I did not like ONCE - Page 2
I did not like ONCE
#25I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 12:26pm
It's okay Liza's Headband. The theater queens on this board due tend to be way too melodramatic. Poor, poor them.
Phantom4ever
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/17/07
#26I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 12:54pmI openly admitted that I didn't understand the humor behind the Girl's lines and/or her delivery of the lines. Well, actually, I suppose what people were laughing at is how the Girl wasn't leaving when the guy ask her to and that was somehow funny........or something? And I saw it over a year ago so I really had no recollection of whether they ended up together or not.
Liza's Headband
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/13
#28I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 1:24pmOnce upon a time, I saw a show. An actress said a line. Many people around me laughed uproariously. I did not. Because everyone is different. The end.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Liza's Headband
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/13
#30I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 1:38pmIf only the 2012 Tony voters could have seen this thread. Maybe things would've been different.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#31I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 1:40pmI think there should be a parade for those of you who take a stance about hating things that "everyone" loves. We need to warn everyone about these dangers. How does next Sunday sound? Should be able to throw something together by then and round up some ticker tape.
"Pardon my prior Mcfee slip. I know how to spell her name. I just don't know how to type it." -Talulah
#32I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 1:47pmHe can't be grand marshal, though. After Eight has earned that.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Liza's Headband
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/13
#33I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 2:00pmIt doesn't matter, Clyde. It's the end of the world as we know it because there is a calamity playing at the Jacobs six nights a week. So why wait until then?!
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#34I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 3:57pmI don't mean to join in ad hominem attacks against those of you who don't like this show, but JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
dramamama611
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
#35I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 4:03pmWhy is it so hard to believe that there will never be a show that EVERYONE loves?
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
#36I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 4:06pm
I'm sure I posted this years ago when I first saw the show, but for anyone who cares--
My partner and I were so ready to love ONCE when we saw it--lovely set, beautiful talented cast, gorgeous instrumentation. After the 3rd or 4th song we started to realize that NONE of the song lyrics was meant as a literal expression for the person singing it. Song after song after song that sat outside the scene of the moment, totally defying what a conventional musical uses songs to do-- express the true thoughts of the person singing them. We were left utterly frustrated, bored and unmoved, no matter how skillful the performers may have been. Strangest way to construct a musical we've seen in a long time.
#37I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 8:34pmI was exaggerating to get a point across, don't take everything so literally. Calm down bitches! :)
"People have their opinions and that doesn't mean that their opinions are wrong or right. I just take it with a grain of salt because opinions are like as*holes, everyone has one".
-Felicia Finley-
#38I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 8:42pmI loved the movie and I enjoyed the musical. but what Someone Tree2 is saying was my exact thought as I left the theater. When you can write musical that doesn't need to drive or, in this case, be related to the plot, then the standard seems lower to me. It can still be extremely entertaining but to me this musical was like a diver winning the gold medal with a degree of difficulty dive of 2.3 instead of 4.2.
sabrelady
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/16/03
#39I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/10/13 at 9:09pm
It's the end of the world as we know it
AND I feel fine....
( oh yeah I liked the show not the 2nd coming ( or 1st in my case) but I found it charming and whimsical.
"I'm Czech"
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#40I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 4:26am
Scorched by the fact that their precious little pet has --- finally! -- been called out for what it is, the sanctimonious language police now tell us that words like "disaster" or "calamity" can not be applied to theatrical productions, though they've been used in just such a way for eons. What a pathetic atttempt to stifle criticism. Personally, i wouldn't call the thing either one. I'd say it's simply awful, which is plenty awful enough.
But maybe we're not allowed to use that word either. I'm sure they'll be quick to let us know.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#42I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 8:05am
Once is certainly not a plotless musical. It is not even a musical in which the score doesn't drive the plot, the score being the music being made by the characters who are musicians, the lyrics often reflecting, sometimes transparently, their emotional life. In the way the songs written by singer songwriters reflect their emotional lives.
However, there have long been musicals in which the music didn't drive the plot.
And there have even been musicals without a plot at all. For a long time.
And some of these have been huge hits and have even won tonys. Deservedly.
