting that possesses unlimited visual potential. Yet Wonderland is no Wicked; it's actually a crashing bore, from its clunky New York City-set beginning to its cliched happily-ever-after finish."
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364394_20482791,00.html

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:34pm

Very negative from Variety - am I sensing a theme?
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945030?categoryid=33&cs=1&cmpid=RSS%7CNews%7CLatestNews&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
"There is a distinct lack of wonder in "Wonderland," the new Frank Wildhorn musical at the Marquis. Unless one was to wonder how a big, Broadway musical based on Lewis Carroll's wildly inventive and delectably fantastical characters can be so utterly devoid of the aforementioned elements. Or to wonder why -- after a full-scale 2009 presentation in Tampa Bay and Houston -- the producers saw fit to remount this less-than-scintillating, $15 million tuner on Broadway."

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:46pm

I just can't for the life of me figure out as to why after three out of town tryouts they could not get this right. The idea for the show is a good one. It sounds like they had a good story starting to evolve in Tampa in January. Now the show is lacking a good plot and what they have now makes little sense. I just don't get why they could not have gotten the story right. It is a shame.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:47pm

Its a bore!

[trentsketch]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:47pm

The reviews are going to be negative because the book isn't very strong and the impetus of the plot--Alice going through a divorce--isn't as family friendly as the production tries to be (and actually manages to pull off in spite of the weak book).

I disagree, however, with the "no wonder in Wonderland" theme popping up. This is Wonderland as thrown through the lens of Looney Tunes' Wackyland. It's bright, it's colorful, and it's visually intriguing. The visual of the show--the projections, the costumes, the entrance and exit gags, even the rotating set-pieces--are a distinct and fanciful interpretation of Wonderland. I'm still getting over the Looking Glass gag with the projections, lights, and sound design at the end of Act I. Maybe there's too much going on at once to really focus on the details. But that makes it even more like the Alice books where every character has a pun, a song, and a story amid the forest of never-ending surprises for the Earthly Alice to explore.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:52pm

I think the score is the strongest part of the show. While it's still not a great score, as a whole it's a hell of a lot better than anything else he's done in quite a while. The book is what kills this show, though. It's just horrendously bad.

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:56pm

Does anyone happen to know who reviewed this for the Times? I'm seriously hoping it's Brantley since his bad reviews are nearly always hilarious.

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 9:58pm

I also hope it's Brantley - but I'm thinking it'll be Isherwood. Isherwood's hasn't done many reviews yet this season.

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:05pm

The review from the NY Times is in, Isherwood Reviews.
Negative.
"Mr. Wildhorn’s absence from Broadway since his 2004 adaptation of “Dracula” has not exactly occasioned widespread hand-wringing, and his competent rendering of various pop styles in “Wonderland” probably won’t win him a host of converts. Mr. Murphy’s lyrics are of a matching blandness, with Alice’s earnest ballads of self-discovery amply stocked in cliché."
http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/theater/reviews/wonderland-gregory-boyd-frank-wildhorn-review.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1303092260-7jSB0dgfWkl/Mn4urzg1uw

Updated On: 4/17/11 at 10:05 PM

[PopAria]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:06pm

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/

Mr. Musto reviewed it and I agree with everything he said:
"The Cheshire cat is a hip swiveling Ricky Martin type whose friends call him "Che"; the Mad Hatter is an evil beyotch whose hat is on too tight (see above); the Queen of Hearts has basically been reduced to a bland vaudevillian; and the rabbit...

No, let me not go on.
This show certainly shouldn't"

Bahahahahah
Updated On: 4/17/11 at 10:06 PM

[GatorNY]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:13pm

Isn't the problem that Wildhorn wrote the music, and then they tried to come up with a book that sets up each song? I'm really not sure if that's the case, but I remember reading that some songs in the first act used to be in the second or vice versa. If you have a story, and in that story, a character sings a song at a certain time during the story, how could you move that song to a different place in the story? The books seems to work mostly to set up the next song. It's like they had a Caterpillar song, so some how they had to get to story to where the Caterpillar sings the song.

