He basically blames the world for not appreciating the show, neglecting the fact the show just... wasn't very good.
He manages to cite the Iggy Azalea cultural appropriation controversy (neglecting the fact the show's bookwriter is a white male), the fact that audiences prefer stories like Rocky (not mentioning it is also a flop), and suggests people were gunning for the show before it even opened (when, in fact, many people were optimistic, though unsure of how well it could do).
I like how they blame TKTS for telling people it's a bit of a downer and got bad reviews, aren't both of those things true?
Don't people typically look at the list in advance and figure out what to buy on their own? No wonder that line is so slow if they are jawing about shows once they get up there...
Updated On: 7/23/14 at 10:28 AM
Poor thing. But a totally American attitude that the failure of the project rests completely on other people, not those who created the inferior/unwanted product.
I gotta hand it to the producers of HOLLER for doing everything they could to keep HOLLER open. I didn't see it, as it just didn't look interesting to me, but in an age where Wall Street-bred producers just close a show if the reviews are poor, they worked hard. Yeah, the actor seems bent out of shape but it's part of the actor's job to fall in love with the show he's doing.
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
He's an Actor whose show is closing. He believed in the show so he has to look for someone to blame. But if you are gonna speak out about it in a national publication, first do some homework (the ROCKY thing). People will respect your opinion more if you know what you are talking about.
I worked with Saul a few years back. He's not a pleasant person.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Why didn't they do an out of town tryout at Alliance or out in LA somewhere? That might have done the show a world of good. He blames everyone but himself and the fact that the production wasn't Broadway ready.
When people blame the world for the failure of their sh!tty show it's childish and petty. Make a real edgy rap-based musical that's good and people will go. The world isn't scared of rap music.
"Pardon my prior Mcfee slip. I know how to spell her name. I just don't know how to type it." -Talulah
This infuriates me. My problem with the show has nothing to do with the fact that it is rap, hip hop, or different. My problem with the show is that it's not done well. The storytelling is crap, and nothing seems to fit. That is why this show failed. Not because people don't want to see something different - they do. They just want to see something different and GOOD.
^ Yup. Isherwood's piece actually explains the problem rather well. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/theater/closing-of-holler-if-ya-hear-me-raises-questions.html "In truth, the problem with “Holler” wasn’t really the music at all, but the ham-handed, sentimentalized story line concocted to underpin it. I tended to perk up during the musical numbers, which capitalized on the forceful rhythms of Shakur’s raps, layered over music that often had a strong melodic core. Then I’d sink back into my seat when the clichéd narrative ground back into gear, telling us what we already knew about the travails of young black men in the ghetto, trying to resist the toxic environment to forge viable futures for themselves. The characters — the ex-con trying to go straight, the drug lord beginning to question the path he’d chosen — were underwritten and familiar, and while the cast members were strong, there was little they could do to imprint any true originality on the material."
But look, the Holler team is looking for someone to blame. And they won't blame themselves. So they can blame white America.
"I tended to perk up during the musical numbers, which capitalized on the forceful rhythms of Shakur’s raps, layered over music that often had a strong melodic core."
I love when musical illiterates try to write analytically about music.
America's been on the wrong side of history lots of times. We were allies with Germany until Charlie Chaplin came out with The Great Dictator and then we were like, 'Holy F*CK' and we switched sides.
I'm with Isherwood - the score was not the problem but that book was DOA. I'm surprised that a pro like Leon couldn't help Kreidler shape it into something more viable.
"America's been on the wrong side of history lots of times. We were allies with Germany until Charlie Chaplin came out with The Great Dictator and then we were like, 'Holy F*CK' and we switched sides."