One Song GloryPractically even before you could say, "FLOP!" the $2.5 million Broadway musical
Glory Days has
shuttered.
Not since 2003's failed
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All with
Ellen Burstyn has a show closed immediately after its one opening night shot at glory.
Interestingly enough, when I took in a performance over the weekend, I kept getting asked by other members of the audience (including one unnamed critic), "Why are you here?" At the time, they made me feel like some old lech, but in retrospect, I think they were surprised to be there themselves.
This is a show that should never have transferred to Broadway without being better vetted along the way, including perhaps in an Off Off-Broadway gig that could have played more appropriately to its target audience.
The
pummeling was pretty severe with potshots coming from all directions. While
I thought the tiny tuner from
James W. Gardiner and
Nick Blaemire had some promise, it came across as completely underdeveloped and sadly lacking in any memorable tunes, with the exception of
Jesse J.P. Johnson's heartfelt "The Open Road."
Now, the only thing open is the
Circle In The Square Theatre's space. Any guesses on the next tenant?
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Related Stories:Did Critics Make This A Glory Day For Glory Days? (May 7, 2008)
Glory Days (The SOB Review) (May 7, 2008)
Opening: Glory Days Hopes For Glory Night (May 6, 2008)
Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
No Glory In Crap Shoot (March 24, 2008)
Glory Days Yet To Come This Broadway Season? (March 19, 2008)
Labels: Adam Halpin, Andrew C. Call, Broadway, Closing Notices, Closings, Eric Schaeffer, Glory Days, James W. Gardiner, Jesse J.P. Johnson, Musical, Nick Blaemire, Steven Booth, Transfer, Washington DC
Did Critics Make This A Glory Day For Glory Days?Last evening,
James W. Gardiner and
Nick Blaemire's tiny little musical called
Glory Days opened at Broadway's
Circle In The Square Theatre.
Eric Schaeffer directs
Steven Booth,
Andrew C. Call,
Adam Halpin and
Jesse J.P. Johnson as four high school friends who reunite one year beyond graduation.
Among critics, there was virtually no glory to be had, but there was the faintest degree of encouragement from a most unlikely source.
Dismissing it as a "callow portrait of four friends on the cusp of manhood,"
The New York Times'
Ben Brantley nevertheless strives to be truly constructive in his criticism, as if afraid to hurt the feelings of the youthful writers and cast: "[T]he production manages to seem fresh and seriously stale at the same time.... So there are sweet-sounding, wandering pop ballads steeped in premature nostalgia.... Unfortunately, they also avoid creating individually shaped personalities -- I mean, as defined by more than bulging biceps or long hair -- that register big onstage. This may be appropriate for characters who have yet to figure out who they really are. But such blurriness rarely makes compelling theater. And the music captures the particular, poignant bond among these young men only in a couple of charming, wistful, close-harmony numbers."
Charitably offering that the musical's "creators show promise, but it's still a mystery why the play was rushed in,"
Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's
Daily News provides a one star (out of five) review: "The barely-there, cliched plot is about four high-school friends returning to the football stadium a year after graduation for a one-night reunion to catch up on each other's lives.... Blaemire has spent too much time listening to
Rent and boy-band harmonies - and his lyrics lack focus.... Director Eric Schaeffer ... needed to do more nurturing."
Labeling it a "self-indulgent hymn to the problems of early post-adolescence,"
New York Post's
Clive Barnes pointedly critiques with just one half star: "The music is difficult to describe and utterly unmemorable (it certainly has nothing to do with Bruce Springsteen's hit of the same name), and the lyrics are jejune.... The performances by Steven Booth, Andrew C. Call, Adam Halpin and Jesse JP Johnson are high-spirited and, for the first five minutes, engaging. But it wasn't long before I found myself wishing that they would turn on the sprinklers and let us go home to read a good book."
Lamenting "the less common case of too much, too soon,"
Linda Winer of
Newsday gently pans: "As a grown-up offering in a Broadway house (not to mention at Broadway prices), this little-show-that-can't is so far in over its sweet head that we fear for its safety.... The songs are pleasant; the orchestration tinny. The better folk-rock sounds suggest James Taylor. The lyrics experiment with squeezing a lot of words into a phrase and then a little into a phrase, and lean on the dubious allure of forced rhymes -- team/mean, change/pain.... Will, who keeps a journal, leaves us with the promise to write "my next story." Perhaps producers should have waited for that one."
Writing that one "immature self-indulgence" slipped through the Broadway,
Variety's
David Rooney gives this a failing grade: "The producers have done an extreme disservice to the inexperienced creative team by shoving them into the spotlight with what's likely to be a commercial embarrassment. While it doesn't have much spark, the show will probably hold some charm for anyone still immersed in the adolescent experience and could find admirers in youth theater or school productions.... [T]his show barely skims the surface.... [T]he awkwardly inarticulate lyrics just string together platitudes about formative memories, bonding experiences, feeling at home and fearing change, but it's nostalgia without the wisdom of hindsight."
Concluding that "This seems odd to say about a Broadway debut, but perhaps it will be all uphill from here,"
Eric Grode of
The New York Sun rounds out the F-grades: "It is not generally my policy to blame the producers for a musical as tedious and inconsequential as
Glory Days, which contrives to reunite four former little men on campus a year after high school graduation for a night of cheap beer and even cheaper insights.... Not many writers in their early 20s would turn down an offer to come to Broadway on the grounds that their material wasn’t remotely ready yet. That’s the job of more seasoned veterans, such as Mr. Schaeffer or the producers.... I like to think that the glory days for Messrs. Blaemire and Gardiner, and their collaborators, still lie ahead of them."
