Lo
ve Never Dies (The SOB Review) – Adelphi Theatre, London, United Kingdom
*1/2 (out of ****) Eternal optimists often say, “Never say never.”
Legions of optimistic
Phantom Of The Opera fans aside,
Andrew Lloyd Webber would have been well-served not only to say “no,” but “never again” after his
cat reportedly destroyed his first draft of his score for this deadly dull sequel with not much to love, including its ridiculous opera meets vaudeville vibe. While the
show has been dubbed "Paint Never Dries," I dare say I've had more fun watching paint dry -- and it's faster, too.
That
Love Never Dies is merely a shameless rip-off of the original becomes painfully clear after Christine (
Sierra Boggess) arrives at New York’s Coney Island to perform a new aria she and Raoul (
Joseph Millson) discover has been written by her rejected and disfigured suitor (
Ramin Karimloo) from the Paris Opera House. When the words, “We’re just in this for the money” is spoken, the jig is up for all involved.
To
Love Never Dies’ credit, both Karimloo and Boggess are in exceptional voice. And there’s a visually arresting projection design from
Jon Driscoll. But with the exception of a first act tune “Beauty Underneath” in which director
Jack O’Brien must have decided that the time had come to show at least a little money up on the stage,
Love Never Dies comes up short in terms of spectacle for which the first show is known.
Instead, this sequel is mostly overwrought that's overdone. (Also overdone the night I attended was the incessant fog machine, which obscured all action on the stage for at least three or four minutes of the climax, making the unintended disembodied voices seem like the true phantoms. It left me thinking "Fog Never Dies.")
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
In keeping with the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations that unfairly discriminate against bloggers, who are now required by law to disclose when they have received anything of value they might write about, please note that I have received nothing of value in exchange for this post.Labels: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jack O'Brien, Jon Driscoll, Joseph Millson, Love Never Dies, Musical, Ramin Karimloo, Sequel, Sierra Boggess, The Phantom Of The Opera, The SOB Review
Did Little Mermaid Find Its Legs Among Critics?Last month, after 50 preview performances,
Disney's stage adaptation of
The Little Mermaid opened at Broadway's
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Helmed by
Francesca Zambello, the
Alan Menken,
Howard Ashman and
Glenn Slater tuner stars
Sierra Boggess,
Norm Lewis,
Sherie René Scott and
Tituss Burgess.
Apparently the critics weren't biting.
Opening with "Loved the shoes. Loathed the show,"
The New York Times ' self-proclaimed exaggerator
Ben Brantley nevertheless pans in his one absolute must-read review. It's
that funny: "Directed by Francesca Zambello, this
Little Mermaid burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) awash in pastels gone sour and unidentifiable giant tchotchkes that suggest a Luau Lounge whipped up by an acid-head heiress in the 1960s. The whole enterprise is soaked in that sparkly garishness that only a very young child -- or possibly a tackiness-worshiping drag queen -- might find pretty....Coherence of plot, endearing quirks of character, even the melodious wit of the original score (supplemented by new, substandard songs by Mr. Menken and the lyricist Glenn Slater) have been swallowed by an unfocused spectacle, more parade than narrative, that achieves the dubious miracle of translating an animated cartoon into something that feels like less than two dimensions."
Noting how the show "begins to bloat by the end,"
Eric Grode of
The New York Sun offers a more mixed assessment: "So Disney has turned
Mermaid into the latest of its high-gloss screen-to-stage projects -- and the result is almost exactly half as clever and touching and tuneful as the film....Ms. Zambello's embellishments, for the most part, are not particularly welcome ones....Doug Wright has added backstory galore and a handful of grin-worthy puns ("As long as you live under my reef, you'll obey my rules!") but allows the action to bog down well before the final chorus....(Choreographer) Stephen Mear, takes the reins here, and the results are largely successful."
Citing "plastic, plastic everywhere, enough to lead you to drink,"
New York Post's
Clive Barnes gives the show just one star: "Underneath all this baroque ornamentation was a tiny, tinny little musical struggling for its life....The music is sort of perkily lugubrious....The lyrics fade away either in a miasma of romantic fatuity or a haze of grimly dull jokiness....Yet throughout the long-littleness of the show, Mear's more than competent choreography shines out, as they say, like a good deed in a naughty world....There isn't much I can say of the cast -- all swimming upstream with a kind of grinning gallantry."
Assessing it as a "doggedly conventional, well-performed, middling bore of a show,"
Newsday's
Linda Winer is similarly uncharitable: "[T]he most amazing part of Disney's latest musical is its amazing shortage of originality -- not to mention magic or cross-generational wit....[D]irector Francesca Zambello and set designer George Tsypin -- both from the progressive wing of grand opera -- appear to have toiled mightily to come up with almost nothing new....Newcomer Sierra Boggess has both the creamy-voice lyricism and spunky spirit of a fine Disney heroine. Sean Palmer is suitably dashing, if a little mature for her, as Prince Eric."
Citing a bit of an improvement over the Denver tryout,
David Rooney of
Variety still offers a negative review: "The massive brand power of the beloved 1989 animated feature might make disappointment over the show's diluted charms irrelevant. But the impression remains that this is a case of winning material hitched to the wrong creative team....Sierra Boggess' Ariel is a perfectly lovely, vocally accomplished lead, but Doug Wright's book somehow loses the fundamental quality that made Disney's update of the
Hans Christian Andersen tale so captivating onscreen."
You can find my review of the Denver tryout by clicking
here.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Ben Brantley, Broadway, Critics' Capsule, Disney, Film, Musical, Sherie Rene Scott, Sierra Boggess, The Little Mermaid
