Lestat Reviews- Page 2
Lestat Reviews
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#25re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 9:15pm
I don't see the AP review up above yet.
Was it posted somewhere?
jimnysf
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/10/05
#26re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 9:19pm
Here's the review/video from NY 1.
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/Living/theater_reviews.jsp
"...like its equally tacky, boneheaded predecessors, "Dance of the Vampires" and "Dracula," "Lestat" takes the stuff of horror movies and turns it into a musical that, yes, totally sucks.
The Review:
When a movie does killer box office, Hollywood studio heads try to crank out a bunch of imitations. But in the bizarro-world of Broadway, different rules apply. Apparently, if producers watch a concept flop not once but twice, they just gotta to try it again.
Case in point: "Lestat," the third vampire musical in as many years. And like its equally tacky, boneheaded predecessors, "Dance of the Vampires" and "Dracula," "Lestat" takes the stuff of horror movies and turns it into a musical that, yes, totally sucks.
Obviously the producers of this $12 million disaster believed the synergy of Anne Rice's beloved characters plus Elton John's soft-rock score would be enough to make a hit. But they forgot a little something called story. Lestat's book, by Linda Woolverton, is unfocused, bombastic and wildly nonsensical at times.
Based on Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" books, the story takes place in Paris, New Orleans and throughout Europe over the course of about a century, but Woolverton never finds a way to weave all those plot elements into a coherent story.
There are some fine actors whose talents are completely wasted here. As Lestat, Hugh Panaro strikes the right note of tortured, romantic heroism, but his lines and lyrics never succeed in establishing a compelling persona. As Lestat's dying mother, who finds newfound power as a vampire queen, Carolee Carmello has a rich, belting voice and offers welcome flashes of comedy but again, her character has nowhere to go.
Only in Act II, when the scene shifts to 19th-century New Orleans, does the story pick up. But by that point, you¹ve already stopped caring about who's bitten whom and which bloodsucker you¹re supposed to root for.
The production lacks humor, shocks, sex and gore. Oh, but there's plenty of third-rate music. The 15 or so Elton John tunes blur into one forgettable mush of 80s-style pop without a single catchy melody. Finally, the lyrics, by longtime John collaborator Bernie Taupin are like the demented diary entries of a goth teenager.
Anne Rice's novels, with their erotic and tragic undercurrents, could conceivably inspire an interesting play or even the libretto for a new opera, but in rock-musical form her characters come across as wooden and their struggles like campy hysterics.
"Lestat" may not be the worst vampire musical to swoop down on Broadway but let's hope it's the last, and this undead trend stays in its coffin, never to haunt our dreams again.
- David Cote,
Time Out New York
"I've lost everything! Luis, Marty, my baby with Chris, Chris himself, James. All I ever wanted was love." --Sheridan Crane "Passions"
-------
"Housework is like bad sex. Every time I do it, I swear I'll never do it again til the next time company comes."--"Lulu"
from "Can't Stop The Music"
-----
"When the right doors didn't open for him, he went through the wrong ones" - "Sweet Bird of Youth"
------------
---------
"Passions" is uncancelled! See NBC.com for more info.
Fabrizio2
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/20/06
#27re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 9:27pm
After watching these video blogs on Lestat, Hugh and Carolee seemed so happy with the show...or at least appeared that way. On the first preview in New York...
"The energy was amazing! Everyone was cheering, and we got a standing ovation"
(That was paraphrased, I can't remember it word for word)
-Hugh Panaro
...and Carolee's beautifully decorated dressing room will have to be emptied. Sad. I liked the way that she decorated it.
Everyone seemed so excited about the show in the cast and it's sad to see this happen.
I am going to see it May 19th. Orchestra seating. The sets and costumes seem nice, and it seems as if there is an enormous amount of talent in the cast.
You never know though, it may run. I am sure with it getting these horrible reviews people are curious to see how bad it is, I mean that's what made me buy my tickets. I have to say that I am excited.
Just my thoughts...don't bash them....please?
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#28re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 9:52pm
A friend just called and invited me to see Lestat next week, so I will see it then.
Should be good seats, it's a critic.
morosco
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/10/04
#30re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:05pm
"A friend just called and invited me to see Lestat next week, so I will see it then."
Be sure to check online before leaving for the theatre. You don't want to be disappointed by a "closed" sign taped to the window.
(i'm only 1/2 kidding)
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#31re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:08pmI don't think the bad reviews will close the show. They probably were expecting them, all eager to trash it.
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#32re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:11pm
I like the clips of the NY1 review. I was trying to tune out the critic because I wanted to hear Hugh, Carolee, and Drew perform. LOL! I'm hopeless. 
~Rosalynn
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#33re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:18pm
The AP is Negative:
"To bite or not to bite? What's a conflicted vampire with severe identity issues to do? That seems to be the question haunting the troubled title character in "Lestat," the morose new musical that opened Tuesday at Broadway's Palace Theatre.
