Ben Brantley's Cruelest Theatre Reviews

[matineeidol2013]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 3:32pm

What are your opinions? I was just reading his review for Dracula The Musical...I think that has to rank as one of the cruelest.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/movies/theater-review-the-bat-awakens-stretches-yawns.html


"Expectations were exceedingly low for this latest offering from the unstoppable Mr. Wildhorn -- the composer of the expensively dressed clunkers 'Jekyll and Hyde,' 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and 'The Civil War' -- and expectations have not been disappointed. So go ahead. Take your shots. Say something, if you must, about toothlessness or bloodlessness or the kindness of hammering stakes into the hearts of undead shows. Think of every appropriate variation you can involving the verbs to bite and to suck.

O.K., now that that's out of your system, perhaps you'll concede that it just isn't much fun to trash something that's so eminently, obviously trashable. 'Dracula, the Musical,' which features a book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton and is directed by Des McAnuff ('The Who's Tommy'), isn't simply bad, which is an aesthetic state of being that is kind of fun if you're in the right mood. (Gee, remember the ripely terrible 'Dance of the Vampires'?) It is bad and boring."

Updated On: 7/9/09 at 03:32 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 3:35pm

High Fidelity: "A new musical is said to have opened last night on Broadway. I mean, I saw it. Or I think I did. It's called, uh, wait a minute, it'll come to me. Got it! "High Fidelity." And if I close my eyes and concentrate really hard, I just might be able to describe a show that erases itself from your memory even as you watch it."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/theater/reviews/08fide.html?scp=1&sq=High%20Fidelity%20Ben%20Brantley&st=cse


The Little Mermaid: "Loved the shoes. Loathed the show.

O.K., I exaggerate. I didn't like the shoes all that much."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/theater/reviews/11merm.html


The Times They Are A-Changin': "If you happen to be among the masochists who make a habit of attending the entertainments called jukebox musicals, in which pop hits are beaten up by singing robots, you may think you'™ve seen it all: the neutering of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in "œGood Vibrations" the canonizing (and shrinking) of John Lennon as a misunderstood angel-child in "Lennon," and the forcible transformation of Johnny Cash from Man in Black to Sunshine Cowboy in "Ring of Fire."

But even these spectacles of torture with a smile, frightening though they may be, are but bagatelles compared with the systematic steamrolling of Bob Dylan that occurs in "œThe Times They Are A-Changin'" which opened last night at the Brooks Atkinson Theater."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/theater/reviews/27chan.html?scp=1&sq=The%20Times%20They%20Are%20A-Changin%27%20Ben%20Brantley&st=cse

Updated On: 7/9/09 at 03:35 PM

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 3:40pm

Cry-Baby:

"Brace yourself for a shock, gentle theatergoer. There?s no delicate way of putting this. ?Cry-Baby,? the latest Broadway musical based on a John Waters movie, is ... tasteless[...]When I said ?tasteless,? I meant without flavor: sweet, sour, salty, putrid or otherwise. This show in search of an identity has all the saliva-stirring properties of week-old pre-chewed gum. (Not to be tasteless.)"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/theater/reviews/25cryb.html?scp=1&sq=cry%20baby%20review&st=cse

[TheatreFreak05]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 3:41pm

I laughed out loud at this quote from the Little Mermaid review:


"Directed by Francesca Zambello, this "Little Mermaid" burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) awash in pastels gone sour and unidentifiable giant tchotchkes that suggest a Luau Lounge whipped up by an acid-head heiress in the 1960s."


Updated On: 7/9/09 at 03:41 PM

[CyCoSpAz2]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 3:50pm

A Tale of Two Cities
"This stolid poperetta, which features book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello and is directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, is one of those unfortunate shows that are neither witty in themselves nor able to inspire wit in others. To say it could have been worse - i.e., gloriously, hilariously bad - is not a cause for rejoicing."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/theater/reviews/19tale.html

(and totally inaccurate, imo)
Updated On: 7/9/09 at 03:50 PM

[Fosse76]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 4:15pm

My favorite was for Good Vibrations:

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/theater/reviews/03good.html?scp=1&sq=brantley%20reviews%20good%20vibrations&st=cse

"Even those who believe everything on this planet is here for a purpose may at first have trouble justifying the existence of 'Good Vibrations,' the singing headache that opened last night at the Eugene O'Neill Theater.

