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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 2:50:46 GMT
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632 posts
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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 2:52:27 GMT
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632 posts
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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 2:53:59 GMT
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Post by iamluisfelipe on Oct 21, 2024 2:54:38 GMT
PEOPLE posted that they had a 6minutes standing ovation at the opening night
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632 posts
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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 2:55:19 GMT
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632 posts
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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 3:01:01 GMT
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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 3:09:26 GMT
Wall Street Journal - I'm still trying to get the full review - because it sounds like another rave:
"Once a member of the Pussycat Dolls girl group, the actor looks a good 10 years younger than her 46 years; her casting can be seen as a commentary on our increased obsession with fighting off the tides of time. But Ms. Scherzinger has not been cast for her age or beauty but because she is a bona fide musical-theater phenomenon, almost being born before our eyes. Her Norma—amusingly first seen wearing look-at-me-don’t-look-at-me Anna Wintour sunglasses—sometimes speaks in the grandiloquent tones of prior Normas, but also drops the affectation and sounds like a millennial. Now commanding, now skittish, now pussycat-dollish, but also often desperate and contorted with fear, Ms. Scherzinger wears this potentially caricaturish role as easily as she does that sleek slip.
Most importantly, she sings the score with consummate beauty, confidence and skill. Although Norma’s two soaring ballads—“With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” both among Mr. Lloyd Webber’s finest compositions—have been recorded by many great singers, Ms. Scherzinger is very much their equal if not their better. She can sing with exquisite, quiet delicacy that blooms into surging power carrying an emotional charge to send ghostly shivers down the spine. For collectors of history-making Broadway performances, this is one not to be missed."
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Post by ceebee on Oct 21, 2024 8:05:47 GMT
Thanks chernjam for posting the reviews - very much appreciated. It is so gratifying to see these reviews and for the audiences stateside to get to enjoy this production in its full glory. |
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Post by distantcousin on Oct 21, 2024 8:23:56 GMT
Given the US theatre scene's pathological dislike for ALW, the reviews would only ever have been mixed.
I've seen so many reviews of his shows over the years and they nearly all reek of a seething resentment to a more or lesser degree.
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Post by distantcousin on Oct 21, 2024 8:33:40 GMT
Very meh review by Jesse Green in The New York Times: Here's a quote. Earlier in the review, he criticizes Nicole for giving a performance instead of a characterization. "But the result is that you are aware at all times, as if this were Brecht, of the performance as a performance, not as a characterization. (Still, in London, Scherzinger won praise and an Olivier.) The production’s many meta Easter eggs — the Pussycat Dolls and Lloyd Webber himself are referenced — do the same thing, taking some of the gas out of a gassy show but in the process pandering to the audience. When Scherzinger offers coy imitations of various contemporary vocal styles, her Norma becomes a woman who is in on the game, the last thing that oblivious creature could be." His review concludes: "But I can’t help feeling that Lloyd’s talent and that of his designers, let alone Scherzinger’s, would be better lavished on better material. Making “Sunset Boulevard” a hit again — the original Broadway production ran two-and-a-half years, grossing more than $100 million — is not so much an achievement as a stunt, like reanimating that dead chimpanzee. (Yes, it happens.) The revival is not, like “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” this summer, a completely new way of looking at a Lloyd Webber musical; it’s a completely new way of not looking at one. The waste! It makes me almost sad enough to weep a 10-foot glycerin tear." That review made me quite angry when I read it in full. I'll just mention one thing that he gets completely wrong - her mentioned her "contemporary" stylings (I guess the dance moves and the "honey...." phrasings) being so out of touch know that those affections are NOT contemporary - they are dated back at least 10 years - in fact right back to the PCDs heyday. It makes perfect sense that this version of Norma is moving and speaking like someone from the Noughties. Things Gen Z would find "cringe". |
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Post by distantcousin on Oct 21, 2024 8:35:36 GMT
Betty Buckley attended last night. Haven't seen pics of any other former Norma's though
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Post by nash16 on Oct 21, 2024 8:50:21 GMT
PEOPLE posted that they had a 6minutes standing ovation at the opening night That’s a hella long time for the actors to keep stony faced and not smile. 😂 So glad the NYTimes has seen through this nonsense of a production. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 21, 2024 9:22:50 GMT
The 2 musical exports this and Cabaret that should’ve punched high and hard, instead by these reviews are a light jab.
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Post by alece10 on Oct 21, 2024 10:27:16 GMT
The 2 musical exports this and Cabaret that should’ve punched high and hard, instead by these reviews are a light jab. It's just the Americans being sour grapes as both shows started in London. And looks like they are reacting similarly with Tammy Faye. Maybe we should stop sending them shows if they can't appreciate them. |
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Post by ceebee on Oct 21, 2024 10:29:29 GMT
Have people actually read the reviews? Barring the odd predictable whinges, the reviews are sensational. Everybody associated will be very happy with these reviews so far.