Based on "The Vampire Chronicles" of Anne Rice, this lavish show is a rather joyless affair, glum and sober-sided despite yeoman work by a strong cast that throws itself into the musical with gusto.
And getting gusto out of the show's dutiful score - music by Elton John and lyrics by Bernie Taupin - is hard work. John's melodies occasionally tantalize but, for the most part, settle for bombast or indistinct meanderings that quickly evaporate. And Taupin's unsurprising lyrics often are easy to anticipate.
But then, the dialogue is a bit simplistic, too. The characters don't converse. They speak in pronouncements, momentous declarations that take on the tone of official statements from Above, or maybe that should be Below.
____________________________________________________________
Even with an excess of story, director Robert Jess Roth briskly moves things along although Lestat's neurotic musings eventually grow wearisome. Roth and Woolverton worked together on Disney's stage version of "Beauty and the Beast," which at least has a spirited, can-do heroine.
Rice's hero is a model of moralistic dithering throughout his long, never-ending life. At one point, Armand chides Lestat, telling him he is "desperate to be good despite yourself."
And that's perhaps the root of the problem with the show itself. Indecision doesn't make for the most compelling of musical theater."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/artandlife/1404AP_Theater_Lestat.html
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#34re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:20pm
Phew.
Thanks, Mr. Margo.
Not easy to bring a novel to the stage.
perfectliar
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#35re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:30pm
I'm thinking about rushing this Saturday night.
I'll form an opinion then because these reviews are pretty much what everyone expected.
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#36re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:39pmAll predictably sad news. For the cast, b'way, ticketholders, and the form.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
jimnysf
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/10/05
#37re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:39pm
Newsday Review:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/ny-etledew4715934apr26,0,4497922.story?coll=ny-entertainment-bigpix
Undead 'Lestat' sucked of life
BY LINDA WINER
Newsday Staff Writer
April 26, 2006
The undead can't catch a break on Broadway these days. Although theatergoers in the late '70s could not get enough of Frank Langella as a dashing dramatic Drac, the life cycle for musical vampiriana in 2002 ("Dance of the Vampires") and 2004 ("Dracula") has been painfully mortal.
The curse continues with "Lestat," the adaptation of Anne Rice's adored "Vampire Chronicles" that opened last night for what seemed like an eternity at the Palace Theatre. Despite those Rice credentials, the homoerotic/Oedipal potential and a score by the still-golden duo of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, the show is dim, dumb and dreary. Considering that this is the Broadway debut for Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, the biggest shocker is how cheap it all looks.
Decency demands we report that the strong cast (including Hugh Panaro and Carolee Carmello) sing their collective lungs inside out with phony fervor. And there are three rousing numbers near the beginning of the second act and a stop-the-presses performance by young dynamo Allison Fischer.
She plays Claudia, Lestat's forever-10-year-old adopted daughter with two daddies, long blond curls and a garden of bad seeds in her blood. When she plunks herself in the middle of her spoiled-doll destiny and wails, "I Want More," she is every needy diva from the Wicked Witch to Mama Rose. When she follows immediately with a lament for the woman she can never be, she sings an almost heartfelt "I'll Never Have That Chance." We find ourselves wanting to reassure Fischer that, shush, dear, you certainly will.
Otherwise? John's songs push beyond his soft-pop sound ("The Lion King") into the lugubrious treacle of warmed-over Andrew Lloyd Webber and nursery-doodle sentimentality. Taupin's lyrics try to rhyme "breast" with "death," "swoon" with "tomb," "born again" with "bewitching pain." Lest we appear unnecessarily cruel, consider: "The thirst that sends them to their graves/the thirst for that which I now crave."
The production has been staged by Robert Jess Roth with the same flatness that somehow has sustained "Beauty and the Beast" on Broadway for almost 12 years. Linda Woolverton, also responsible for the book to that show, walks Lestat through his bloodsucking adventures without momentum. The usually estimable set designer Derek McLane frames the stage with ugly, puckered, maroon cloth. What appear to be the same five pieces of cardboard slide on and off to serve as columns and trees.
Panaro - with a copper-colored ponytail and flairing stallion nostrils - does everything but make us care about Lestat, who was chosen to be a vampire after doing a great job killing wolves near the home of his abusive father and ailing, adoring mother. With her ravishing bitter-lemon vibrato, Carmello is a lusty wild thing as the mother, who persuades Lestat to give her "the crimson kiss" so they can "live beneath the stars." Roderick Hill has a sweetness as Lestat's childhood boyfriend (an actor, no less) and Drew Sarich is actually almost scary as the bad vampire. Jim Stanek grapples admirably with moral dilemmas as Lestat's adult love but poor Michael Genet suggests some sort of Buddhist monk as the vampire guru.
Whenever someone gets bitten, the stage turns orange and we see projections of what appear to be caroming amoebas. We know the show is meant to be dark, because nobody ever turns up the lights.
