GHOST first preview?- Page 5
GHOST first preview?
#100GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/22/12 at 6:08pm
I hear the distant drums of a critical clobbering approaching 46th street next month...
I don't. The reviews will be mixed, but I don't think they will be mostly pans. Praise for the visuals and performances, tepid on the book and score. Most thought Lysistrata Jones would be a critic bloodletting. Didn't happen.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
#101GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/22/12 at 6:20pm
I think they are making changes daily. There were some folks at the stage door that Richard and Caissie recognized who have gone almost every preview and they were conversing them at length about what they thought about changes.
GHOST has some problems even though I enjoyed it. In a way it's at odds with itself. It's an intimate story and at times the effects (and that horrendous ensemble) ruin it. Its definitely overblown to make up for problems with score. I loved the quieter moments and the end had me weeping.
The choreography is awful. It looks like Mia Michaels herky jerky stuff from Celine Dions Vegas show.
The subway effects are great as are many others but the shows effects are loud and a little headache inducing at times. However our ADD riddled culture will most likely eat it up
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
basketcase
Featured Actor Joined: 4/19/04
#102GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/22/12 at 8:15pm
Has anyone seen the show more than once yet? Is the show changing at all yet?
I've seen the show twice now, once on first preview and once last night. If there were changes between the two shows, they were very subtle...although things have definitely gotten tighter. However, as I was speaking to Caissie at stage door, Matthew Warchus walked up and mentioned something about a new scene. When he left, Caissie turned back to me and said that they're changing the entire opening of the show. Not sure if that's happening tonight or not.
#103GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/22/12 at 10:33pm
Changing the entire opening?! I like the way the show opens right now. Finding the apartment and singing "Here Right Now" as they set up the place together was very fitting in depicting Sam and Molly settling in together and just living in that very moment with each other.
If they should change anything it should be the costumes the ensemble ghosts wear and that horrific rap song "Focus" in Act II.
Updated On: 3/22/12 at 10:33 PM
#104GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/23/12 at 1:39am
I think this show is awful. Just so wrong on almost every level.
Levy and Fleeshman are fine. Her voice is terrific. They are completely upstaged by the set. There's so much going on with revolving video walls and massive descending light grids, the poor little actors are completely lost. It's a small story, but they HAD to make it BIG!
With all the accolades on this board, I expected Randolph to make her entrance and save the day. I found her completely devoid of comic timing and physicality. And when she sang those awful numbers her character just disappeared. Someone mentioned (as a compliment) that she was your standard loud, sassy, big black woman stock character. That's exactly what I thought (no praise intended). I think she gets laughs because there's so little else to enjoy on that stage.
My heart goes out to the dancers in the chorus, who've probably trained most of their lives, only to end up doing that mortifying, summer-theater-camp-movement, possibly the worst choreography I've ever seen on a Broadway stage. The choreographer lists (along with some Kylie Minogue videos) "the world's biggest flash mob" as one of his achievements. Come to think of it, that's what the chorus looked like: a flash mob. A flash mob in suits (with videos of a flash mob in suits playing on a screen behind them). The chorus is pointless.
Yes, there are special effects--big deal. I can go to the movies for special effects--I go to Broadway musicals for a good book and good songs. I guess I'll have to go somewhere else for those. Each song was worse than the one before. "With You" and another one Levy sang, were pretty, but the rap by the subway ghost, the chorus number "More", Carl's song "Life Turns on a Dime", and just about all the others, were insufferable. That's what happens when you have some pop stars that haven't done anything in decades write the music, and the guy who wrote the screenplay write the lyrics... Hmmm... sounds like Billy Elliot, which I also thought was drek, but it's musical theater gold compared to Ghost.
On a positive note, I liked the movie.
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#105GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/23/12 at 1:54amWell, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thought this was God awful.
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
#106GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/23/12 at 9:03am@TimeSquared---Did they change the opening scene when you saw the show last night??
#107GHOST first preview?
Posted: 3/23/12 at 9:45am
I'm surprised there aren't more comments about the horrible sound in this show.
Cassie has a beautiful voice (or she did in London) but here I actually grabbed my ears a few times as her over amped high notes came out more like screeches. Dogs gathered at the front of the theatre! What a shame. I had no idea the first number became a duet until I saw Sam's lips moving and figured he must be singing. Mainly I could only hear an extremely loud orchestra and a bit of Cassie's voice, despite the idea that it was supposedly a "quiet" sort of song, and I certainly couldn't hear the lyrics. It was deafening. Friends sitting the last row of the orchestra literally could not hear -- or understand -- a word of many of the songs, particularly Oda Mae's big number. It's just SO badly mixed and SO LOUD!
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