re: High Fidelity Reviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 5:50pm

The AP is Positive (if a little lackluster):

"There used to be room on Broadway for genial. Shows maybe not of blockbuster quality, but, taken on less demanding terms, enjoyable nonetheless.

"High Fidelity," which opened Thursday at the Imperial Theatre, belongs to that class of musical. The production, based on Nick Hornby's delightful novel and the John Cusack movie, is bright, breezy entertainment — not a life-changing experience but notable in several respects.

It has brought playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, author of "Rabbit Hole,""Fuddy Meers" and other fine plays, into the ranks of musical-theater librettists, not exactly a growth profession. Lindsay-Abaire has done a credible job condensing and dramatizing Hornby's tale for the stage. And director Walter Bobbie has kept the story percolating nicely.

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"High Fidelity" introduces the songwriting team of Tom Kitt and Amanda Green to the big time. Kitt's music is efficient and sometimes better than that, particularly in the rock-fueled comedy numbers. Maybe that's because Green's lyrics are fresh and often funny, a reminder that she is the daughter of legendary Broadway lyricist Adolph Green. Taken together, Green's words and Kitt's melodies do something that every good musical should try to accomplish — define character.

"High Fidelity" showcases an ingratiating cast of largely unknown performers. The show stars Will Chase and Jenn Colella as the pulled-apart lovers. Chase is a personable leading man, unaffected yet appealing as he acts out Rob's increasing frustration. Colella, who doesn't have nearly enough to do, possesses one of those clear, crisp Olivia Newton-John voices — and that's a compliment.

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"High Fidelity" is the latest in a trend of stage adaptations of movie hits — reworkings that have included "Footloose,""Saturday Night Fever,""The Wedding Singer,""Dirty Dancing" (now in London and next year in Toronto) and "Legally Blonde," opening on Broadway in the spring.

Most have been negligible in their impact on musical theater. "High Fidelity" won't trailblaze either. But its charms are considerable and don't be surprised if you fall under its spell.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/12/07/entertainment/e135917S02.DTL

[Heybeenfood]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:02pm

I have a feeling this is going to be the show's best review.
Updated On: 12/7/06 at 06:02 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:06pm

It's certainly a nice review, but the phrase "damning with faint praise" does come to mind. It's sort of saying "if you go in not expecting too much, you should enjoy it." Is that a high enough endorsement to convince legions of tourists to plunk down $110 a piece to see it? I guess we'll see.........

[Fabrizio2]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:20pm

I really hope that this is good! I just recenly purchased discount tickets to it.

[BreeDaniel]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:34pm

sorry, margo! I started my own thread. I'm sure yours is the one to post on, so I'll comment that those Broadway.com 'real' people liked it, too. I know, not very valid, but still!

http://www.broadway.com/gen/general.aspx?ci=541597

[myManCape]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:42pm

"All the supporting characters have a really distinct role in the show. It's kind of like the show wouldn't be the same without them.""

That person is 100% correct!!I
Imagine the show with just Will Chase on stage for 2 hours. It would be very different.

Geez those people are DUMB.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:47pm

Talkin Broadway is Mixed:

".... this new one at the Imperial that, for better or worse, unites musical and romantic obsession into the best new musical comedy Broadway has seen this year.

Granted, the competition hasn't been stellar. As much as one might appreciate Man in Chair's inclinations, the fantasy world conjured by his favorite cast recording oozes post-modern commentary from every groove. As for The Wedding Singer, it believes laughs derive almost exclusively from ridiculing the trends of its 1980s setting and that feelings need by no less synthetic than the fashions. The more down-to-earth, straightforward High Fidelity was perhaps destined to win by default, but this show at its best never feels like settling.

The score, by Tom Kitt (music) and Amanda Green (lyrics), is an infectious approximation of a range of rock genres infinitely smarter and smoother than The Wedding Singer's parodic soundtrack. David Lindsay-Abaire's book cleverly plumbs the troubles of rock enthusiast Rob Gordon (Will Chase), still smarting from being dumped by his girlfriend Laura (Jenn Colella) and willing to do anything and everything necessary to win her back, in ways that skirt the sociopathic self-pity that make the hermetic Man in Chair little more than a victim of his own insecurities.

When the book and score really cohere, they electrify.

_______________________________________________________________


Were High Fidelity on only the first stop of a three-city out-of-town tryout, you might well be positive its producers had a huge hit on their hands. Unfortunately, as a finished product, it's a titanically promising disappointment.

While it touches on most of the basic points of its source material, the Nick Hornby novel and the Touchstone Pictures film adapted from it, the musical succeeds in identifying and amplifying only Rob and his cronies' overgrown childishness. You understand, both from the writing and especially Chase's dynamic performance, how Rob has let himself stagnate as a lover and an adult working in a record store that does its best to scare away customers.