"I've lost everything! Luis, Marty, my baby with Chris, Chris himself, James. All I ever wanted was love." --Sheridan Crane "Passions"
-------
"Housework is like bad sex. Every time I do it, I swear I'll never do it again til the next time company comes."--"Lulu"
from "Can't Stop The Music"
-----
"When the right doors didn't open for him, he went through the wrong ones" - "Sweet Bird of Youth"
------------
---------
"Passions" is uncancelled! See NBC.com for more info.
DG
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/2/05
#38re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:54pmWhat's the advance on this? I thought I heard somewhere they had gone over 20 mil.
#39re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 10:57pm
Wow, you almost want to see it to see how bad it is.
Just wow.
Color and Light
Broadway Star Joined: 10/23/05
#40re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:01pmI'll admit - I got student rush tickets just because they were cheap and I was curious to see if it was as bad as everyone was making it out to be. I'm a sucker.
Stop looking at my charisma.
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#41re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:14pm
DG, I've heard that Tarzan's advance is over $20 million, but that Lestat's isn't nearly as high (there was a post somewhere -- god knows with all the thousands both here and at ATC, I can't remember where -- that quoted one of the producers as saying it isn't as high as they'd hoped).
While attendance has been in the 80s, the average ticket price is only around $54, indicating very heavy discounting. I'm not sure what their weekly break even is, but it's been grossing around $580K which I would bet means that they're losing money (given the sets, costumes, large cast and a $12 million capitalization, break even is probably $600 - 650K -- someone please correct me if I'm wrong). With this slate of reviews, little hope for any Tony boost and -- far as I can tell -- negative word of mouth, this show is likely going to struggle to run much past summer.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#42re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:15pm
20 million in advanced ticket sales? I don't know much about that stuff but considering how easy it is to get a ticket to Lestat, I don't think it's generating nearly that sort of buzz. Apparently the advance sales for The Producers was 15 million, and that was sold out for years.
As long as Bernie Taupin's lyrics keep getting singled out, I'm satisfied.
yr ronin,
joey
joey
jimnysf
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/10/05
#43re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:21pm"Saturday Night Fever" had a $20 million advance and ran for 500 performances.
"I've lost everything! Luis, Marty, my baby with Chris, Chris himself, James. All I ever wanted was love." --Sheridan Crane "Passions"
-------
"Housework is like bad sex. Every time I do it, I swear I'll never do it again til the next time company comes."--"Lulu"
from "Can't Stop The Music"
-----
"When the right doors didn't open for him, he went through the wrong ones" - "Sweet Bird of Youth"
------------
---------
"Passions" is uncancelled! See NBC.com for more info.
Hawker
Featured Actor Joined: 2/23/04
#44re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:24pm
It's almost axiomatic that the cast and creative people are excited about whatever show they're about to launch no matter how bad the early word on the street is.
I recall a documentary made about the Danish import of "Cyrano".
The director, the male and female leads, the choreographer, and everyone else involved seemed to believe they had a big hit on their hands.
You wouldn't think a show with a universally irresistable, brilliantly constructed plot could be so dull but they pulled it off.
What gives? How is it that theater pros get sucked into something that everyone but themselves thinks is a bad idea at the start?
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#45re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:25pmEven if the advance is $20 million (and I'm pretty sure it's not), that wouldn't keep a show from closing in a couple of months. Advance sales largely consist of group sales which aren't guaranteed -- a deposit is given but can be revoked (it's happened many times in the past) if the reviews are terrible. Also that $20 million consists of sales over the course of many many months. For a show that costs probably $600,000+/week to run, it could still mean that show is losing money every week. There are plenty of flop shows over the years that closed quickly despite producers bragging about their huge advances (I think that Dance of the Vampires had a $20 million advance based on Michael Crawford's name alone, if I'm not mistaken) -- those things can literally disappear overnight.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#46re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:27pm
"Saturday Night Fever" had a $20 million advance and ran for 500 performances."
tmz814
Broadway Star Joined: 8/21/03
#47re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:27pm
I am not surprised at all by the reviews. I knew it was going to get killed by the critics. I am happy though that Allison got good mention in Newsday:
" And there are three rousing numbers near the beginning of the second act and a stop-the-presses performance by young dynamo Allison Fischer.
She plays Claudia, Lestat's forever-10-year-old adopted daughter with two daddies, long blond curls and a garden of bad seeds in her blood. When she plunks herself in the middle of her spoiled-doll destiny and wails, "I Want More," she is every needy diva from the Wicked Witch to Mama Rose. When she follows immediately with a lament for the woman she can never be, she sings an almost heartfelt "I'll Never Have That Chance." We find ourselves wanting to reassure Fischer that, shush, dear, you certainly will."
We've all got our junk and my junk is you!
#48re: Lestat Reviews
Posted: 4/25/06 at 11:28pmI'm glad Allison got a good review! She was great.
That was pure vodka, you poop!
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