The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!- Page 3
The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
#50The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 6:51pm
As others have mentioned, many of these shows got pretty mixed reviews. I guess it's hard to speak unless we're speaking about a specific paper or critic (ie The Times Raves, you go -- it's horrible!)
I love reading reviews, but while I find sites that show the major reviews and find a sorta average rating fun, more useful is reading a critic over a long time and sorta getting a feel for where you and that critic tend to agree, and disagree, and going by that (the same can be said for regularly reading opinions of certain posters on here...)
#51The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 7:11pm
Lion King
Once
The Producers
Peter and the Starcatcher
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
#52The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 7:12pm
This is thread is such a downer when people are listing like 20 shows in one post lol.
I should be clear that even (in the past) when I would harp on about how Matilda is so much better than Kinky Boots, or that Laura Osnes stole Bernadette's Tony Award nomination, I still do actually enjoy Kinky Boots and Laura Osnes' performance. It's just a matter of relative enjoyment.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#53The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 7:32pmI don't get the adoration for Jersey Boys, Billy Elliot, Kinky Boots, Thoroughly Modern Millie and the biggest disappointment of all: The Producers. Saw the original cast, literally giggled ONCE, and then laughed heartily at the boobs in front of me who paid nearly $200 for back row orchestra seats and couldn't see around the people in front of them, whilst I saw everything PERFECTLY from my $25 standing room ticket.
#54The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 8:09pm
Some of these shows aren't horrible
they're just not as great as everyone said
my list of shows that weren't as good as I thought they'd be:
Wicked (terrible)
Once (pretty but forgettable music)
Cats (worst thing ever written)
Kinky Boots (meh)
Billy Elliot (Not great)
Evita (love some of the music)
Pippin (loved the staging but the book is odd)
mjohnson2
Broadway Star Joined: 11/2/13
#55The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 9:10pm
RENT
ONCE
ROCK OF AGES (was it praised?)
LION KING
THE PRODUCERS
PORGY AND BESS
BOMC
BOOK OF MORMON (enjoyed enough, but didn't think it was anything special)
BEAUTIFUL
BILLY ELLIOT (awful)
IN THE HEIGHTS
SPRING AWAKENING
Anything regarding shows stated by this account is an attempt to convey opinion and not fact.
Cupid Boy2
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/5/13
#56The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 10:00pmI always go into the theatre with an open mind and very rarely don't enjoy myself. However, Once was an exception. I found it to be beyond boring.
KathyNYC2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/2/10
#57The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 10:56pm^^ Me too. It's rare I don't find something to love about a show. But as noted earlier, I had the hardest time at Cats and Rent...
#58The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/5/14 at 11:41pm
Cupid Boy2: "I always go into the theatre with an open mind and very rarely don't enjoy myself."
I couldn't agree more... there were things about each of the shows I listed above that I can appreciate... I DID giggle at the swastika shaped kickline in "Springtime for Hitler" in THE PRODUCERS, for example.
#59The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 12:50am
When a critic raves about a highly intellectual play, I often find the play boring or meaningless. I certainly don't mind being challenged, and I don't mind ambiguities, but I want a plot, I want characterization, and I want to understand what I'm seeing. I remember reading "America Hurrah" as a teenager and thinking "huh?" I still can't see any point except shocking people.
Regarding musicals, I find that critics often rave about revivals of early to mid 20th century shows that don't appeal to modern audiences. I find that most critics are unwilling to refer to a show as dated unless it expresses bigotry. Yet, there are numerous reasons for a show's not fitting in the modern era. A big one is that a musical with song and dance numbers a la Astaire and Rogers or numbers that emphasize top hats and canes seem passe to me. I think that most Cole Porter shows are relics, as is "Oklahoma." Nonetheless, such revivals often receive a thumbs-up.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.
brdway411
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/24/14
#60The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 12:54am
Fun Home (I just didn't get it)
Matilda (both in London and on Broadway)
IndyTheatreGeek
Understudy Joined: 6/25/14
#61The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 1:32am
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson - Loved the theater decorations but that was it
Nine
Hedwig
Almost all Sondheim except Sweeney and Forum
Billy Elliott
Evita
I don't mind a period piece - The Lincoln Center production of South Pacific was wonderful. The new musical Top Hat that played in London a year ago was fantastic with all the tap and canes 
But old or new, a musical that doesn't establish a rhythm that keeps the audience interested is doomed.