"But audience members strong enough to sit through this rickety jukebox of a show, which manages to purge all catchiness from the surpassingly catchy hits of the Beach Boys, will discover that the production does have a reason to be, and a noble one: 'Good Vibrations' sacrifices itself, night after night and with considerable anguish, to make all other musicals on Broadway look good."

[Calvin]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 4:16pm

Suzanne Somers was a classic, but I think that was Isherwood.

[tommyboy]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 4:52pm

"A Tale of Two Cities
"This stolid poperetta, which features book, music and lyrics by Jill Santoriello and is directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, is one of those unfortunate shows that are neither witty in themselves nor able to inspire wit in others. To say it could have been worse - i.e., gloriously, hilariously bad - is not a cause for rejoicing." "

Remember when we in junior high school, and we called it A SALE OF TWO TITTIES. And we thought we were so clever.

Oh yeah, only to be followed by the next book we had to read, SILLYASS MARNER.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 4:58pm

How is pointing out the truth really all that cruel? He did countless prospective audience members a favor for urging them to avoid these turds. He was doing his job.

[ggersten]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 5:14pm

I thought it was Good Vibrations where Brantley or Isherwood declined to name members of the cast, but opined the only people in the audience would be producers and talent scouts for other shows as the cast would be available real soon. But, that line isn't in this review (although he does decline to name the actors). I'm pretty sure it was around the same time.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 5:22pm

This one always tickled me:

Other people's dreams are boring, I know. But please, for the sake of my sanity - and possibly yours - let me tell you about this one.

I dreamed I went to a Broadway show that was supposed to be madly eccentric and surreal, featuring a giant lemon, transvestite angel and a hero with Tourette's syndrome. But then, in one of those head-spinning shifts of setting that occur only in nightmares, I found myself trapped inside a musical Hallmark card, a pastel blend of the twinkly teddy bear and sentimental sunrise varieties. And suddenly, as the breath was leaving my body, I realized I was drowning, drowning in a singing sea of syrup.

Hey, wait a minute. That was no nightmare. That was "In My Life," the new musical that opened last night at the Music Box Theater, written, directed and produced by Joseph Brooks, who is also the show's composer and lyricist. Mr. Brooks's head-to-toe participation here may be the most complete example of auteurism ever to enfold a Broadway musical. This means that you get to step inside the mind of the man who wrote the 1970's pop mega-hit "You Light Up My Life" (and directed the schmaltzy hit movie of the same title) and jingles for Volkswagen and Dr. Pepper ads. If only that mind had more interesting furniture.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 5:30pm

Reading a few of these reviews, it dawns on you what a worthless critic Brantley is. Compare these "worst" reviews to Roger Ebert's wildly hilarious and yet somehow always fair pans. Brantley isn't funny or clever or original in his pans, and he rarely has anything remotely insightful to say in his positive reviews. He's like the Times' film critic, A.O. Scott...he simply brings nothing new to the table, contributes nothing to the discussion.

[matineeidol2013]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 5:46pm

Bobby:

I didnt mean "cruel" as to say he is being rude just for the sake of it. Im aware he is just doing his job.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 5:50pm

You wanna read CRUEL reviews? Read some of John Simon's, especially from the 80's and 90's. That guy is an asshole!

[James885]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 5:57pm

I had forgotten how hilarious Brantley's pan of The Little Mermaid was. This is one of my favorite parts:

Sebastian (Tituss Burgess), the Jiminy Crickett-like crab who is Ariel's scolding sidekick, retains his trademark Caribbean accent but looks more like a lobster than a crab in his tiered shell suit. Scuttle, the malapropism-prone sea gull, looks like one of the Lollipop Kids from 'The Wizard of Oz,' except for that beak on his hat. Flotsam (Tyler Maynard) and Jetsam (Derrick Baskin), Ursula's electric-eel henchmen, resemble revelers at Limelight, the departed New York dance club, on a dinosaur-theme night.

