Friday, August 20, 2004

Broadway Roundup

I realize we forgot to write about a bunch of the shows we saw over the summer, so here are the other ones I remember:

The Frogs: We went to see The Frogs at the Lincoln Center. It's Nathan Lane's new musical, adapted from an ancient Greek play by Aristophanes. (It's a loose adaptation; I'm pretty sure the original didn't have musical numbers about the importance of turning off cellphones.) The premise is that Dionysus wants to bring back a really good poet to inspire people to stop ignoring what their leaders are doing. I'm a little skeptical about whether that would work - I mean, people who don't care about what their leaders are doing usually feel that way because they have bigger immediate concerns, and it's pretty hard to justify that the election of one leader over another will have any actual effect on that concern. Anyway, the plot doesn't matter, because it's just setup to give the characters something to talk about. The strength of the play is the dialogue. He gets Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare in a room together for a battle of words, and they all just riff off each other for a while. Plus, the neon dancing frogs were neat.

Hairspray: Hairspray was tons of fun, and I absolutely cannot get the music out of my head. "Yooooou can't stop the beat ...." Carly Jibson is fantastic. This is a must-see.

Chicago: This production was terribly disappointing. The one redeeming feature is that this theater has standing-room tickets, so at least I only forked over $20 for the experience. I enjoyed the movie, and Andrew enjoyed the touring production he saw in Los Angeles a few years ago (with Bebe Neuwirth), but this one just fell flat. Some of the actors don't sing very well; most don't dance very well; and this is a very minimalist production so there's not much to look at either.

Musical of Musicals, The Musical: This was cute, but sort of longer than the material could support it. The parodies are right on, though; the writer has really done a good job capturing different musical styles and making them work together. It's probably an intended irony that this musical is more about paying rent than "Rent" is.

The Producers: This cast is pretty good, although having seen The Frogs I wish I could have seen the original cast do The Producers. The "Springtime For Hitler in Germany" musical number is one of my all-time favorites. The whole thing is tremendously funny and well worth seeing. Note that the super-cheap seats have a bad view, especially if you're short, because the balcony has a very tall railing.

Caroline, or Change: This is one of the few "dramatic" musicals we went to, and it was well worth it. Tonya Pinkins has an amazing voice and dramatic presence. This is really different that most other shows but it's really good.

Cookin': Like Stomp, except there is some attempt at plot and it involves Korean cooking instruments. Beware: there is some audience participation involved.

Movin' Out: A modern rock ballet with no dialogue. This is a good introduction to ballet for someone who likes Billy Joel music but thinks that ballet is for sissies. It's light and fun; we enjoyed it.

Fiddler on the Roof: Alfred Molina is a way better Tevya than a Doc Ock. He just exudes the right warm fuzziness for the role. (Plus he looks more distinguished with a beard.) The music is excellent; I was surprised to find that I knew a lot of these songs from somewhere else. The orchestra is on the stage so you can see them, and the fiddler is pretty impressive.

I think that's everything we haven't written about elsewhere. We wanted to see Wicked and The Boy From Oz, but tickets were sold out months in advance.

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