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Post by blamerobots on Oct 21, 2024 10:34:33 GMT
NYT is always odd predictable whinges. The reviews for this are shockingly good for Sunset, any ALW revival really.
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Post by BVM on Oct 21, 2024 11:05:02 GMT
Have people actually read the reviews? Barring the odd predictable whinges, the reviews are sensational. Everybody associated will be very happy with these reviews so far. Agreed! Given the general vague disdain for successful British musicals over there and the more specific predictable ALW disdain; I honestly think these reviews exceed expectations by a significant margin! Am finally starting to believe it could fill a theatre that size for a run twice as long as our one :-) (Still wish they were in London, obvs). |
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Post by budd on Oct 21, 2024 11:24:59 GMT
Cabaret always had more of an uphill battle. They seem to have anointed the Mendes production over there, and even renowned critics like Ben Brantley were whinging about Cabaret being revived again, even though he had not seen the production. They'd lose their heads over there if they got half as many Hamlets and Macbeths that London gets.
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Post by sph on Oct 21, 2024 11:27:05 GMT
The 2 musical exports this and Cabaret that should’ve punched high and hard, instead by these reviews are a light jab. It's just the Americans being sour grapes as both shows started in London. And looks like they are reacting similarly with Tammy Faye. Maybe we should stop sending them shows if they can't appreciate them. I do often find this with London-to-Broadway transfers. "Oh it did well in London did it? Well go on then, impress us." |
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Post by iamluisfelipe on Oct 21, 2024 12:02:26 GMT
and the cast recording comes out this friday! what a week
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Post by matthew90 on Oct 21, 2024 14:10:31 GMT
That NY Times review just reads like someone who went into the theatre wanting to pull it apart before it even started as they hate the original material and ALW. It reads as quite catty and pretty unprofessional. Even more so when you compare it to the glowing review the NY Times gave it when it was in the West End - www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/theater/nicole-scherzinger-sunset-boulevard.html"But for all its nods to the past, this “Sunset Boulevard” belongs to the here and now. There’s not a whiff of nostalgia to the production, which takes an established musical by the scruff of the neck and sends it careering into the modern day." |
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Post by max on Oct 21, 2024 14:58:29 GMT
That NY Times review just reads like someone who went into the theatre wanting to pull it apart before it even started as they hate the original material and ALW. It reads as quite catty and pretty unprofessional. Even more so when you compare it to the glowing review the NY Times gave it when it was in the West End - www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/theater/nicole-scherzinger-sunset-boulevard.html"But for all its nods to the past, this “Sunset Boulevard” belongs to the here and now. There’s not a whiff of nostalgia to the production, which takes an established musical by the scruff of the neck and sends it careering into the modern day." The production will enjoy quoting the New York Times review of the London show, in huge lettering. Although I was disappointed to find I agreed with the words of Green.... "The revival is not, like “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” this summer, a completely new way of looking at a Lloyd Webber musical; it’s a completely new way of not looking at one. The waste!"... his addition of 'The waste' suggests the underlying material can't be so awful after all. As ever, a compliment given to ALW only when it can be wrapped in a negative. But I've always known the built in sourness in many New York critics towards British musicals that puts them in the bin (sorry trash). The original production of 'Evita' was slated by many of the critics in New York, but then 'The Critics Circle Awards' gave it 'Best Musical'. Go figure. All of this is why ALW was right not to take Patti Lupone to Broadway all those years ago. Enough of the New York reviewers had decided she was wrong for it in London, and she'd have got the blame in New York - they wouldn't have been able to cope that they weren't listened to. You can stand by your star (seems right) or stand by and watch your star shot down (sounds worse). She should thank Lloyd Webber. |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 21, 2024 16:41:24 GMT
Which makes complete sense when it came to Faye Dunaway too. The way he goes about it probably doesn’t help the situation though.
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Post by shownut on Oct 21, 2024 17:08:35 GMT
Which makes complete sense when it came to Faye Dunaway too. The way he goes about it probably doesn’t help the situation though. True, the way it was handled may have been less-than-stellar but he certainly did LuPone a favour by not letting her take it to Broadway. Saw her as Norma twice. Thrilling vocals but badly miscast and seemed to be a different show than everyone else. |
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Post by chernjam on Oct 21, 2024 17:10:00 GMT
Honestly I found the reviews to be on the whole positive - and seeing BWW tally, some of the ones they listed as mixed I read as positive (particularly USA Today comes to mind... I read them really quickly last night and then realized it was after midnight, and definitely needed to get to bed). Honestly, some of the jabs at ALW are so beyond tired and ridiculous (for evidence, see BWW forum again... honestly there are days I really want to quit that place completely) I always want to point out that were it not for him, ala Norma, there might not be a Broadway anymore - considering for decades he was one of the constants producing money making juggernauts. But I digress...
As a whole, it was wonderful reading positive reviews and even people re-considering what I think is his best score of all time.
Will be an interesting week with Mandy making her debut tomorrow night and the recording coming out on Friday.
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