Updated On: 7/9/09 at 05:57 PM

[Katurian2]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 6:05pm

I LOVE John Simon's reviews!

I think because he didn't have the word count that Brantly is so generously given, he had to be even more direct and cutting in his pieces- which makes them all the better!

Favorites from Simon:

On "Dracula:"

"But that music! It is like a long, uniform sausage made of sawdust, cut into uneven slices (rhythm) with singing sometimes yelled, sometimes whispered (variety). It is not so much composed as ground out, enough to give monotony a bad name and make one yearn for the melody of an interrupting cell phone."

On "Movin' Out:"

"Twyla Tharp's second try at a Broadway musical is worse than her first, Singin' in the Rain, in 1985. It would, of course, help if Movin' Out were set to music rather than to Billy Joel, but we are used to street noise and can tune out this tuneless stuff without too much effort. "

On "The Noise of Time:" (Personal favorite)

Such is the case of the Theatre de Complicite's The Noise of Time, a piece of sheer pretension, ineptitude, and emptiness that elicited deafening audience ovations and two glowing features plus two rave reviews from our newspaper of record. It confirms my belief that were you to put a pair of copulating dogs on the stage, you, too, could, with the inevitable hype, pass for as great an artist as the charlatan, lunatic, or imbecile Simon McBurney, guiding light (or chief obfuscator) of Complicite, who conceived and staged this piece. It purports to shed light on the life of Dmitri Shostakovich, on how we hear music, on the place of the artist in history, on the somber meanings of the composer's fifteenth and last quartet, and, for all I know, on the price of eggs."

And lastly, on "Wicked:"

"Never mind that, what of a score by Stephen Schwartz, who has clearly lost it? Only one song, ?Wonderful,? has a memorable tune, and even that rather trite. The lyrics might as well be spoken rather than sung, except that then we could make out the words, which have at best intermittent sparkle. So maybe the aggressive orchestra is performing a charitable act, and what we are supposed to focus on is really the décor by Eugene Lee, and the somewhat hit-or-miss costumes of Susan Hilferty. "

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 6:35pm

He is not doing his job.

His job is to critique and give his, not everyones but his, opinion.

He seems to get his jollies putting the knife in & twisting it & than shooting the corpse. I have no respect for critics like these. The creators & investors believed in it & many jobs depend on it. To callously toss it aside like used toilet paper shows how vapid these clowns are.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 6:44pm

Um, he liked the song "Wonderful" from Wicked? He just lost all of his cool points.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 6:50pm

Their job is to give their opinion of the show. If they think it stinks they should say so. It is NOT their job to promote theater they believe to be sub-par. And yes, they should think they are witty and try to be so. That it is not your taste is another story....that doesn't either of you right or wrong.

I actually found many of those comments quoted pretty amusing. Granted, none of the shows quoted here are ones that I cared for. I'm sure if he panned something I enjoyed, I might feel differently.

Do I rely SOLELY on a critic's word? No. Can it influence me? Sometimes. But I look to many places to make my decisions.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 6:56pm

Um, he liked the song "Wonderful" from Wicked? He just lost all of his cool points.

He didn't say he liked it. He said it was memorable, but trite.
Updated On: 7/9/09 at 06:56 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 7:31pm

It was memorable but he did not like it.

Really stands behind his convictions. I remembered it was trite

[Liverpool]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 7:37pm

Is it cruel if it was deserved?

[jv92]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 10:22pm

The cruelest John Simon has ever been, at least in my memory, was when he wrote Liza Minnelli had the face of a beagle. The Wicked review is nothing compared to that.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 10:46pm

I remember what Hitler did. Doesn't mean I like what he did. It's still MEMORABLE.

[Pgenre]

Posted: 7/9/09 at 11:16pm

Ben's review of MARIE CHRISTINE was EMBARRASSINGLY rude and mean-spirited.

The first word, or letter, said it all really.

THE WILD PARTY review wasn't much better. Screw him.

P