But the core of the story, Rob and Laura's relationship, is tossed into the discount bin, and with it go High Fidelity's aspirations for first-rate rock-musical comedy fusion. Both rock songs and musicals strive to communicate feelings, but that's hard here: Laura is relegated to a bland, reactive supporting role that involves her taking up with a spiritualist named Ian (Jeb Brown), but doesn't define her role as the lynchpin of Rob's existence.

______________________________________________________________

If this highlight's Rob's problem of looking beyond himself to see the person lying next to him, it does so too well: It gives Chase a wonderful starmaking opportunity, and you won't find a musical actor doing more energetic work this season, but without a focus for his pursuits, Rob is an incompletely realized musical lead.

Lindsay-Abaire, Kitt, and Green need to learn just what Rob must: There's more to life than him. Walter Bobbie directs with wit and flair, choreographer Christopher Gattelli contributes greatly to the show's kinetic appeal with some impressive dances, and Anna Louizos's set and Ken Billington's lighting properly capture the proper underground-concert atmosphere, but it's not enough to compensate for writing still two or three drafts away from satisfying in a Broadway house. Yet in isolated moments, you sense glimmers of brilliance that make it impossible to dismiss the show outright.



http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/HighFidelity.html

Updated On: 12/7/06 at 06:47 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:50pm

"It was probably the best musical I've seen in years."

I am sorry Miss Randi, 41, Mom/Lawyer lady...but I have a feeling you just lost ALL AND ANY credibility that you had before. Even if you liked this show, there is no way in hell you can say it was the best show you'd seen in years, unless the only shows you've seen in the past 3 years were High Fidelity and In My Life! This coming from the woman who saw Grey Gardens and did a review for that one as well. Jesus Christ!

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:51pm

Broadway.com is officially the lamest website ever.

[alliez92092]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:52pm

Yeah, I mean I agreed with mostly everything she said, but on that note I was just like, what? I love the show, but it is by no means the best show in years. If that's what she likes, then hey cool. But I just don't understand it. I know that sounds so contradicting considering I'm one of the supporters of this show, but I think you guys know what I mean.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 6:56pm

No I totally get it. Personally I hated the show, but not as much as a lot of other stuff out there. I understand people who like the show. But to say that it's the best show you've seen in years? Come on!
-BJH

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 7:55pm

Brantley is Negative (and dismissive):

"A new musical is said to have opened last night on Broadway. I mean, I saw it. Or I think I did. It’s called, uh, wait a minute, it’ll come to me. Got it! “High Fidelity.” And if I close my eyes and concentrate really hard, I just might be able to describe a show that erases itself from your memory even as you watch it.

The virtues of “The Wedding Singer” — oh, sorry, I mean “Urban Cowboy”; no, I mean “High Fidelity” — are almost entirely negative. The latest Broadway songfest to trade on fond associations generated by a popular movie (in this case Stephen Frears’s 2000 film of the same title, adapted from Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel), “High Fidelity” is not mean-spirited, sticky sweet, stress-inducing, excessively loud, cutesy or pushy.

________________________________________________________________

If you’ve been a die-hard patron of Broadway over the last decade, you have probably noticed that something weird happens to figures from books and movies when they enter the land of musicals. The rough edges and prickly quirks that made them distinctive soften into a uniform blandness.

This is what used to occur when Hollywood made films of Broadway musicals, replacing Ethel Merman with Betty Hutton or Mary Martin with Mitzi Gaynor. The sad inference to be drawn from this reversal is that Broadway producers feel that the average theatergoer’s appetite for originality is well below that of film and television watchers.

Of course “High Fidelity” presents a special problem to those who would convert it into a musical. How could any composer, aiming for a mainstream audience, hope to come up with a score that would pass muster with its own cool-conscious, musically exacting characters? Mr. Kitt (who worked on “Urban Cowboy” and “Debbie Does Dallas”) has responded by throwing a lot of watered-down pop and rock elements (heavy metal power chords, folkie acoustic guitar, R&B riffs and tinkly romantic piano) into a pot and hoping they congeal.

As a consequence the songs never acquire body or precision, even as satire. (Though there’s a mildly funny hip-hop revenge fantasy, sequences in which Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen materialize in Rob’s imagination feel like high-school follies routines.)

A similar what-the-heck quality pervades Ms. Green’s obscenity-heavy lyrics, which skew toward rhymes that whimsical frat boys might come up with after a few pitchers of beer. (One printable example: “Now please don’t take this as mean-hearted/But are you on crack or just retarded?”)

And while Mr. Lindsay-Abaire, the talented author of “Rabbit Hole” and “Fuddy Meers,” has incorporated most of the story line and many of the choicer details from the book, he inserts them almost randomly, as if desperately checking off a roster of what has to be included. The lists by which Rob tries to make sense of his life — Top 5 Break-Ups, Top 5 Things I Miss About Laura — are not so much integrated as simply included.

_______________________________________________________________

Still, “High Fidelity” definitely deserves a place in my own catalog of Top 5 lists. That would be on the roster of All-Time Most Forgettable Musicals. Now if only I could remember the names of the others. "

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/theater/reviews/08fide.html

[bwayondabrain]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 7:58pm

Wow. Brantley was quite harsh.

