XANADU Reviews- Page 8

[Steve2]

Posted: 7/13/07 at 3:19pm

Wall St. Journal is Negative. Copied from Jaystarrs other post to keep all reviews in one thread.

When drama critics with long memories get together to chew the fat, they like to talk about the bad shows they've seen. Not the run-of-the-mill stinkers, but the really, really bad shows, the ones so appalling that they're tempted to slit their wrists at intermission. In my experience, most of these shows have been Broadway musicals, and prior to this week my list of contenders for the title of Worst Musical I've Ever Reviewed consisted of "In My Life," "Lestat," "Lennon," "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Ring of Fire," in that order.

Then came "Xanadu."

What's so uniquely awful about this stage version of the 1980 flop that put an end to Olivia Newton-John's Hollywood career? Start with the fact that it's an elephantine spoof of a quarter-century-old movie so terrible that few people saw it and fewer still remember it. That strikes me as a pretty good working definition of pointlessness, not to mention a near-infallible recipe for boredom. Why bother making such elaborate fun of a forgotten film about a dopey freelance artist (Cheyenne Jackson) who is visited by a Greek muse (Kerry Butler) who inspires him to open a roller disco? Pure spoofery cloys quickly even when its target is familiar, and "Xanadu" has nothing else to offer.


Wall St. Journal

[I (heart) Gavroche]

Posted: 7/13/07 at 5:30pm

count me in among the Fanaduuus!!!
just saw it and loved it.
(and that cheyenne is DREAAAMY :)

[jv92]

Posted: 7/13/07 at 5:36pm

I'm surprised John Simon didn't review for Bloomberg News.

[Steve2]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 8:18am

New Yorker is a RAVE!

“Xanadu” (at the Helen Hayes) is so ridiculously brilliant, so lavish and sublime a confection that any set of adjectives you might come up with after a single viewing will more than likely be replaced by another set of ineffectual adjectives once you’ve seen the show a second or third time. It’s probably the most fun you’ll have on Broadway this season, one reason being that everything about it is so resolutely anti-Broadway. In its wildness and ecstasy, “Xanadu” is a welcome relief from the synthetic creations that some Broadway producers have been peddling for years. Here you can’t count the disco balls fast enough—not to mention the roller skates, the frosted-pink lips, and the glittering spandex that the director, Christopher Ashley, hurls at you like a PCP flashback. “Xanadu” is far sleazier and cheesier than conventional musical theatre, and it points out just how tame most other musicals are.
...

Chasing The Muse Updated On: 7/16/07 at 08:18 AM

[mominator]

Posted: 7/16/07 at 8:38am

That was the one I was waiting for. (not to mention the Boston Globe)

[Steve2]

Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:22am

Washington Post Review, I consider a RAVE:

There is a need to get to news fast of another triumph: a newly arrived spoof that, if very skillfully marketed, could last on Broadway for quite a while.

That show is "Xanadu," and although it is not destined for a spot next to "Gypsy" on the classics shelf, it is the most infectiously silly show to land on Broadway since "Spamalot." A flamboyant lampoon of the 1980 big-screen bomb that effectively extinguished Olivia Newton-John's box-office mojo, "Xanadu" has been accorded a kind of second chance previously available only to transplant patients.

In this case, the donated organs are the delightfully addled brains of director Christopher Ashley and librettist Douglas Carter Beane. Gauging with astonishing accuracy our appetite for taking out the pop-cultural trash, they rake "Xanadu" over the coals with both disdain and affection. Parody, even of the most withering variety, works best when you can also feel the love.

And little bursts of joy explode all over the stage of the Helen Hayes Theatre, where "Xanadu" opened last week. From the ditsy Aussie locutions of the sure-footed Kerry Butler, to the madcap musical-comedy antics of Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman, the show is like some lovingly orchestrated theme party for which the hosts try to see to it that every partygoer can have a good time.

A special merit badge, too, should be pinned to the broad chest of Cheyenne Jackson, who because of an injury to the lead actor, James Carpinello, at the last minute assumed the role of the musical's unassuming hero. He does so with a winning cluelessness -- ideal for portraying a Venice Beach lunkhead whose idea of an art form is roller disco.

Having a good time does not require familiarity with the movie or, for that matter, the score by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar, which includes such pop hits of the time as "Magic," "Suddenly" and "Xanadu." The premise of the 90-minute show itself guarantees healthy snickers: The lunkhead, pursuing his dream of roller-disco entrepreneurship, is aided by a Muse from Greek mythology, played by Butler as a sendup of Newton-John. Thus from the exaggerated Down Under-ness of Butler's Clio does a phrase such as "Dreams come true" turn into "Dreams come tri-eee."

"Xanadu" blends an appreciation for old-style Broadway shtick -- at times, it recalls "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" -- with postmodern horror at the era of rotating disco balls and big hair. With exquisite logic, the nine Greek sister-Muses are represented here by only seven actors (including two in dire need of lowering their testosterone levels).

The plot may be entirely accidental -- Tony Roberts is amusingly on hand, too, as a rapacious, music-loving landlord who gives the lunkhead a space for his disco -- but the show's jubilant impact is not.



Washington Post Review (halfway down page) Updated On: 7/17/07 at 08:22 AM