It is an elegant production that shines with authentic emotions, but also a snooze fest that may leave you facing a 90-minute nap. It's so studied and contemplative that it turns dull and labored, chilling its sentimental plot below the freezing point. Couldn't its creative team have given us just a spoonful of sugar to help the gritty naturalism and stark minimalism go down?
"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum
Well at least they had something good to say about Leslie and Faith!
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
its not silly at all. Theatre is a spectrum. From spoken word to musicals to opera. Its all story telling utilizing sound and movement. Every play has music--even if just the language itself. There is nothing wrong with a play doing dramatically what we expect a musical to do or vice versa.
A Catered Affair is musical that does what we expect a play to do. And it is beautiful.
How bold to make a Broadway musical on such restrained material as "A Catered Affair."
How sad that the results are so glum. Despite the dedication of a fine cast, including Faith Prince, Tom Wopat and author Harvey Fierstein, this is a colorless little piece of '50s social realism about a Bronx family that isn't so much emotionally repressed as emotionally deficient...
"Y'know, I think Bertolt Brecht was rolling in his grave."
-Nellie McKay on the 2006 Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, in which she played Polly Peachum
Oh God, the AM NY review was so awfully written it is hard to take it seriously at all. I have read better-written reviews on this board.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
I have read many well-written, thought out reviews on this site. I grant you, some of them are not models of literary excellence, but there's some gold among the dross.
I have read many well-written, thought out reviews on this site.
That's what I meant. Hence why I expected a review from an actual publication to be well-written and thought out. I'll wait for Variety or the Times to tell me whether I should like the show or not.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
I do hope you're joking. Miss Winer, agree with her not, is a professional and writes professionally. I'd love to know just how that review is "awfully written." You may not like or agree with it, but its writing is professionally done.
I didn't realize there was a link posted right above my original post. The review I was criticizing was the AM NY review.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"