That review could really send this show on its way out...

[kidmanboy]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:02pm

I completely agree with that review except for one thing...comparing it to the wedding singer. I don't understand why Brantley always seems to feel the need to name drop other shows in his reviews. If I hadn't seen the show, having moderately enjoyed the wedding singer, I would have read this and thought that maybe I should give high fidelity a chance to be just as enjoyable. I think High Fidelity fails in its own ways. Point those out. Don't tell me what other shows have come out in the past year and how bad they all were. That's the one thing, to me, that seems to make Brantley's reviews particularly hateful. When a bad show comes out he seems to dismiss the broadway musical entirely.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:10pm

Brantley's review is spot on, though I do agree with kidmanboy that the Wedding Singer reference is totally unnecessary and uncalled for. Other than that...right on Brantley!
-BJH

[gertrudejessalynn]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:11pm

Ouch! I liked this show while it lasted.

[ashley0139]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:14pm

Kind of expected it, but still not happy about it.

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:20pm

Well, I think that pretty much spells the end for "High Fidelity."

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:22pm

Ban Walter Bobbie from Broadway!

[ashley0139]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:27pm

Well, I think that pretty much spells the end for "High Fidelity."

I don't think I would go that far. The Times is important but it's not everything. I hope it can overcome it.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 8:27pm

Variety is Mostly Negative:

"Some cover versions are just bad ideas. For every incisive reinterpretation like Sid Vicious' "My Way," there's an ill-considered embarrassment like Madonna's "American Pie" or Britney's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll." "High Fidelity" doesn't rival those affronts to popular music history, but it suffers from a similar kind of fundamental mismatch. The introspective story of a vinyl junkie whose pattern of being rejected by women reflects a failure to channel his passion for music into other areas of his life, Nick Hornby's funny and insightful 1995 novel was just never meant to be a Broadway musical.
There are some talented people involved here and a likable cast that makes the show by no means laborious to sit through. But it lacks charm, sincerity and heart. That absence can partly be traced to the music. As much as fashion, shopping or dating became the defining obsession of protagonists in a whole wave of disposable chick lit, in Hornby's far smarter male equivalent, floundering thirtysomething Rob is his eclectic music collection.

This is a guy who bows his head in respect to trailblazers like the Beatles and the Kinks; soul gods like Marvin, Otis and Aretha; punk iconoclasts such as the Sex Pistols and Stiff Little Fingers; rockers like the Clash and the Pretenders; and cult outfits like Belle & Sebastian and Stereolab. Take all that away and substitute generic, imitative pop-rock songs and you have a show that doesn't compute. Not only is Rob asked to listen to music that probably leaves him cold, he's forced to sing it.
_______________________________________________________________

The savvy balance between adolescent narcissism and wry self-effacement in co-screenwriter John Cusack's performance as Rob certainly helped make the 2000 screen adaptation an understated charmer. But in addition, music as a vital popular language was embedded deep in the film's DNA. In David Lindsay-Abaire's book for the musical, by contrast, it's what the main character and his similarly stunted music-geek buddies are into, but it's not the soul of the show. In fact, the show has no soul.

________________________________________________________________

Borrowing riffs from all over the popular music map, Tom Kitt's tunes are energetic but unmemorable. With lyrics like "I slept with someone who handled Kurt Cobain's intervention/He taught me all these tantric moves/And he's really good at frenchin'," Amanda Green has a long way to go before living up to her artistic pedigree (she's Adolph Green's daughter). She does score occasional comic points, even if the strain of striving for coolness shows in both lyrics and profanity-strewn dialogue.

Should a traditional Broadway musical even try to be hip? That's one of the questions "High Fidelity" raises as it reaches for credibility by mocking easy targets like Celine Dion and John Tesh. This bland show is crippled by its failure to convincingly tap the pulse of pop culture or to mine the romantic heartache of its source material."


http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932269.html?categoryid=1265&cs=1

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 10:33pm

Have you seen its grosses lately, Ashley?

These reviews certainly won't do much to help that. Plus word-of-mouth hasn't been very positive.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 10:37pm

Jeeze, Brantley barely even reviewed the cast...and the show, itself.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 10:39pm

Did you see it, Yank?

It really is THAT forgettable. I don't even remember much about it.


Well, justice is served.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 12/7/06 at 10:45pm

I did, Munk and I'll be honest. I didn't hate it. I enjoyed the music (it's catchy), the cast was pretty decent, the set was great (though when the set is the best part, you know something's wrong). I recently heard Norbert's version of Top 5 Break Ups and it's a totally different (and better song).

I know what you mean by forgettable - it's THERE and nothing stands out.

I was hoping for good reviews, but, of course, expected them to be horrible.

If Brantley were the only game in town, HiFi would be shut down tomorrow.
Updated On: 12/7/06 at 10:45 PM