Updated On: 7/6/14 at 01:32 AM
#62The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 3:02am
brdway411 lists my two picks for smartest, most emotionally resonant musicals of my lifetime.
For me, ONCE is the huge one. Snore.
#63The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 3:26am
My list is not so long but still represents hours out of my life that could have been better spent:
The Coast of Utopia - all 3 parts (Billy Crudup was wonderful but the rest was largely a snoozefest)
The Light in the Piazza
Cats
Lion King
Bullets Over Broadway
The Tap Dance Kid
One Man, Two Guvnors (How did he win the Tony over Philip Seymour Hoffman for Death of a Salesman??????)
Jersey Boys
Hairspray
Mary Poppins
Young Frankenstein
Newsies
Julius Caesar starring Denzel Washington (Denzel was out of his league)
....But I truly loved Big Fish, Venus & Fur & The Motherf*er with the Hat
Updated On: 7/6/14 at 03:26 AM
#64The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 3:50am
This thread just reinforces what I love about theatre! The anticipation can be everything. You often go expecting to dislike something and love it (eg for me Drowsy Chaperone) or vice versa (Lion King, Cats).
It's not the critics opinion that amazes me but the public reaction to some shows eg CATS, which I saw in its original London run and hated, yet it ran forever(all over the world)!! While a brilliant (IMHO) show like City of Angels opens and closes in a few months!!
As they say, "One man's meat........"
"Your eyes..... they shine like the pants on my blue serge suit"
#65The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 5:04amYou better not be talking about the original version of "Sweeney Todd" cause them's is fighting words!
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=972787#3631451
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=963561#3533883
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=955158#3440952
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=954269#3427915
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=955012#3441622
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.cfm?thread=954344#3428699
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#66The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 7:20am
^
Fighting words or not, that's what I'm talking about.
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#67The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 8:53am
Listening to the signature song in Once has been banned by the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual punishment.
Andrew Jackson reminded me of a bad high school play. Amateurish but I have to agree on the set.
Poster Emeritus
Updated On: 7/6/14 at 08:53 AM
#68The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 10:13am
I'll probably be laughed out of here for these, but none of these lived up to the critical acclaim I was exposed to:
ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (West End, London)
DOUBT (1st Nat'l Tour w/ Cherry Jones)
A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER (Broadway)
25TH ANNUAL... SPELLING BEE (1st Nat'l Tour)
Roscoe
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#69The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 10:18am
The second half of Tom Stoppard's COAST OF UTOPIA -- meaning Act Two of SHIPWRECK and the whole bloody entirety of SALVAGE.
Tom Stoppard's ROCK AND ROLL.
Alan Bennett's obscenely overrated THE HISTORY BOYS.
I will never take Ben Brantley seriously again when it comes to work by these playwrights, or indeed, most highly praised British imports. I'm convinced he's on the take, there must be huge sums of money changing hands, or maybe the Society of West End Theaters has Brantley's mother tied up somewhere with a gun to her head.
I believe I've said it before -- Tom Stoppard will never lack toilet paper while Ben Brantley has a face.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#70The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 10:53am
The Bridges of Madison County
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
God of Carnage
All lauded, all abysmal.
I know you.
I know you.
I know you.
#71The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 11:12amI couldn't stand any of the new musicals this year except Beautiful and that's only because I was already familiar with the music.
#72The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 11:21amI did find God of Carnage to be a pretty average multi-camera sitcom pilot.
#73The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 11:24amA lot of the mentioned shows, I really like. However, I must agree that God of Carnage was one of the most pedestrian plays I've seen in years. No idea why critics seemed to love it.
“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
``oscar wilde``
#74The Critics Rave,, You Go --- It's Horrible!
Posted: 7/6/14 at 11:30amI HATED Clybourne Park... pretentious, obvious and BORING.
