Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Best IN MY LIFE review ever
#0Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 4:05pm
This was sent to me from a dear friend of mine. The review is as follows.
"In My Life. I'm sure that even in this incredibly long summary there are things I'm forgetting. It was probably the most expensive set I have ever seen, with giant flat-screen projections, at least 8 different interiors, and for the "heaven" scenes, hundreds of glowing file cabinets.
The show begins in heaven with a little dead girl in a perplexing outfit (a ruffled party dress, jeans, and a tank top, all on top of each other) singing "Life Turns on a Dime." There are two songs with the exact same message (the other one is called "What A Crazy World" or something) and each of them is reprised at least 4 times.
OK, so, the story is about J.T. a singer with Tourette's (which causes him to loudly repeat words that rhyme when he gets upset, such as "Good luck...F*CK SUCK DUCK" - actual dialogue, repeated twice; when he gets happy, he says "Lemon" for some reason - foreshadowing!). Jenny, this trampy woman who temps at the Village Voice, hears one of his songs on the college radio station and stalks him to a diner, where she asks him to go to her apartment and have sex with her, which he does.
MEANWHILE, in heaven, God, in the person of a Nathan Lane-ish childlike teddy bear of a man who wears a backward baseball cap, wants to create a "reality opera," and hires Winston, this swishy gay angel made up like Alan Cumming in Cabaret to direct it. He is on vacation and thinking about quitting as God, but a conversation about doing the right thing with the narrator, now revealed to be J.T.'s incredibly irritating dead little sister, reminds him that he shouldn't forsake humanity.
MEANWHILE, Jenny has this trashy, Kathy Griffin-looking drag-queeny friend whose boyfriend is also dead. Wouldn't you know it - he was drunk driving and killed J.T.'s sister and mother (both of whom are inexplicably played by dark-skinned Hispanic actresses, though J.T. is lily-white and blond) and now they're all together in heaven, where he apologizes to the little girl for killing her and admits that he was behind the wheel that fateful night. She smiles sagely and forgives him because she knew all along. We can really learn a lot from dead children!
MEANWHILE, Winston the campy angel floats up and down into the proceedings from time to time, making bitchy asides and rehearsing numbers for his opera, including a potential one about pirates. There are 4 very expensive-looking pirate costumes, and they are used for about 2 minutes before this idea is rejected. After a "tense" hospital scene (see below), in the most divinely, jaw-droppingly shocking moment of the evening, he pulls a skeleton out of a closet, removes a tennis ball (simulating a brain tumor) from its skull, and does a lively song-and-dance number with it, which includes projections of many dancing skeletons on the back wall of the stage. I very nearly gave this number a standing ovation. For some reason, he decides to make the opera about J.T. and Jenny because they're weird.
God wants to try out to be in the opera (I don't know), and he auditions with Joe Brooks jingles for Volkswagen and, later, Dr. Pepper (I…), but Winston the campy angel doesn't know he's God, so he's mean to him. Drama! In the second most divinely, jaw-droppingly shocking moment of the evening, God returns to earth, where he sings a dramatic reprise of the Volkswagen jingle, the theme of which is that THE WORLD IS WEIRD AND LIFE IS UNPREDICTABLE.
MEANWHILE, for absolutely no reason and with no context, J.T.'s dead Hispanic mother sings an aria in Italian in a floating kitchen, and Li'l Miss Precious puts on a tutu and does a terrible and long ballet number that I think is supposed to make us sad that she died before the show started. She coulda been a fifth-rate ballet dancer if only she had lived!
MEANWHILE, (did I mention this show runs for 2 hours straight with no intermission? There was a lot of "plot") J.T. gets an MRI and it turns out he has a giant brain tumor. He doesn't want to get it operated on because it may interfere with his ability to sing. Jenny doesn't know until she gets a letter from the hospital and she gets mad at him and they fight and he screams some more rhyming words loudly. He goes outside, where he goes blind and someone takes him to the hospital, where he gets operated on. God, now down from heaven, the little dead girl, the dead mother, the dead boyfriend, the campy angel, Jenny, and the Kathy Griffin-esque drag queeny woman all sing this incredibly loud song pleading for his life to be spared. It is!
FINALLY, God reveals to Winston, the campy angel, that he is, in fact, God, and Winston is shocked! God calls off the opera because he realizes that meddling in the lives of others is wrong and asks Winston to plan a wedding for J.T. and Jenny. They get married, with all the living and dead cast members in attendance, IN FRONT OF AN ENORMOUS FLOATING LEMON. That thing must have been 20 feet high. Winston thanks the audience for coming and, in a genuinely funny bit, attempts to float away, but his harness doesn't work, so he asked a la Peter Pan if we believe in fairies, we applauded, and he floated away.
If you have any way to, I would heartily recommend seeing this show soon."
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did! 
"For me, THEATRE is an anticipation, an artistic rush, an emotional banquet, a jubilant appreciation, and an exit hopeful of clearer thought and better worlds."
~ an anonymous traveler with Robert Burns
#1re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 4:22pmIs that a positive or negative review?
~And let us try, before we die, to make some sense of life~
#2re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 4:42pmI think it just puts everything in perspective brilliantly! I think its a rush out and see this train wreck before it closes kinda thing.