So there you have it folks. Looks like my own
SOB Review may have been among the more charitable out there. With and the fact that this show has been struggling for any life at the box office -- last week barely registering with 21.8% capacity -- can this show even survive the week? My guess is it that the only
Glory Days for this show were last night.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Glory Days (The SOB Review) (May 7, 2008)
Opening: Glory Days Hopes For Glory Night (May 6, 2008)
Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
No Glory In Crap Shoot (March 24, 2008)
Glory Days Yet To Come This Broadway Season? (March 19, 2008)
Labels: Adam Halpin, Andrew C. Call, Broadway, Critics' Capsule, Eric Schaeffer, Glory Days, James W. Gardiner, Jesse J.P. Johnson, Musical, Nick Blaemire, Steven Booth, Transfer, Washington DC
Glory Days (The SOB Review) – Circle In The Square, New York, NY
*1/2 (out of ****)Why
is youth wasted on the young?
With all due respect to
George Bernard Shaw, in
Glory Days -- a subpar, threadbare 90-minute performance that dares to call itself a Broadway musical and opened last evening at Rialto's intimate
Circle In The Square Theatre -- the answer doesn’t come easy.
But what is clear is that
Glory Days comes across as not even quite half-finished, perhaps -- and I’m giving creators
James W. Gardiner and
Nick Blaemire a huge benefit of the doubt here -- serving as an apt metaphor for the fact that those barely one year out of high school have hardly begun to live, yet are too immature to realize it.
Coming off like a poor man's
Altar Boyz -- if only it were half as smart or as tuneful (where is
Ken Davenport when we need him?) -- and including two alums from that show's national tour,
Glory Days concerns four buddies who reunite after their first year away at college. Although the sexually ambiguous Will (
Steven Booth) and the stereotypically dimwitted, muscle-bound Andy (
Andrew C. Call) have kept their friendship in high gear (or not) by rooming together at college, they're looking forward to corralling their other pals Skip (
Adam Halpin) and Jack (
Jesse J.P. Johnson) into a silly scheme to somehow get back at the school that had done them wrong.
While Skip initially tries to be the voice of reason, he quickly acquiesces when reminded of how they never made their high school football team and how "being different" was the initial impetus behind their friendship. However, despite being continually told how "different" they are, the term is never defined.
We seem to be able to rule out what “being different” is not: the prospect that they're all gay, which is where I assumed this was all headed. As it turns out, Jack comes out to his chums via "The Open Road" -- one of the few memorable tunes during the show -- and instead of delving deeper into who the other three characters are, the rest of the heavy-handed plot gets caught up in how well the other three deal with the news. You'd think they were fresh out of the class of '69!
And while they think nothing of derogatorily calling each other "gay," the thoughtless toss off of the three letter "F" word threatens to implode this less than fab four. Rather than resolve the situation, three of our boys walk off, leaving a determined Will to tell "My Next Story."
End of show. Curtain call. Say what?!
What is particularly irritating for anyone over 30 (or possibly even 25) seeing this show is the implicit premise that high school could in any measurable way be deemed the glory days of any sane life. And for the tens of millions of us who were never the “cool kids,” the end of high school could only have been considered liberating and an opportunity to start fresh and make new friends, whether in college or directly in the adult world where anonymity comes much more readily.
Even under the usually reliable direction of DC's wunderkind
Eric D. Schaeffer, this is not the type of show that should have so easily or quickly been catapulted directly to the Broadway spotlight from a regional theatre. The show could easily have been mounted by an Off Off-Broadway house and attracted an appropriate youthful audience it's clearly targeting without having the audacity to charge $100 or more per ticket.
Sorry folks, but where's the glory in that?
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Opening: Glory Days Hopes For Glory Night (May 6, 2008)
Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
No Glory In Crap Shoot (March 24, 2008)
Glory Days Yet To Come This Broadway Season? (March 19, 2008)
Labels: Adam Halpin, Andrew C. Call, Broadway, Eric Schaeffer, Glory Days, James W. Gardiner, Jesse J.P. Johnson, Musical, Nick Blaemire, Steven Booth, The SOB Review, Transfer, Washington DC
Opening: Glory Days Hopes For Glory NightGlory Days -- the smallest and final new musical to open during Broadway's 2007-08 Theatrical Season -- gets its 90 minutes of glory this evening at Rialto's
Circle In The Square Theatre.
With book by
James W. Gardiner and score by
Nick Blaemire, the little tuner is
about the unlikeliest of all Great White Way contenders this year. Helmed by acclaimed DC director
Eric D. Schaeffer from the area's
Signature Theatre, this transfer stars
Steven Booth,
Andrew C. Call,
Adam Halpin and
Jesse J.P. Johnson. All the young actors originated their roles in the Signature production, and with the exception of Call, each is making his Broadway debut.
Will the critics be heaping generous helpings of glory on what
The New York Times 's
Campbell Robertson has described as "the nethermost dog of all," or will its days be numbered?
Tune in tomorrow as I provide my critics' capsule, along with my own SOB Review.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Click here for tickets.Related Stories:Early Tony Handicapping (March 25, 2008)
No Glory In Crap Shoot (March 24, 2008)
Glory Days Yet To Come This Broadway Season? (March 19, 2008)
Labels: Adam Halpin, Andrew C. Call, Broadway, Eric Schaeffer, Glory Days, James W. Gardiner, Jesse J.P. Johnson, Musical, Nick Blaemire, Opening Night, Steven Booth, Transfer, Washington DC
