Wonderland reviews? — Page 6

That "review" is just plain mean.

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Sister Act isn't exactly a "family friendly" show, either. While it's fine for kids, families etc., the show certainly isn't being marketed that way, as other kid friendly shows are.

And keep in mind also that many many many tourists do not buy tickets ahead of time so when they find they're unable to get into WICKED or LION KING, they might take a chance on WONDERLAND.

The life of any Broadway musical after taking a critical blood bath depends on a lot of things - mainly, the advance, the reserve and the willingness of the producers to lose money if they feel its going to eventually be a word of mouth hit regardless of critical reception.

The thing that usually kills new musicals that get 'bad' reviews is a huge drop off in group sales orders. Family shows in particular. Unlike your single ticket orders, group sales groups also have the option of canceling their orders with just a few weeks advance notice.

This is basically what killed TARZAN, which initially had a much, much larger advance than WONDERLAND.

Some shows obviously get awful reviews and are able to thrive on either star power (THE ADDAMS FAMILY) or word of mouth (WICKED).

But WONDERLAND, I don't believe really can count either of those strongly in its corner. (The Word of mouth on WICKED, for the record, was immediate and passionate - like BOOK OF MORMAN it was a show that after only the first few previews was clearly going to be an audience phenomenon) - the reviews were really incidental).

It was already well documented that WONDERLAND had little advance and barely scraped together its reserve to get to opening night, so essentially the run of WONDERLAND is going to depend on the passion of their producers to keep it open (a clever marketing campaign aimed at summer tourists wouldn't hurt).

I wouldn't think the upcoming release of the cast recording would do much to spike sales - there isn't much of a market for showtunes at any time, but WONDERLAND in particular has already been available as a recording for quite a while

Updated On: 4/19/11 at 10:27 AM

I saw the second preview. IT WAS AMAZING! Have not had that much fun since Wicked. Kate Shindle better win a Tony for her performance as The Mad Hatter!

^Haha, funny.

Anyway, here's the amNY review. Matt Windman gives it one star and pans it (surprise):

"There are many adjectives to describe the new musical “Wonderland,” a contemporary, vaguely ethnic variation on “Alice in Wonderland,” but “wonderful” is definitely not one of them. “Sappy,” “bizarre,” “misconceived,” “idiotic” or just plain “awful” would be far more appropriate.

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On a purely visual level, director Gregory Boyd’s high-tech production makes for quite a spectacle, marked by extremely flashy costumes and video-game-style projections.

With its thoroughly nonsensical plot, bad jokes and largely distasteful score, however, “Wonderland” is nothing short of an unmitigated and embarrassing disaster.


http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/theater-review-wonderland-1-star-1.2825272

This is weird. My friend has seen it 3 times in NYC (once with a date, another for a paper he is gonna write for college on musical themes and another with his parents) and he likes it (he gives it 6 out of 10) and says that the audiences every time he saw it went nuts. And that's all I have been really hearing from people is that the crowd is eating it up so I'm confused when people on here say the exact opposite. Who knows.

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This is weird. My friend has seen it 3 times in NYC (once with a date, another for a paper he is gonna write for college on musical themes and another with his parents) and he likes it (he gives it 6 out of 10) and says that the audiences every time he saw it went nuts. And that's all I have been really hearing from people is that the crowd is eating it up so I'm confused when people on here say the exact opposite. Who knows.

I've seen it a couple more times than that, and I would agree with your friend's assessment of the audiences every time I've gone- a lot of "that was wonderful," "such a great choice," "we have to tell ______ and her daughter(s) to see this" talk overheard on the way out every time.

Honestly I wasn't surprised by most of the critiques of the book, but I'm still flat-out stunned by some of the reviews for Shindle, who has been deliciously evil and belty and flat-out amazing every time I've sen it.

I get the feeling the kids 10-15 really like it.
How old is your friend who saw it 3 times?

(My daughter is seeing for the 4th time tnite DW)

I don't even have a small child in my life who I can blame repeat Wonderland viewings on. :)


So I am loving Karen Mason's take on the reviews, in this new playbill.com interview (click thru to read the whole quote, but this beginning part, especially the Isherwood 'lack of voices' bit, was my favorite):

What does Mason make of some of the musical's less-than-stellar reviews? "I thought that they were," Mason pauses, "to be honest, a little cavalier about our show. I felt like they wanted to come in not liking it, and that was achieved. I think there are some really fine performers/performances in this show — really great Broadway performers. I read in the New York Times today, Charles Isherwood decrying the lack of voices, and yet not one of our voices was named — not one of the performers in our show was mentioned as having great voices. That's kind of two-faced, honestly. To say that there aren't these great voices, and yet here's an entire show of great voices, and yet nobody mentioned that. To me, it's so odd... I think with any Broadway show, you go in there with an open heart and you take from it what is given, and I think it's probably not a show that's going to change the fate of America or that's going to change all of musical theatre, but two hours of great entertainment is not a bad thing...

DIVA TALK: Catching Up With Wonderland Star Karen Mason

Updated On: 4/22/11 at 01:13 AM

Wonderland is really up against it. With a slightly better economy, the season figures to have great potential. But this year visitors have much more from which to choose. I suspect that there will be a lot of very full theaters throughout the summer. Wonderland may do OK simply being the third or fourth choice for many people.

But for the long haul it has little chance.

I went the night before it officially opened with high hopes, but was very disappointed. The audience was packed and there seemed to be a group upstairs that was bussed in to lead the applause, but it had to be papered because the show just isn't that good. It's overblown with lighting effects and tries really hard to be the new blockbuster, but it isn't. It appears that all of the actors are trying hard,too, but the casting isn't good. The actress playing the lead isn't a strong enough performer to carry a show; I was more fascinated at her teeth which look as if she just came from the dentist after some sort of cosmetic fix which didn't turn out well. She isn't a strong enough actress to make you really care if her character gets home or not...the characters she meets are more interesting, but even they are all flash and not much substance. The male lead is bland and he looks more as if he were part of the Les Mis ensemble (one of my favorite shows)than this type of show. I was in the second row of the orchestra and another one of the actors was perspiring so badly, it was flying off his face as if it were spit, (it happens) but it was sweat. Although based on a classic, the updated adaptation is weak. Some of the punchlines you know before they say the words. Though not all bad, i.e., the costumes are really good, it tries too hard; a poor attempt to be the new "Wicked." I've seen Wicked many times and would see it again even after all these years, but would only tell die hard theatre fans to see Wonderland out of curiosity, and at a very deep discount...or not at all.