Double Take December: NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS

Posted on December 19, 2011 by David Fick
NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS

To purchase the DVD of NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Notre-Dame de Paris

Something I Like: I like that it gave Dannii Minogue a chance to be in a musical!

Something I Don’t Like: There’s just nothing subtle about it, neither in Riccardo Cocciante and Luc Plamondon’s score nor in the concert-style staging that seems to go part and parcel with the piece. Some of the lyrics in the English translation are lamentable.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Notre-Dame de Paris in the comment box!

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Double Take December: PARADE

Posted on December 18, 2011 by David Fick
PARADE

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of PARADE, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Parade

Something I Like: This is the show that gave Jason Robert Brown, in collaboration with Alfred Uhry, something really substantial to write about, allowing him to move away from autobiography and situational angst, thereby allowing us to see more clearly the development of his own voice as a composer. There are some moments of triumph here: the charmingly effusive “The Picture Show”, the compelling “You Don’t Know This Man” and the thrilling “This is Not Over Yet” are among them

Something I Don’t Like: It’s no secret that Brown is not at the top of my list when it comes to him and his musical theatre contemporaries. Here, with the pop music sensibilities that he often uses to temper his work on the back burner, the influence of Stephen Sondheim on Brown’s work becomes even more visible. This is not a bad thing necessarily, but I do wish we could hear Brown click into his own groove as a composer more astutely. That said, the man is an artist and that exploration is part of his journey and something to which he is fully entitled. It’s just that it’s also the reason why Parade musically slips into bombast from time to time and loses its sometimes incredibly keen focus on the very human story at the heart of this show – which is a pity given the very real high points it offers in its score.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Parade in the comment box!

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Double Take December: PASSING STRANGE

Posted on December 17, 2011 by David Fick
PASSING STRANGE

To purchase the DVD of PASSING STRANGE, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Passing Strange

Something I Like: Stew and Heidi Rodewald bring us intriguing subject matter done in an interesting way. The range of theatrical and musical influences that come to bear on this show are varied and challenging in combination, as were those that helped to create Fela! a few seasons later. Because of those influences, this show begins to play with what a piece of musical theatre can be. I also love how the different resonances of the word “passing” in the title are interpolated into the action of the play. There is some super music in the show. And its great that the show is preserved in Spike Lee’s filming of the piece.

Something I Don’t Like: Strangely enough, I suppose, there are times when I just don’t like Stew as the Narrator in this. At this point in time, I feel like its the persona Stew put forward in the role – so I would be interested to see someone else doing it, to see for sure if it is the actor or the role that I find jarring.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Passing Strange in the comment box!

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Double Take December: ON A CLEAR DAY…

Posted on December 16, 2011 by David Fick
ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Something I Like: The music is beautiful. Burton Lane really did some amazing work on this score. And although the lyrics written for the show show do not consistently represent Alan Jay Lerner’s best work, “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” and the titular song (in its chorus, at least) are both moving pieces of work. I like that there is a revisal of the show (currently running on Broadway) that has tried to give the best parts of the show a shot at a fully fulilled theatrical realisation, but I am not sure that this has been achieved. It seems to me that the new show has as many problems as the old one did, unfortunately.

Something I Don’t Like: The book is messy. There’s no balance found between the primary narrative thrust and the secondary narrative. It’s as though Lerner couldn’t unpack his ideas enough to find either the right focus for the show or an ideal balance between the two narratives to make the show work. Lerner’s lyrics for the show also tend to be self-conscious, lazy, repetitive and even trite at times, particularly but not only in the verses that lead into the songs. One really becomes aware of them as lyrics rather than experiencing them as chunks of dramatic action, which is a trademark of Lerner’s writing throughout his body of work.

Feel free to share your “double take” on On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in the comment box!

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Double Take December: PASSION

Posted on December 15, 2011 by David Fick
PASSION

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Filming of PASSION on DVD, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Passion

Something I Like: Stehphen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion has a brilliant, sophisticated, moving score that really shakes you right to the core by the time you’ve heard it all the way through. A mature work, for a mature ear and a mature soul – and a truly cathartic musical.

Something I Don’t Like: I don’t like how dismissive people are of Passion. People who call the passionless or dull are either not making the effort to engage with its complexity properly or avoiding engaging with it because it cuts too close to the bone. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking with it.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Passion in the comment box!