Updated On: 11/11/13 at 08:05 AM
mamaleh
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/04
#43I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 9:34amAside from its inventive, interesting staging, I found not much else that held my attention in ONCE. I thought it yet another unworthy Best Musical Tony recipient, much like MEMPHIS. But I can appreciate how others could feel differently. I had a fine time at A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE, while others thought it abysmal. To each his own.
#43I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 10:22am
After Eight's hypocrisy is getting so ridiculously acute that one has to wonder if he's just eventually going to say "I AM AN ACT, NONE OF WHAT I SAY REFLECTS WHAT I BELIEVE. THIS IS ALL FOR IRONY."
There are plenty of acclaimed musicals in which the majority of the score either does not drive the plot, does not reveal anything about the characters, or only comments on what happens.
A good contemporary example (and not one of my favorite shows) is Spring Awakening- whose action takes place almost entirely within its book scenes, with its score commenting on character and action. (Incidentally, Duncan Sheik's subsequent works all do the same thing, which leads me to think he's more interested in writing pretty songs than anything else).
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 11/11/13 at 10:22 AM
#44I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 10:34amI was really bummed out by Once, and my expectations were not terribly high. I just don't have any interest in a musical where the songs don't contribute to my understanding of the characters, advance the story, or stick in my head. You've gotta at least have one of the three!
Brian07663NJ
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/21/06
#45I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 10:43am
I wish ONCE would get a new commercial. SO tired of hearing the woman saying the show is great because you can drink (alcohol) on stage prior to the performance.
OH yes - I've always thought - if only I could drink on stage before the show it would make me want to tell everyone - "Go see that show! You can spend over $100 for your ticket, get trashed before the show and then think it was great!"
Personally...just because a show wins one or multiple Tony Awards (or gets positive reviews) does not mean I will think it is worthy. Awards and reviews are all opinions which many times I have not agreed with: Kinky Boots, Once, Memphis, In the Heights, Spring Awakening, Spamalot, Hairspray, Contact...to name a few. To be honest...choices weren't always good on some of those years when I start to review what the choices were. Again - my opinion and I appreciate and respect the fact that the masses love those shows.
#46I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 11:32am
At least Phantom4ever has the decency to acknowledge that the folks around him enjoyed the show, rather than After-Eighting the situation and saying that the entire audience were duplicitiously hoodwinked --
(or perhaps another adverb/adjective cominbation he cococted using his thesaurus: medaciously hornswoggled? fallaciously flimflammed? sneakily snowed? [alliteration is clever])
-- lying not just to us, but, more importantly, to himself so that he can maintain the illusion that he's not completely alone in his awful opinions, so much so that he has to invent conspiracies to validate them.
**I'll post this exact post over and over again, no matter how many times it gets deleted, either until a moderator explains to me why every other post critical of After Eight is left alone but this one is not or until my profile is suspended. That is absolutely outrageous. After Eight claims not to be fazed by his detractors, so certainly he didn't report it, right? And he dishes it out as horribly as he takes it -- indeed, only takes it because he dishes it out so horribly. Do I come a little too close to the truth?**
CHURCH DOOR TOUCAN GAY MARKETING PUPPIES MUSICAL THEATER STAPLES PERIOD OIL BITCHY SNARK HOLES
#47I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 11:34am
I loved it. That's all that really matters to me.
Updated On: 11/11/13 at 11:34 AM
oasisjeff
Broadway Star Joined: 11/15/07
#48I did not like ONCE
Posted: 11/11/13 at 11:57am
"After the 3rd or 4th song we started to realize that NONE of the song lyrics was meant as a literal expression for the person singing it. Song after song after song that sat outside the scene of the moment, totally defying what a conventional musical uses songs to do-- express the true thoughts of the person singing them."
First of all, they aren't breaking into song in Once, they are literally in character playing music together, and everyone around them hears it. So, that seems to be a tipoff that it isn't what you find conventional.
I actually liked the idea that they were coming together and potentially falling in love while mining the emotional fallout from their past relationships as the fuel for their songs, which sort of gave it a fragile beauty, and insight that when we meet new people and fall in love, it is being built on lessons of the past. Once just did that literally.
This thread made me realize it's been too long since I've been to the show. Think I'm going to go sort out a ticket. Thanks!
Now t/d/b/a haterobics on here.