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:14pm

The Hollywood Reporter is negative as well -
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/wonderland-theater-review-179273
"The actors all work hard and sing well, but they don’t stand a chance amid this witless chaos. Wildhorn cooks up boy-band numbers for Jack and his fellow knights, who look like refugees from a Ralph Lauren Polo campaign."

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:16pm

An absolutely scathing review from NY Magazine:
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/04/theater_review_a_miserable_tri.html
"Wonderland is the worst kind of nonsense, the sort that attempts little and achieves less. Turgid with its own emptiness, this unctuously charmless show is proof that nothing from nothing somehow equals less than nothing. Its clone-songs, pop-cultured in the shallowest of Top 40 petri dishes, are all one-touch samples of erstwhile hits, most of them (weirdly) from the nineties. (Boy bands? Marc Anthony? No “ironic” cutaway or wink is too dated for this show—even by Broadway’s forgiving standards. It sounds piped-in from Hell’s very own lite-FM station.) The story, meanwhile, seems designed to frack out any stubbornly sticky soul-matter the music hasn’t already corroded away from your innermost chambers."

[egghumor]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:22pm

I think GatorNY makes a very interesting and very likely valid point. It appears to a be show where the book was constructed to fit an already composed score. They just kept shuffling the deck of cards and hoping they came up with a winning hand. Not a great formula for success.
Updated On: 4/17/11 at 10:22 PM

[Trish2]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:25pm

NY MAG; "Wildhorn is the Chuck E. Cheese of musical theater. "

OUCH !

[PitPro2004]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:27pm

I can't remember the last time I read reviews this bad. Oh wait...yes I can, they're in the Baby It's You thread!!

Seriously...it seems like every time Frank opens a show, you can hear the guns being loaded from down here in Trenton. Both barrels.

Now to guess how long this show will last...it's getting kind of sad that I have to make a longer list of what to see before Tony Sunday because so many will be closing as opposed to what to see because the ticket sales will take off. I guess I should be used to it by now.

[Markecib]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:28pm

The Times review really wasn't that bad, surprisingly.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:29pm

Corine's Corner:

"Wonderland is a musical. It is good. I liked the songs. They were good too. Alice is played by an actress who is good. The cat is funny. The Mad Hatter is a woman and that is good because women are not represented in musicals hardly ever at all so it was good she was a she and not a he in this show which was good. There were no puppets and that is not good. Frank Wildhorn wrote the music and he also wrote the music for The Civil Wars. They were not as good as this show was since it is for children and also it is for adults to enjoy. All ages were at the show when I saw it. I had comps in the mezzanine. Row M seat 33. I would give this show two and a half puppets."

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:30pm

PitPro - It'll be interesting to see who gets worse reviews: Wonderland or Baby It's You since they seem to be the two musicals with very few positive comments here on the boards.

[fingerlakessinger]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:32pm

Anyone else want to smack that Chase kid from "Word of Mouth" right across the head. Idk, something about him irks me to hell, along with David...actually all the "word of mouth" people are annoying.

I dont know if the reviews are going to kill this show. From what I hear the audiences are liking it... so who knows.

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:33pm

Bloomberg - mixed/positive, the most positive I've seen of the night, 2.5 stars.
"The cast is appealing, the costumes and choreography are inventive and the score, by Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy, is easy on the ears."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-18/catchy-wonderland-has-decapitating-queen-warbling-caterpillar-review.html

[broadwaydevil]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:36pm

A very negative review from the Associated Press:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=13396632&page=1
"There are many wonders in "Wonderland," chief among them: Who thought this musical was ready for Broadway?
An updated telling of "Alice in Wonderland," the show that opened Sunday at the Marquis Theatre lacks consistency of tone, any hint of originality and a drastic lack of focus. Something here has indeed fallen down the rabbit hole."

[backwoodsbarbie]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:36pm

Isherwood called Janet Dacal "capable" and that was about it in terms of her performance. I doubt that she gets the Tony nomination. That makes room for Sherie Rene Scott, at least it seems so to me.

[egghumor]

Posted: 4/17/11 at 10:37pm

Hopefully in the past hour or so, the hosts of the opening party have removed all sharp objects from the room. Otherwise, it could become a tragic and bloody scene.