"For me, THEATRE is an anticipation, an artistic rush, an emotional banquet, a jubilant appreciation, and an exit hopeful of clearer thought and better worlds."
~ an anonymous traveler with Robert Burns
SorryGrateful
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/10/05
#3re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:00pmClassic. That review is perfect!
You promised me poems. ~Tricky
#4re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:00pm
I saw it last night, and I agree wholeheartedly with this review. I was laughing so much, I had to apologize to someone sitting nearby, who said "don't worry, it is fine!" At the end, the guy in the seat next to mine said "not since Carrie!" I loved every campy over the top moment of it...I thought I was going to pee my pants when 'Winston' the fey angel starts dancing with the skeleton (with skeleton projections behind him). Even my boyfriend, who is still learning English, recognized the redicliousness of it all.
Strangely, I overheard a woman in front of me say it has gotten better since she saw it 2 weeks previously!
My mother always used to say, "The older you get, the better you get, unless you're a banana." - Rose Nyland
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#5re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:02pmThe review neglects to mention that Vera and her mother were killed in a car accident because Vera's friend went to buy a Slurpee.
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#6re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:17pm
I caught the matinee today and the show has some fun things in it. The over the top stuff was my favorite part, the pirates, the dancing skeletons, Zuber costumes. I liked the file cabinets lighting up and changing colors.
If Jenny's apartment was very plain and stylized and not full of clutter, and she and J.T. were played as comic book characters in more glitzy clothes rather than trying to mix realism against the over the top it would work better. Comic book and over the top mix; realism and over the top not so much.
iluvtheatertrash
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/9/04
#7re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:22pmI totally agree with the review.
"I know now that theatre saved my life." - Susan Stroman
#8re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:23pm
That review was... interesting.
Wouldn't you know it - he was drunk driving and killed J.T.'s sister and mother (both of whom are inexplicably played by dark-skinned Hispanic actresses, though J.T. is lily-white and blond)
Chiara Navarra, who plays the sister, is actually not Hispanic, everyone just figures that she must be.
The choice may have been mistaken, The choosing was not... "Every day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life." - Lin-Manuel Miranda
iluvtheatertrash
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/9/04
#9re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:24pmRegardless, dancing, her skin tone doesn't exactly match up with her brother's.
"I know now that theatre saved my life." - Susan Stroman
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#10re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:29pm...and JT has that song "I Am My Mother's Son". Naw, I think he's the milkman's son.
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#11re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:30pmWhy don't they change the name of that show to IN MY LEMON?
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
#12re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 5:53pm
Regardless, dancing, her skin tone doesn't exactly match up with her brother's.
Never said it did. I was jsut saying that because of the fact that she has a different skin tone, everyone seems to think that she's Hispanic.
The choice may have been mistaken, The choosing was not... "Every day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life." - Lin-Manuel Miranda
#13re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 6:10pmI was sitting a little far away last night, and when she was at the window singing opera, I thought she was black...and I thought "THAT is lilly-white J.T.'s mother?"
My mother always used to say, "The older you get, the better you get, unless you're a banana." - Rose Nyland
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#14re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 6:20pmI've seen a lot of open casting and it didn't bother me a bit. I didn't even notice there was a difference of skin colors. I've seen kids who have the same parents in real life whose skin color varies more than that. Jeesh, no big deal.
teth
Leading Actor Joined: 12/1/04
#15re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 6:22pmHaven't seen the show...but why do I have a feeling that the casting was done on purpose? (Maybe someone that have seen it can say why?)
#16re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 6:28pmI've seen it. Didn't get the drift that the casting was done on purpose, but you never know. I think it was jsut more because the people could actually SING, and somewhat act.
The choice may have been mistaken, The choosing was not... "Every day has the potential to be the greatest day of your life." - Lin-Manuel Miranda
Borstalboy
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
#17re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 7:19pm
Are the creators trying to create a legendary flop to usurp CARRIE? It sure seems like it. Sounds a hell of alot more interesting than BROOKLYN, that's for damn sure.
I'd honestly much rather see this than SISTER ACT, WE WILL ROCK YOU, THE COLOR PURPLE, or the HAPPY DAYS musical all put together! God bless the American Musical Theatre!!!!!!!!
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
~ Muhammad Ali
Plum
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/4/04
#18re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 7:25pmWouldn't it be horrifyingly wonderful if this got a design Tony or two?
amasis
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/7/04
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#20re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 9:48pmThis sounds like the show to beat @ the Tonys ( not)
Poster Emeritus
DramaDork925
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/4/05
#21re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 9:48pmAnd here I was thinking nothing would ever make me want to see that show...
Am I cut out to spend my time this way?
#22re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 11:47pmStone me if you will, but I sorta liked In My Life. Something about the cliched songs and messages and all the absurdity caught my fancy. Updated On: 10/19/05 at 11:47 PM
#23re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/19/05 at 11:58pmI must that this really is the perfect review. I think it hits on every single thing that I got from the show too. Although I saw Winston more as Alan-Cumming-meets-the-Child-Catcher.
And hang on, when did you win the discus?
RentBoy86
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/15/05
#24re: Best IN MY LIFE review ever
Posted: 10/20/05 at 12:06amhow absurd! I wish i could make it to NYC!!!
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