Your Most Hated Musical- Page 7

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 6:10pm

(Post deleted. I realized the question could be asked more effectively via PM.) Updated On: 11/14/11 at 06:10 PM

[artscallion]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 6:22pm

I can find something redeemable in almost any musical. The one exception I've found so far...Aspects of Love.

[luvcaroline]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 6:57pm

Count me as one who finds it hard to truly "hate" any musical. That being said, I do not understand how Phantom of the Opera has lasted so long.....

[TheHappyPhantom]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:00pm

Calling Sunday in the Park with George "pseudo intellectualism" is the most ignorant thing I've ever heard. Just cause it's too smart for you, don't blame the rest of us for having an adults attention span.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/14/11 at 9:29pm

I certainly wouldn't call SUNDAY "pseudo-intellectualism", but I was profoundly bored with most of it. And, yes, I'm a huge Sondheim fan. I even loved PASSION for some of the same reasons I disliked SUNDAY, probably because PASSION was shorter and I thought the characters faced real conflicts other than their own narcissism.

[Moneyspider]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 8:36pm

High School Musical has a stage version, so it applies. What I hate about it is how steeped it is in precode, window gayness, bad music and produced a tie-in doll in drag.

[Baiseur82]

Posted: 11/15/11 at 10:42pm

I always hated The Producers. I just don't get why everyone thought it was so great! I guess its just not my cup of tea. When I saw it the lady sitting next to me was singing along and that really annoyed me so that may have something to do with it too!

[adam.peterson44]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 12:18am

I have only hated two musicals that i can remember - both of them i saw only on film:

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (The plot is "Stockholm Syndrome on Steroids" but has some great choreography from Michael Kidd. No amount of awesome choreography can make up for the absolutely atrocious premise/plot.)
Kiss Me Kate (similarly misogynistic)

Others that i did not enjoy and would not want to see again:

Cats (boring; no plot)
Sweeney Todd (not interesting enough to me to overcome the gruesomeness)
Spring Awakening (awful lyrics but ending did make me sad)

Bklyn (didn't see it, but got the cast album because of Eden without having read any reviews, and it is the only score i have ever heard on which i could not find even one song that i enjoyed a little, except maybe also spring awakening (don't remember it well enough from seeing it once to be sure). The Bklyn cast recording is my counter-argument to myself whenever i discover an awesome singer and start thinking 'X singer is so great i could listen to him/her sing the phone book'. I once felt that way about Eden until i listened to Bklyn. Of course, maybe the phone book would have had better lyrics and i would have enjoyed it more...). But back to the subject at hand:

Lion King (only saw the disney film musical, but the concept of celebrating monarchy just didn't sit well and don't want to see the stage version or any other version again)

Didn't hate and at least partially enjoyed seeing them once but wouldn't return, and find incredibly overrated; can't believe they won the Tonys for best musical in their respective years:

Billy Elliott (somewhat boring to me with no memorable songs)
Avenue Q (lots of weak attempts at humor just by trying to be shocking by having puppets say things that are not suitable for kids instead of by writing clever lyrics; some funny parts but lots of weakly-written attempts at humor. Wasted potential - fun concept that needed better writing.)
Updated On: 11/16/11 at 12:18 AM

[Sean2]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 7:27am

At the risk of attracting someone's ire:

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Oliver
Starlight Express
The Music Man
Kiss Me, Kate

These are the musicals that I now avoid like the plague.

[CATheaterLover]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 10:32am

I almost never hate a show, but I thought Dracula, the musical was just abysmal and truly hated it.

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 10:45am

Hate's a harsh word, but in terms of serious diappointments:

The Lion King--after a magical opening ten minutes, a tedious two-plus hours to go.

Phantom--Unrelenting tedium.

The Producers--had absolutely nothing to do with the cast but with the show itself...I knew what I was walking into and still managed to be put off. The subsequent movie version just brought all the flaws into starker contrast.

Anything Goes--I went to the second preview last spring and maybe that had something to do with it, but I actually left the theatre kinda angry. Other than the two big numbers, I found it listless.

[dreaming]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 11:17am

I really despised Memphis. I rarely want to leave shows at intermission, but boy did I want to leave that one. I stayed-and I'm still regretting it.

[IAMWHATIAM]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 12:46pm

Mary Poppins and Two by Two (actually, Two by Two is so awful it needs its own category).

[amelourdes]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 1:45pm

Bring It On. I'm surprised I didn't walk out but I thought I'd give it a shot. I've never left a theater so angry before.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 3:33pm

This is a funny thread. A lot of people don't differentiate between what their most hated is vs. their pick for worst. For me, there's a great chasm there. THE CIVIL WAR was so inept that I struggle to even categorize it as "musical theater." It was so self-evidently bad that I couldn't be angry. On the other hand, the great material that comprises "Singin' in the Rain" on film makes the stage SINGIN' IN THE RAIN clunky, charmless, and distancing. And then there are shows that are half-great/half-terrible, like CAROUSEL or THE KING & I, where no matter how well-appointed the production, they're still almost offensively artificial and feel 9 hours long.

Those shows are just boring, though, or maybe lifeless. They put me to sleep; they dont make me seethe.

For seething, it's probably a toss-up between THE LION KING and WICKED, the latter being only mediocre, but its popularity so confounds me that I've come to begrudge the show itself its success. Watching other people worship at the shrine of mediocrity causes the rational part of my brain to partially stop functioning. THE LION KING has the edge, though, for, in addition to the aforementioned reason, it has the added bonus of being a dramatic embarrassment from top to bottom. The only thing worse than people worshipping at the shine of mediocrity is a complete lack of judgment, to which I would solely attribute the success of THE LION KING if half of its audience didn't own brains less than 12 years old.

