Interludes

VIEWPOINTS: The People’s Shows (But Not the Critics’)

• By drediman
• March 24, 2014
• No Comments

It’s interesting to note that some of the most well-known, longest-running shows in Broadway and West End history were greeted by negative, even hostile, initial notices from theater critics. Yet, they’ve managed to capture the public’s imagination and overcome these negative notices on their way to successful commercial runs. The following is a compilation of unfriendly critical remarks to West End or Broadway shows (all of them musicals) that have subsequently established themselves as long-running fan favorites. For me, it’s been amusing to read and compile these in light of the successes, even critical successes in some cases, the respective shows have become. (For example, of the original Broadway production of current critics darling “Pippin”, Clive Barnes of the New York Times noted “the book is feeble and the music bland”!)

 

1. Les Miserables

The following are from reviews of the original London production (1985-present).

The Sunday Telegraph (Francis King): “a lurid Victorian melodrama produced with Victorian lavishness”

The Observer (Michael Ratcliffe): “a witless and synthetic entertainment”

The Daily Mail (Jack Tinker): “’Les Misérables’ has, sadly, been reduced to The Glums”

 

2. The Phantom of the Opera

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (1988-present).

The New York Times (Frank Rich): “Mr. Lloyd Webber has again written a score so generic that most of the songs could be reordered and redistributed among the characters (indeed, among other Lloyd Webber musicals) without altering the show’s story or meaning”

New York Daily News (Howard Kissel): “The characters are not fleshed out, the lyrics are forgettable and the melodramatic plot is not as evocative as it might be”

Time Magazine (William A. Henry III): “[Lloyd Webber’s] knack for crafting hit tunes is offset by their interchangeability among characters and situations, plus a tin ear for lyrics and lyricists”

 

3. Mamma Mia!

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (2001-present).

The New York Times (Ben Brantley): “’Mamma, Mia!,’ which opened (and continues to run) in London more than two years ago, is bland, hokey, corny, stilted, self-conscious and — let’s not mince words — square”

New York Daily News (Howard Kissel): “By the end of the evening, I confess, I felt a smidgen of nostalgia for ‘Cats'”

Time Out New York (David Cote): “As theater, ‘Mamma Mia!’ is forgettable”

 

4. We Will Rock You

The following are from reviews of the original London production (2002-present).

The Independent (Fiona Sturges): “Ben Elton, the brains behind the book, claims to be a rock fan but he has done Queen a disservice with such a trite and tacky storyline”

The Daily Mail (Michael Coveney): “Shallow, stupid and totally vacuous new musical”

The Daily Telegraph (Charles Spencer): “Far from being guaranteed to blow your mind, ‘We Will Rock You’ is guaranteed to bore you rigid. The show is prolefeed at its worst”

 

5. Wicked

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (2003-present).

The New York Times (Ben Brantley): “‘Wicked’ does not, alas, speak hopefully for the future of the Broadway musical”

Newsday (Linda Winer): “… the overproduced, overblown, confusingly dark and laboriously ambitious jumble that opened last night in the impossibly cavernous Gershwin Theatre”

The New Yorker (John Lahr): “The show’s twenty-two songs were written by Stephen Schwartz, and not one of them is memorable”

 

6. Cats

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (1982-2000).

The New York Times (Frank Rich): “But while the songs are usually sweet and well sung, ‘Cats’ as a whole sometimes curls up and takes a catnap”

Variety (Richard Hummler) : “It’s certainly possible to cavail that too much has been made of Eliot’s low-key book of light poetry, that “Cats” is closer to arena spectacle that a legit musical”

 

7. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (1994-2007).

The New York Times (David Richards): “For an evening that puts forth so much, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ has amazingly little resonance”

Variety (Jeremy Gerard): “But a human form is exactly what has eluded the Disney folks who assembled this show, which in the end feels bloated, padded, gimmick-ridden, tacky and, despite the millions, utterly devoid of imagination”

 

8. Jekyll and Hyde

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (1997-2001).

The New York Times (Ben Brantley): “There are a couple of scenes with real fire and many more with synthetic fog that creeps on and off the stage, rather like a wandering attention span. It is easy to sympathize with the fog”

Variety (Greg Evans): “‘Jekyll & Hyde’ has half the personality of its title character, and it’s the dour, humorless half”

 

9. Aida

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (2000-2004).

The New York Times (Ben Brantley): “Like many Broadway megamusicals today, it has the disconnected, sterile feeling that suggests it has been assembled, piecemeal, by committee”

Variety (Charles Isherwood): “… it’s totally lacking in nutritional value, it gets stale quickly”

Time Out New York (Sam Whitehead): “With few exceptions, everything … is so loud and all over the map that it must be seen to be believed”

 

10. Memphis

The following are from reviews of the original Broadway production (2009-2012).

The New York Times (Charles Isherwood): “All the performers do their best to infuse Mr. Bryan and Mr. DiPietro’s score with the earthy vibrance it fundamentally lacks”

The Wall Street Journal (Terry Teachout): “I’ve seen dumber musicals than “Memphis,” but not many and not by much”

USA Today (Elysa Gardner): “Veers from cloying earnestness to obvious satire. Part of the problem is that the leads seem incompatible for reasons having nothing to do with skin color”