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Double Take December: MAME

Posted on December 14, 2011 by David Fick
MAME

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of MAME, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Mame

Something I Like: I adore “We Need a Little Christmas”, I really do, and at this time of the year it’s always on my playlist. Besides that song, the score also offers other great joys: the celebration song, “It’s Today”; the brilliantly awful “The Man in the Moon”; the ever-golden affirmation of friendship, “Bosom Buddies”; the immensely moving “If He Walked Into My Life”; and even the seemingly endless title song, “Mame”. Those songs all represent Jerry Herman doing what he did best with Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee crafting the book around his catchy tunes.

Something I Don’t Like: Angela Lansbury is awesome in the title role, both on the recording and in the existing video footage of her performance. It is a complete travesty that she was not allowed to play the role in the film version.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Mame in the comment box!

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Double Take December: ANYONE CAN WHISTLE

Posted on December 13, 2011 by David Fick
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of ANYONE CAN WHISTLE, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Anyone Can Whistle

Something I Like: I really like the fact that Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle and was allowed an original cast recording. The world would be a poorer place without Angela Lansbury’s recording of “Me and My Town”. And of course, the rest of the score is filled with gems too, from the heart-wrenching title tune and the inspiring “Everybody Says Don’t” to the charming “Come Play Wiz Me” and the once cut and now restored “There Won’t Be Trumpets”.

Something I Don’t Like: It seems clear to me that everyone was trying to be so clever with Anyone Can Whistle and all that ‘creativity’
was ultimately at the expense of the show. It also seems apparent to me that there is some pride held by its creators that the show is – to myth – unfixable, when what was really unfixable was Laurents’s hubris and everyone’s attempts to satirise absolutely everything between the rise and fall of the curtain. There’s nothing in Anyone Can Whistle that a good does of focus and self-discipline couldn’t have fixed.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Anyone Can Whistle in the comment box!

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Double Take December: SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

Posted on December 12, 2011 by David Fick

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Today’s musical is Sunday in the Park with George.

Something I Like: James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George is great theatre and there is much to admire in it. “Sunday” is one of the most thrillingly beautiful numbers to appear in a musical ever. “We Do Not Belong Together” is one of the most heartbreaking numbers to appear in a musical ever. The first act offers pure catharsis on an epic scale. Brilliant stuff.

Something I Don’t Like: I understand completely why the second act is there. I find some of the second act just as moving as the first. But it doesn’t work as well: the section dealing with the Chromolume feels a bit clunky to me and then the resolution comes just too easily for me to buy it wholesale. Fortunately the reprise of “Sunday” largely manages to distract one from that because it is, as it was in Act I, such a beautiful piece of music.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Sunday in the Park with George in the comment box!

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Double Take December: HONK!

Posted on December 11, 2011 by David Fick

HONK

To purchase the Original Demo Recording of HONK, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Honk

Something I Like: The most attractive thing about George Stiles and Anthony Drewe’s Honk! is its sweet sincerity. The score is solid and serves the story well. And it is a super family show, well balanced for the consumption of both parents and children. It’s an excellent musical for a family audience.

Something I Don’t Like: The bottom line is that Honk! is a piece of children’s theatre that tries to compete with the big boys. Maybe one day it will find its niche as the animated film it should be. (I’d say Don Bluth would be a perfect match for the piece, but Disney isn’t the first rank animation studio they once were, so perhaps it would be a nice step back to glory for them. As long as it’s traditionally animated, and not CGI.)

Feel free to share your “double take” on Honk in the comment box!

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Double Take December: THE BOOK OF MORMON

Posted on December 10, 2011 by David Fick

THE BOOK OF MORMON

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of THE BOOK OF MORMON, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

The Book of Mormon

Something I Like: What first attracted me to this show is its score and that is still the top thing about it for me. Yes, there are times when the lyrics could be more meticulously crafted, but the score is a great listen and bears repeat plays with ease. I also like how the credit for book, music and lyrics is collectively attributed to Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone: a sign of true collaboration!

Something I Don’t Like: The book falls apart a bit in the second act. Not in terms of narrative or drive or energy, all of which it offers in droves. It’s in the way that it’s done, with scenes becoming more and more like mere setups for the songs rather than finding the best way to tell the story in collaboration with the score.

Feel free to share your “double take” on The Book of Mormon in the comment box!

Posted in Matt Stone, Robert Lopez, Trey Parker | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment