A new Broadway show just opened. It is called Good Vibrations and it is made up entirely of Beach Boys songs. I believe that the curly-headed runner-up guy in the first American Idol was originally slotted to be in it, but, due to mysterious reasons, backed out.
So. Its a Beach Boys musical.
There is a precedent for this show being a success, by the way: the whopping cash cow that is Mamma Mia – but apparently Good Vibrations is not, ahem, going down that path. The reviews just coming in …
Now Mamma Mia – I remember the buzz through New York about it before it opened. Like: what? A musical of Abba songs? That is so silly. So STUPID. No way will that fly.
Well, that show opened in 2001 and it is STILL running.
I haven’t seen Mamma Mia, so I can’t judge it – but I believe that when it opened (right after September 11) has a lot to do with its thundering success. I wrote a long heartfelt piece about it … it’s called The Man with the Dusty Gray Boots. The post goes all OVER the place – but I think it might be one of the most open tender pieces I’ve ever written. It’s about Broadway shows … but then it’s NOT.
Not to mention the fact that I will never, as long as I live, forget the face of the man in the dusty gray boots. Ever. I still get random letters from firemen who stumble over that post.
Back to Mamma Mia: I saved Ben Brantley’s review … because it seemed almost historical, something written directly in the wake of this catastrophe … a theatre reviewer going to see a play, and reviewing it … during September 2001? What can be more surreal? And Brantley, as opposed to trying to pretend business is usual, and pretend that Mamma Mia was just another play on his list, put that whole Sept. 2001 experience that all New Yorkers went through into his review. It was extraordinary. I wept a couple TEARS reading the REVIEW TO “MAMMA MIA”, mkay?
And he LOVED the show. Not as a theatre critic, really, but as a person who needed an escape. Desperately. A person who so appreciated the escape that was “Mamma Mia”. (Critics so often forget that most audiences just want to forget their problems for a bit … they want to laugh … and escape into another world … and so if a movie or a play accomplishes that for most people, then … what the heck is there to criticize?) Brantley was blatantly saying: “I needed this. I needed that catchy music. I needed to forget my troubles. Mamma Mia works wonders.”
His review makes me remember those dark weird days, wearing a surgeon’s masks as I made my way to the PATH train on 14th Street, seeing National Guardsmen run by, lines outside the Salvation Army, the Missing Persons wall outside of Ray’s Pizza, and being able to smell the acrid smoke rising from downtown when the wind changed … In the midst of that, this cream-puff of a musical made up entirely of Abba songs, opened. The incongruity! The weirdness! New Yorkers having been dealt a near-fatal wound … and this cheese-ball opens uptown? Well, not a huge surprise, it became a massive hit. A well-beloved hit. And Brantley, a reviewer who is famous for saying it like it is, RAVED about it, in one of the most heartfelt reviews I have ever read. (In that post of mine I link to above, I quote a couple of excerpts. If you’re interested, they’re really quite wonderful.)
Good Vibrations, however …. Well. You know how I delight in bad reviews. Brantley reviewed the show.
And let’s just say this. His first sentence is:
Even those who believe everything on this planet is here for a purpose may at first have trouble justifying the existence of “Good Vibrations,” the singing headache that opened last night at the Eugene O’Neill Theater.
Mmkay. Ouch. It gets worse.
[Good Vibrations] features a lot of washboard-stomached performers who give the impression of having spent far more time in the gym than in the rehearsal studio. As they smile, wriggle and squeak with the desperation of wet young things hung out to dry, you feel their pain. It is unlikely, however, to be more acute than yours.
Brantley, however, is kind enough to say, later on:
Since the performers really aren’t to blame for the aimlessness of “Good Vibrations,” I won’t mention any of their names, though there are a few who make you feel that smiling should be outlawed for a while.
Brantley does mention the precedent of Mamma Mia, but then says:
But while “Good Vibrations” dutifully culls from its hot-ticket predecessors, the sum effect is of a lumbering, brainless Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together from stolen body parts and stuffed into a wild bikini. From its cutely clichéd script (which begins, “Once upon a time there was a far-off land called California”) to its haphazard choreography, the show feels as if it simply gave up on trying to figure out the balance of nostalgia and satire that can make this kind of show-biz exercise profitable.
Holy crap, Brantley, how do you really feel???
Here’s the review, if you’re interested. Theatre critics can be a nasty snobby lot … who don’t like ANYthing … but with that Mamma Mia review, Brantley won my respect forever.
“a redhead ramble preamble”
Can I just say that I absolutey love this alliteration? Or is it onomatopoeia? I always get those two confused.
I know … i have no idea what it is, but I like it myself. Basically, it’s shorthand for:
“I’m gonna blab my mouth off randomly about various and sundry topics. Oh. And my hair is red.”
You mean the ‘Queen’ musical hasn’t made it over there yet?.. that got bad reviews – even in London. Unfortunately since Mamma there seems to have been a mad scramble to cobble every reasonably well-known bands’ collection of songs together and shoe-horn a plot(or something resembling a plot) into them.
There will, undoubtedly, be plenty more to come.
Did the Queen one get bad reviews? I’m bummed – I had been looking forward to it.
Queen – of ALL these bands – seem MADE for this kind of production. Each one of their numbers is a mini opera! With a plot, characters, conflict, resolution, moods.
Yes Sheila. Each ONE a mini-opera… unfortunately they put ALL of them together.
But I have two words that damned the Queen musical from the beginning – Ben Elton.
Which reminds me.. I think Ben then went on to do Rod Stewart – The Musical..
I still think all those classic Queen songs could make a pretty awesome musical, all put together. They’re incredible songs. They tell a story. That’;s one of the reasons why I love their earlier albums. It’s like … some kind of story is being told. All the songs fit together, somehow, one leads to the other.
From what I remember (of the reviews) Ben didn’t seem to use the stories IN the songs.. he kinda made one up first, and then threw the songs into it.
I WENT to see Mamma Mia. I was practically dragged kicking and screaming. Someone gave me tickets as a birthday gift and I couldn’t return them for cash. I tried. So I went in August of 2002 and saw it at the Shubert theatre in Los Angeles.
And I LOVED it!
I wasn’t a fan of Abba before, Hell no! But I was afterwards. I pretty much dislike musicals. I fell asleep in Evita while sitting in the third row which was apalling to me because the actors could surely see me snoring away and I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
But the book in Mamma Mia was very well written and clever and they adapted the songs to the story so well that it seemed like the story pre-existed the music – which just happened to fit perfectly.
When I was in high school I used to write papers and work in the titles of songs, one time it was actually Beach Boys songs, just for fun. And recently a producer who is in an office nearby was pitching a television series that would’ve been based on the songs of Aerosmith, or was it Tom Petty?
I like the idea of using music to serve a story, but to make up a story to serve music – well, that takes some special story telling. Even Tommy, a movie I saw about 15 times because I was madly in love with Roger Daltrey, hasn’t aged well.
But I really liked Mamma Mia because it was a fun story, with great actors and cheesy music, that didn’t take itself too seriously. And maybe it is because it arrived at a time when we needed to laugh and dance in the aisles – but regardless I tell everyone to go see it. It’s a good time.
Sheila.
Sheesh now I’M rambling.. I know that could’ve worked too.. but I saw a mention of a two minute dialogue during the show that EXPLAINED the story.. and then the songs began again.
peteb:
ewwwwww. not a good sign!
“the curly-headed runner-up guy in the first American Idol”
Yeah, like you don’t know who Justin Guarini is.
Troglodyte alert (forgive my plebeian tastes):
Sheila writes:
“(Critics so often forget that most audiences just want to forget their problems for a bit … they want to laugh … and escape into another world … and so if a movie or a play accomplishes that for most people, then … what the heck is there to criticize?)”
Why is the first thing that came to my mind is how critics just LOVE all of Eugene O’Neil’s plays?… Then I read the first sentence of the review mentions that the Beach Boys play opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theater. Coincidence? I think not.
I have never, ever gotten Eugene O’Neil. His plays to me are both depressing, but more importantly, BORING. At least I can get into Tennessee William’s characters.
Please, please, help me out; what am I missing?
thanks, sheila. that image of Frankenstein in a bikini is going to haunt me for a while.
JFH –
Well, as a Eugene O’Neill fanatic myself … I’m not sure how to answer. Some people can’t stand Tennessee. Other people LOVE him. I suppose it’s a matter of sensibility.
Maybe it’s because of the Irish thing – I can completely click in to where O’Neill is coming from. Also, having been in some of those plays – I don’t know – it just gives a different perspective. He is, perhaps, the hardest playwright EVER – in terms of getting his plays right. (Well, Beckett is probably up there on that list, too). But it is so hard to do O’Neill “right” – that when people do (like the recent Long Days’ Journey on Broadway – with Vanessa Redgrave) – it is talked about for years. people STILL talk about Jason Robards in The Iceman Cometh. (That was … ehm … 40 years ago???)
Another thing: I don’t want to paint my comments in the post with too broad a brush.
Not ALL theatre needs to be escapist. A lot of people sneer at theatre that takes itself seriously, or theatre that reaches HIGHER than a common art. (Obviously, theatre that takes itself TOO seriously is highly boring and very pretentious – but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a good solid devastating production of, say, King Lear. No escape THERE!)
The Greeks said that one of the primary things a tragedy should do is evoke a catharsis of pity and terror – This catharsis, while frightening, will help the audience to look at their own lives, come to a higher level, reflect … A shared catharsis is for the good of the community.
But I do think that sheer escapism has its place.
Maybe I’ll do a post one day on O’Neill. I do admit, though, that the thought exhausts me. I find him highly upsetting.
Speaking of which, JFH:
weirdly enough, my sister is currently performing in a Eugene O’Neill festival and I’m going tonight.
I will report back!
Coincidence? I think not.
:)