Thoughts on MOTOWN

[CapnHook]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 12:03am

I skimmed back through 6 pages of threads and couldn't find a single one with reports from MOTOWN's previews. Has a thread not been started yet??

I caught the show this evening. Here are some thoughts:

- This show is gonna be a big fat HIT. Perhaps even bigger than MATILDA. It's the new JERSEY BOYS. It will likely run for a few years, at the very least. It's touring potential is astronomical. It's a tourist show delight. One middle-age white guy behind me leaned over to his "real housewives of botox county" wife at intermission and exclaimed with a smug grin "And YOU wanted to see SPIDER-MAN? Hah!"

- What a talented, talented, talented cast. Especially that ensemble. They have probably 15-20 quick-changes throughout the night. For a show that runs almost 3 hours long, they probably only have 10-15 minutes rest of not having to change clothing.

- The buzz coming from Riedel about the book not being up to par had me worried. While I wouldn't say that the book was strong, it certainly wasn't weak. It was serviceable. It was crafted to be a balance of providing the bullet points of MOTOWN/Berry Gordy's history to counterweight the huge catalog of hits.

- Not a flawless show, but there is no need to nit-pick. The audience ate it up. I had a great time.

[PastorErnst]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 12:13am

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?page=1&boardname=bway&thread=1057480

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 12:13am

I get that everyone says it's a big hit blah blah. And looking at its grosses, it seems to be. But when I saw "Baby, It's You" everyone loved that too. The couple in front of me turned around at intermission, unprompted by me or anyone else, and said "This is amazing, aren't you loving it?" And...well...we see how that went. So, you never know. If it gets pans people might lose interest. But, I foresee it running the same length as Memphis or something like that.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 12:24am

Pans from what? Some blog? Isn't that all Brantley is at this point, a slightly elevated blog poster?

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 2:46am

No, Namo. Brantley still has much more clout than you or me or people with their own blogs. There still is a critical establishment, even if it doesn't have the hegemony of ye olden days. So when a show comes along, like 9 to 5 and Baby It's You, that pleases many in the audience but gets slammed by print critics, that show often closes around Labor Day.

The first few months of a show's run usually need the benefit of a friendly local climate of critics and the NY theatergoers who still listen to them. Motown's support is probably made of stronger stuff than Dolly Parton had. But I doubt it's got the cushion all the attention and name recognition provided Super-Man. But if the numbers are slick enough to wow, Smokey Joe's Cafe is probably a good model for what's to come.

[jaxandmci]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 9:22am

The show appears to be selling quite well. This past Sunday, the price of premium seats was hiked from $199 to $252. And looking on Ticketmaster, there are lots of near sellouts over the next couple of months.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 9:24am

Unlike Baby, It's You, Motown was completely sold out last week.

CapnHook, what was the degree of audience singing along throughout the show?

[Nick Murphy]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 9:42am

It's a big hit and deservedly so. What a great night out.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 9:53am

CapnHook - While I am glad you and the audience liked it, still makes me a bit sad. I get tired of these type of musicals without original music. Who is the next big group or recording producer that we need a show about on Broadway? We have already had the "Four Seasons", "The Supremes" and now Mr. Gordy. Once again, another Broadway show for the masses who need to have music they know.

[newintown]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 10:23am

There certainly are lots of major flop jukebox musicals, too: Leader of the Pack, Lennon, Ring of Fire, The Times They Are A-Changin', Good Vibrations, Buddy, Big Deal, Teddy and Alice, Saturday Night Fever, Urban Cowboy, All Shook Up, Hot Feet...

Most of them (like most shows) flop, but they're probably seen as easier to put together, since you don't have to deal with songwriters (as though songwriters are an unnecessary nuisance).

[massofmen]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 11:02am

it works because its not one band. Using ONE BAND anymore doesn't work. Like with Rock of Ages you have to use more than one. Sure it worked early on in the Jukebox decade (which i call the 00's) with Mamma Mia and Jersey Boys but now you have to do more with the ADD society we live in.

Motown might be a hit and it might now. It def will hit into the Mamma Mia tix sales.

[bwaylyric]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 11:24am

Forget the Bodyguard musical. They should just fast-track ARISTA: THE CLIVE DAVIS MUSICAL and feature Whitney's hits in it.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 1:09pm

I would love to see a 70s catalogue musical entitled "Casablanca". Hell, I'd just sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the firework show when the show is announced.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/20/13 at 1:14pm

I'll never have that recipe again.

[jnb9872]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 12:13am

I think saying ONE BAND is a death knell is simplistic. It always depends on execution... I think one part of MOTOWN that had always concerned me was that, under the ideal circumstances, excellent dramatic musicals could be made of Marvin Gaye's life, or Michael Jackson's, or Stevie Wonder's, or the career of the Temptations, or Diana Ross and the Supremes, that each of these artists could sustain a rather fantastic musical on their own and shoehorning everything under one MOTOWN title, while financially very attractive, could ultimately leave those stones unturned.

