The SOB Five "Worst" Of 2008-09Over the past year, I've had opportunities to take in over 70 performances of a wide range of musicals, plays and "special theatrical events" both on Broadway and off, as well as productions from Melbourne and Sydney to London with plenty of stops in between.
Thankfully, I've enjoyed so many more shows than the ones that left me groaning. Yet, it takes seeing those bad productions to make me truly appreciate the good ones. And on the whole, I would much rather see a terrible show live on stage than take in virtually any other form of entertainment. It's that in-the-moment communal experience with other theatre lovers that makes every stage performance worth seeing. Or almost.
As a completely independent theatre blogger beholden to no one -- I pay for every ticket and I still take no advertising -- I'm exercising my freedom of speech by presenting my fourth annual list of the "5 Worst" shows I've seen during the 2008-09 Theatrical Season.
Drumroll, please:
5 - To Be Or Not To Be (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, New York)
Daring to ask
Shakespeare's famous question
To Be Or Not To Be right up front in the title of a play is a risky proposition, to be sure. But since there's no shying away from responding, the answer is a simple, "No." Why playwright
Nick Whitby and director
Casey Nicholaw ever decided this was Broadway ready? Well,
that my dear reader is the
real question.
4 - The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, Chicago, Illinois)
While I have no doubt that
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame has been a labor of love for
Dennis DeYoung of
Styx fame, it’s almost as if he has spent a little too much time studying the musical techniques offered by
Andrew Lloyd Webber or the team that gave the world
Les Misérables. The world of musical theatre has long since moved on. Could this
Hunchback someday prove to be the bell ringer DeYoung envisioned? The answer is a qualified "yes." But this incarnation took its toll.
3 - Annie (Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, Rhode Island)
Leapin' lizards, what a dog! The current touring production of
Annie is a pale imitation of the
original show I loved so much. Bet your bottom dollar, because it looks as cheap as it is bad. There's absolutely no magic. With its heavy use of scrims, no wonder this revival falls so flat. This warmed-over
Annie marks the worst, most disappointing musical revival I’ve seen over the past year. It’s a hard knock, but someday, if not tomorrow, a dazzling revival worthy of the exceptional core show will come along.
2 - You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush (Cort Theatre, New York, New York)
Rather than too little, too late, this occasionally funny retread of the last eight years feels like far too much so soon after the eponymous
president left office. So much for mission accomplished. While
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush has some genuine laughs and moments of inspiration, this
Will Farrell vehicle tries to shock with purported images of the Commander-in-Chief's chief of staff. It's ironic that a show about a president often accused of intellectual laziness suffers from too much of the same. While that may work on television, it wasn't really ready for a prime Broadway berth.
1 - Eddie Izzard: Stripped (State Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Stripped seemed like an apt metaphor for this threadbare show that was bereft of articulate, cogent thought I had come to expect from comedian/actor
Eddie Izzard. Also largely missing was the humor. But
Stripped instead unintentionally came off as a pseudo-intellectual's desire to have his rambling and often incoherent thoughts -- which he's constantly interrupting himself, only to ask the audience, "Where was I?" -- taken seriously. Feeling truly trapped during an appallingly unpolished performance, the only thing I felt stripped of was the money I paid to sit through this tedious slog.
So, there you have them: SOB's choices for the "5 Worst" shows I endured, I mean
enjoyed, during the 2008-09 Theatrical Season. As I've stated in previous years:
Of course, this is all in the eyes of the beholder. You may vehemently disagree or wonder whether I even have a clue as to what is artistic and what is not. But since my goal in life is to enjoy it rather than simply being a dilettante, I’m going to tell it like I see it by naming the five productions that I enjoyed less than any others.
If you saw any of these shows, let me know what you thought. And please feel free to share the worst shows you sat through (or walked out of) during that past year!
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Annie, Eddie Izzard, Musical, Play, SOB Five Worst of 2008-09, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, To Be Or Not To Be, You're Welcome America. One Final Night With George W Bush
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush (The SOB Review) - Cort Theatre, New York, New York
* (out of ****)Rather than too little, too late, this occasionally funny retread of the last eight years feels like far too much so soon after the eponymous
president left office. So much for mission accomplished.
While
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush has some genuine laughs and moments of inspiration, this
Will Farrell vehicle tries to shock with purported images of the Commander-in-Chief's chief of staff. Yet its greatest offense is its crass, jokey use of the N word (Ferrell's Bush confuses the name of a
certain African country with the worst epithet in the English language).
Replete with even more costume changes than
Liza Minnelli had during her recent Great White Way
outing,
You're Welcome America dulls down into one of those overextended
Saturday Night Live sketches that appears late in the program and swaggers sharply into obscurity. It's ironic that a show about a president often accused of intellectual laziness suffers from too much of the same.
While that may work on television, it's not quite ready for a prime Broadway berth.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Broadway, Revue, Will Ferrell, You're Welcome America. One Final Night With George W Bush
Did Critics Welcome Ferrell's Final Night?Last evening,
Will Ferrell made his Broadway debut in his limited run show
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush, which opened at the
Cort Theatre.
