This Musical Will Lift You Up Where You Won't Want To Go! *REVIEWS*

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 6:13pm

Again Sydney Australia is being used as an out of town try out for a new
musicals.

Reportedly costing $6.million dollars with only one song that anyone knows
and which the producers are selling the whole show on "Up Where We Belong"
the theme song for the movie.

There have endless rewrites, scenes adjustments, and music alterations which suggests that the show could be in trouble..

All this is being arranged by Douglas Day Stewart who wrote the screenplay
for the film and is also cowriter on the musical with another co writer and
producer Sharleen Cooper Cohen.

There are 20 new songs but no one is stating who wrote these songs.

So with an unknown songwriter and lyrists and the constant changing of the
story emphasis we are again expected to pay our money on a group of
unknowns.

The only person associated with the project that has any credibility is
Simon Philips who directed 'Pricilla' and 'Love Never Dies'.

Other than being a show for a chicks night out this musical has very little going
for it.

First Sydney had 'Dr.Zhivago' thrust upon it with its totally unreliable show
and poor staging and bad music ( even get Laura's theme wasn't included) now its
" An Officer and a Gentleman" which has just concluded its premier run at the Lyric Theatre.

The Sydney theatre scene is in a bad state.

First the Sydney Theatre Company under the direction of Cate Blanchet and
her husband. The Sydney Theatre Company has suffered a financial loss
for the past 2 years due to nobody wanting to see these plays that they have
self-indulgently planned during their period as artistic heads of the
Sydney Theatre Company,

Plus we were bored to death with Dr.Zhivago another bore playing the
Australian circuit is a stage copy of " Yes Prime Minster" and now we await the fate of "An Officer And A Gentlemen'.

Where have all the great Tony plays and English dramas gone?











Updated On: 5/19/12 at 06:13 PM

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 7:42pm

What a bitchy old queen!

[Maz3]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 5:41pm

If there were ever an award for the most misinformed, illiterate piece of writing that lacked any sense of good judgment, this would be in the running.

[bob8rich]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 5:57pm

Know nothing of the score for this show or about the quality of the production. But I loved the movie so would be interested enough to give this a try should it ever make it here from Oz.

[alterego]

Posted: 5/18/12 at 9:22am

From what I have heard here (in Melbourne) there are serious problems with the show...not just on stage, it is already discounting tickets...and it is in previews.

I'm seeing MOONSHADOW (Cat Stevens -Yusef Islam musical) opening Melbourne May 31. I at least will be familiar with the score. This is only playing Melbourne before - hopefully heading to Britain.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 4:28am

Sydney Morning Herald.

'An Officer And A Gentleman.The Musical'
Reviewed by Jason Blake.

Lyric Theatre, May 17
Until July 1

We know the girl gets the guy and we know how we should be feeling when he carries her out of that paper bag-making purgatory she's in. We know what song is playing when it happens. Hell, we remember every word.

With that weight of expectation on board, does this adaptation of director Taylor Hackford's durable movie romance generate lift sufficient to heave it into the realm of music theatre?

The short answer is no. The road is long (to long) and there are mountains (of not very interesting songs) in our way.

Like the film, the show opens in the fleshpots of Manila, with the young Zack Mayo thrust into the arms of his alcoholic sailor dad Byron (Bartholomew John) for a haphazard school-of-life education.

Happily, a fly-past of American F/A-18s and a brief encounter with a navy officer in dress whites is enough to inspire Zack to something more than running dad's whores for a living.

Cut to day one, basic training, and the grown-up Zack (Ben Mingay) is poised to take his first steps to becoming a pilot. He's one among a batch of emblematic hopefuls: plucky Compton homegirl Taniya (Zahra Newman); family guy Charlie (Josef Brown); eager-to-please Ramon (Josh Piterman); and Sid (Alex Rathgeber), the overshadowed
sibling of a dead war hero.

All are here to be licked into shape by Gunnery Sergeant Foley (Bert Labonte, stepping into the big shiny boots of Lou Gossett jnr). Most will get a feature number somewhere along the line.

Meanwhile, soon-to-be love interest Paula (Amanda Harrison) is punching the clock in a factory while she trains to become a trauma nurse - an ingratiating attempt to ennoble by writers Douglas Day Stewart and Sharleen Cooper Cohen, who also sweep away most of the original screenplay's grit.

Elsewhere, they demonstrate a tendency towards clumsy dot-joining psychology, which culminates in Zack bellowing "just like my damned mother!" when he discovers the body of best buddy Sid, who has hung himself after his marriage proposal is rejected by Paula's pilot-pulling bestie Lynette (Kate Kendall).

Later on, the book inflates the pride of the graduating class into jingoism, which might play well in Peoria but grates here.

The director, Simon Phillips, handles the material efficiently enough but opening Act II with a blaze of salsa action suggests he's battling to keep dreariness at bay. It lights up the stage, sure, but serves only to give the impression that these recruits
have spent more time in ballroom classes than on the obstacle course.

The songs (rock ballads mostly, by Ken Hirsch and Robin Lerner) are leaden, musically and lyrically - so much so that Up Where We Belong (written by Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie back in the day) seems out of place, palpably cut from superior cloth.

Among all this, Mingay and Harrison give you little to root for. With his Eddie Vedder-like baritone and NRL prop heft, Mingay is not a natural when it comes to communicating humility or charm. His cockiness makes Zack's eventual breakdown in front of Foley ("I ain't got nuthin' else!") less like a cri de coeur and more like petulance.

Harrison drapes herself around Mingay's massive frame and sings prettily but chemistry is largely absent and without it, 'An Officer and a Gentleman - The Musical' has no wind beneath its wings.

[alterego]

Posted: 5/19/12 at 11:02pm

Another:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/an-officer-and-a-gentleman/story-e6frewyr-1226361075705

[tenorboyo]

Posted: 5/20/12 at 3:49am

An Orifice and a Gerbilman?