[quizking101]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 12:29am

"There certainly are lots of major flop jukebox musicals, too: Leader of the Pack, Lennon, Ring of Fire, The Times They Are A-Changin', Good Vibrations, Buddy, Big Deal, Teddy and Alice, Saturday Night Fever, Urban Cowboy, All Shook Up, Hot Feet..."

With all due respect, LEADER OF THE PACK was the pioneer of this genre, and while it was essentially a glorified revue (which originated in Greenwich Village), I tend to give it a little leeway in terms of being a failure.

[Starship]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 2:40am

I think this show will live longer than expected because of its recognition. It'll bring in a nice audience for a while because of how familiar people are with MOTOWN, especially the older community.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 7:46am

newintown - IMO. It would be nice if shows like "Motown" actually had original songs to tell the story and then supplemented it with "familiar" songs. I understand the need to have songs from the groups that Gordy made famous but wish it was not the entire music of the whole show.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 9:45am

Yes, but that's harder to do.

[bdn223]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 9:52am

@yankeefan7
That was actually an extremely similar to the argument Brantley and Isherwood made against Memphis. The two wished that Memphis actually used some of the catalogue from the story the show is based on, in addition to the barely passable score of the show.

Updated On: 3/21/13 at 09:52 AM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 10:13am

"want's"?

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 11:17am

Kad - your are right it is harder to do but do we want musicals to be "safe".

[macnyc]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 11:24am

I try not to pay full price for any show because I need to stretch my entertainment budget as far as possible. But because my sister-in-law was so keen to see Motown, we got our tickets back in October, as soon as the American Express seats went on sale. And yes, I'm paying full price for Motown and for Book of Mormon too. After losing the lottery so many times, I finally caved. I'm looking forward to both shows though!

Updated On: 3/21/13 at 11:24 AM

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 3/21/13 at 1:05pm

Sat it last night. Short answer on Motown was that I came very close to loving it, even at 2:50 with 65 songs! (At least last night, the show started at 8pm SHARP.)

The book, as I expected, would have its shortcomings, especially in the first half which packed so much in. Act Two was much smoother. But the casting, the choreography, the design elements – there was soooo much talent (and money, oh the money) on that stage, I ended up really, really liking it.

One of my favorite weirdly-written lines was when Berry Gordy said about the Jackson Five before a blackout, “They’re about to become superstars…I hope they can handle it.” If my Playbill was in my hands, I would have thrown it in the air in anger. There’s foreshadowing, and then there’s foreshadowing.

But the book scenes are relatively short, and then a new number starts and you immediately forget them - so if you take away the book’s problems, then I loved it.

Updated On: 3/21/13 at 01:05 PM

[Sauja]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 4:45pm

There hasn't been any chatter on this show in awhile. Considering the business it's doing, I'm really surprised. That said, I can't be as enthusiastic as earlier posters. The book scenes may be short, but they're wince-inducing. The Act 1 finale is a muddled cluster of good intentions stripped of any emotional power or audience connection.

Perhaps if this was a revue, it could work, but even then, I'd want to hear more than four bars of each song. It's like a two hour and 45 minute mash-up of Motown's greatest hits. No numbers really get room to breathe, and hustled on and off stage as quickly as they are, neither do the performers, few of whom convey any of the electricity I associate with so many of the original songs. Whoever played Jackie Wilson (Playbill not in front of me, and it's not on IBDB) was the biggest exception for me, and he had a total of maybe two minutes of stage time as that character.

And it all had such an uncomfortably self-congratulatory air that just sat badly with me. Less because it only showed the good things that happened to Gordy, and more because it seemed to really whitewash some history, most notably in a scene where it seems that Gordy is claiming he sued two people he thought of as "sons" just to get them to come "home" to him, but when they countersued, they were all kinds of evil. I mean...throw yourself a party, but leave the score settling for private.

Poor Brandon Victor Dixon's immense talents are wasted in the central role, in which he has very little to do besides act like a saint and very occasionally get to (beautifully) croon some lesser Motown hits.

And as much talk as there is here of people loving it, the audience felt a touch tepid last night. There was big enthusiasm at the start, but that applause sure did seem quieter as the night wore on.

I will give credit to the director who seems to be working with the fullest bag of tricks to keep things speeding along, surprising the audience, and working double time to put over a plot that has no arc or character development. He might not have had much to work with in terms of a book, but he polished the darn thing to a shine.

Still: it's eminently skippable, and the biggest reason for that is Gordy himself. If he had allowed an actual book writer to come in and tell a story and hadn't insisted on the deluge of pop snippets, this could have really been something.