Directed by
Adam McKay, Ferrell's show spoofs the eponymous
43rd President. The comedy features
Michael Delaney,
Pia Glenn,
Adam Mucci and
Patrick Ferrell.
Most critics' reviews rolled out the welcome mat for Ferrell with one notable exception.
Praising the show as "a cathartic, almost cleansing farewell,"
David Rooney of
Variety claims that the show never descends into mean-spirited diatribe: "Ferrell delivers what's basically an extended '
SNL' political sketch grafted out of the easiest target in comedy.... [I]t's the kind of incisive 'SNL' sketch we haven't seen much of lately -- a fast-paced, well-sustained near-90 minutes that's consistently funny and invigoratingly rude.... [I]t's in the more fanciful satirical detours that Ferrell soars highest."
Proclaiming "mission accomplished,"
Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's
Daily News awards four out of five stars: "Getting to see this comic whiz in the flesh is a big treat, and the fact that Ferrell has been able to squeeze so many fresh yuks from the beleaguered Bush legacy speaks to his always off-kilter, sometimes raunchy, imagination.... If some sequences run out of steam, another laugh is looming just around the bend."
Calling Ferrell "terrific -- sly and subtle, even brave,"
Newsday's
Linda Winer offers a critical welcome: "(The show) has arrived right on time for both silly fun and smart summing-up of an epoch the country just voted overwhelmingly to change. Foolish comedy is deftly mixed with tough political satire in what is not, strictly speaking, a solo."
Surprised that "the ex-president turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun to hang with,"
Frank Scheck for
New York Post awards three out of four stars: "Granted, the generally lowbrow humor of
You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush is hardly cutting-edge political satire. Basically a (nearly) solo extended sketch, it's theatrical comfort food for Broadway audiences who want to see one of their favorite comic actors live."
Noting that "Sometimes it’s really funny, and sometimes it sort of sags. I laughed, I yawned,"
The New York Times'
Ben Brantley offers a mixed assessment comparing it to Ferrell's more middling movies: "[T]he actor provides a critic-proof demonstration of the art that has endeared him to millions of fans around the world: the art of acting stupid, shrewdly, for fun and profit. Some might say that this is a talent shared by the man Mr. Ferrell impersonates. But the George W. Bush of
You’re Welcome America ... is just stupid, without the shrewdness.... Mr. Ferrell’s Bush is less exact imitation than loopy extrapolation. And the show feels freshest when he goes off on surreal tangents that transport his blundering hero into the ether of pure absurdism."
Concluding that "Ferrell's mission ought to have been aborted,"
USA Today's
Elysa Gardner pans the show with one and a half stars out of four: "It's tough to say who should be more offended by
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush: the 43rd president's most ardent admirers or his most rigorous critics.... No one familiar with Ferrell's work would expect in-depth political satire. He tries instead to provoke through tastelessness and goofy outrageousness, practices that certainly have long and distinguished traditions in comedy. But Ferrell's shots both overreach and fail to sting."
Perhaps to Brantley's point, this very limited run show is critic-proof from the get-go, so it appears that most of them just sat back, relaxed and let 'er roll. I'll be taking in a performance over the next couple of weeks and will let you know if I shared their general enthusiasm.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Adam McKay, Broadway, Comedy, Critics' Capsule, George W. Bush, Revue, Will Ferrell, You're Welcome America. One Final Night With George W Bush
You're Welcome: One Final Opening NightMining the recently departed
U.S. President and his seeming propensity for malapropisms for laughs one final time, film actor and former "
Saturday Night Live" alum
Will Ferrell (or John
W. Ferrell) is opening on Broadway this evening in his limited run show
You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush.
According to the official site, dubbed "
Will Ferrell on Broadway":
It's time for a change in America, but not without a few parting words from the 43rd President of the United States. Don’t miss your chance to discover the man behind the myth, the truth behind the lies, and the logic behind the illogical in the outrageous limited Broadway event.
Staged at Rialto's
Cort Theatre,
You're Welcome America is written by Ferrell, who stars as his most famous impersonation. Helmed by
Adam McKay and choreographed by
Matt Williams, the comedy features
Michael Delaney as Dr. Scott Blumeth,
Pia Glenn as Former Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice,
Adam Mucci as a Pilot, and the lead actor's own sibling
Patrick Ferrell as a Secret Service Operative. Perhaps most intriguing credit of all is the one for
Flying by Foy, which is supplying flying effects.
Ferrell is one of the few SNL actors to receive an Emmy nomination for his work on the late night comedy shows. Certainly, his extraordinary gift for mimicking the mighty no doubt contributed to that distinction.
The big question about tonight's show is whether critics will give 43 a go one more time, or will they wish Ferrell had simply given it a rest. Find out tomorrow as I provide my critics' capsule.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Adam McKay, Broadway, Comedy, George W. Bush, Opening Night, Revue, Saturday Night Live, Will Ferrell, You're Welcome America. One Final Night With George W Bush
5 - To Be Or Not To Be (Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, New York)