(Inversely and counterintuitively to everything above -- and since it's been mentioned so frequently here -- BLOOD BROTHERS I fully recognize as bad theater, but somehow it's the only one of my formative-years musicals that I haven't turned on [converse examples are RENT, PoTo, and LES MIZ] and still enjoy on some strange soap-opera level. I've even enjoyed bad high-school productions of that show. Why? I don't know.)

[daisybeetle]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 5:15pm

Cats--$40 was a lot to spend back in '89 and I wanted it back. Plus it didn't help that a lady behind me was laughing every 15 minutes. 'What is so funny? Is she a cat hoarder or something?'

also-Thoroughly Modern Milly. I think the movie was better, and even that was not great.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 6:19pm

I bought the OBC album (yes, we had records back then, kids) of CATS and never even turned it over to hear Side B. Ditto with MISS SAIGON.

Yet when I finally saw CATS (not by choice--a friend was in it), I didn't find it intolerable on stage. Not good either, mind you, but not unbearable.

Themysteriousgrowl makes a good distinction between shows we truly "hate" and shows that simply fail to hold our interest. I only "hate" shows because they are dishonest, pretentious or politically onerous in one way or another.

I threw my program at the stage curtain of Albee's LOLITA (not a musical, but it comes to mind) because I found the play so vilely sexist. (I waited until the curtain had come down. I wasn't blaming the actors.)

I hated the Dick Van Dyke/Meg Bussart revival of THE MUSIC MAN because aside from being quite boring at times, it turns Winthrop into a jazz virtuoso on the cornet in the final moment, getting a cheap laugh while betraying the entire piece. I think MUSIC MAN is about the importance and potential of faith, but the show isn't blindly stupid: the "think system" doesn't make concert professionals out of the boys; it's merely enough to achieve a vaguely recognizable version of a very simple tune. (By the same token, Marian's faith changes Hill profoundly, but it doesn't turn him into a pastor.) Faith matters in the world of the play, but it isn't magic. It may still be hokum in the opinion of many, but it's relatively honest hokum.

I suppose I "hated" SUNDAY because despite the gorgeous score, I think the piece takes the position that artists can't help being lousy human beings and that their feelings about imaginary hats are somehow so much more important than the feelings of everyone else. For me, that hit a new level of pretense for musical theater; but a lot of my passion on the subject came out of my disappointment that the piece was made by two of the theatrical artists I most admired.

So there's another reason for true "hatred": disappointed expectations. I suppose I hated LA CAGE because it was based on one of my favorite films and made mediocre American mush out of a classic French farce.

Updated On: 11/16/11 at 06:19 PM

[egghumor]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 6:41pm

I think there's a significant difference between bombs we've witnessed in horror -- in my case: GOT TU GO DISCO, MARLOWE, PLATINUM, UTTER GLORY OF MORRISSEY HALL, the list goes on and on...

and hit shows that I greatly dislike. Those would be (but not limited to): CATS, now and forever!
GREASE (first show I walked out of in 1972)
42nd STREET
NINE

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 6:52pm

Good point, egghumor (whether I agree with your entire list or not). I've seen all sorts of terrible musicals off-off-Broadway, but few of them were important enough to hate.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 7:04pm

I've seen some of the real "clunkers" in Broadway history: KELLY, MOLLY, IN MY LIFE. THOU SHALT NOT, etc. I can't say I hated them because they were morbidly fascinating.

I walked out of the original PACIFIC OVERTURES but that was mostly because I was having a fierce sinus headache and the kabuki-style music was only making it worse.

I might have to say that I hated the Bernadette Peters GYPSY. Everything about that show was wrong--including the star. I left at intermission.

[fingerlakessinger]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 8:01pm

So...I must say that I really never hate a show. Add me to the others where I can always find something good about a show to enjoy.

But I do have another that I really dislike.

Jesus Christ Superstar.
With the exception of a few songs...I really could not get into it.

[marcslope]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 8:14pm

1) La Chiusa's The Wild Party
2) La Chiusa's Marie Christine
3) La Chiusa's First Lady Suite
4) La Chiusa's Bernardo Alba
Updated On: 11/16/11 at 08:14 PM

[sally1112]

Posted: 11/16/11 at 8:19pm

We have had threads like this before, and I have said the same thing I am saying now; It always surprises me when people list 7, 8, or more shows that they "hate."
As a lover of the genre, there are no shows I really hate, but there are two that I never want to see again and they are The Lion King and Mama Mia. Both bored me and made me feel that I had wasted time and money.

[PopAria]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 1:39pm

I can't say I hated any shows because I LOVE musical theatre.

BUT my 2 least favorite shows so far have to be Wonderland and American Idiot.
WONDERLAND was racist, annoying, insulting, and WRONG. and that's not because I hate someone in the cast or in the creative, but because that's really how I felt watching the show.

2) When I first saw American Idiot, I thought it belonged in a Lower East Side trash can.
But then I saw it again after all of the hype, and then again with Billy from Green Day and I finally liked it more; because it's a Green Day concert!

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 11/17/11 at 2:38pm

With all due respect, I don't think the fact that one fails to hate individual musicals is a sign of one's great love of the genre.

Am I a great connoisseur of wine because I'm perfectly happy with a $2 cabernet poured over ice? I don't think so.

Some of us hated the spectacle-based European poperettas of the 80s and 90s precisely BECAUSE we loved the American musical and we thought Andrew LLoyd Webber and his friends took the form in unfortunate and superficial directions. And because in doing so they not only taught audiences to expect less, but spent money, time and space that might have gone to more ambitious works.

If I hate MAMA, MIA! I do so because, in addition to lacking skill or creativity, its creators were such lazy students of musical theater they didn't know the difference between a play and a tribute band concert.

And if I dislike a Sondheim musical, it is because I care about his work so much, not less.