| Death Becomes Her/She/Me | |
| Posted by: AnObserver 11:58 am EST 12/28/24 | |
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| Regarding Death Becomes Her, it was a pleasure to attend a show that had no preaching. If you want preaching you can turn on the TV. There was no message here about women’s rights or female empowerment. Nothing about race or gender or any other social/political/cultural message. I was looking at Show Score and someone says there, “Why is this doing so well?” And I think that’s the reason: silly irreverence that merely entertains. No wokeness. No “we’re gonna fix the world.” The two lead female characters are vain, narcissistic, conniving, mean, sex-crazed and money hungry. What a relief. Broadway even tried to make Tammy Faye Bakker a feminist and not a bamboozler. Come on! Is the show perfect? No. It’s too long, the score is not memorable, the show slows down in spots, the book has problems. I didn’t understand the first part of the cemetery scene at all. Michelle Williams is a non-presence. I could only understand perhaps 50% of what was sung. I was pleased to see others on Show Score agree with me about all of this. Also on Show Score someone said Megan Hilty can’t hold the whole thing together. I disagree. Is she the greatest talent that ever was? No. Is she as charismatic as Liza, as sophisticated as Dolores Gray, as full of personality as Tammy Grimes, as weird as Carol Channing, with a voice as distinctive as Patti or Barbra or Ethel, as vulnerable as Donna? No. But she can carry a show. There’ll never again be anyone like those other people. Our culture doesn’t allow for it any more. So we have Hilty and she’s just fine. Another thing that Show Score points out is that the show is for tourists. That could be argued as correct since it’s a movie “brand” - not my favorite Broadway musical genre. And it’s possible that New Yorkers just don’t bother with new Broadway musicals anymore because they’ve gotten so bad. However, I think NYers are liking it because it’s so irreverent and cynical. There’s a Forbidden Broadway aspect to the show, and when FB first appeared in the early 80s, it was put on the map by locals. Lots of complaints about the musical score on Show Score. As I said, it’s unmemorable. But what new show DOES have a memorable score? I enjoyed A Strange Loop - in spite of its preaching - but it had perhaps 3 notes?? The same 3 notes Fun Home had? Personality may be hard to come by, but I don’t know why melody is. Do theatre composing classes encourage The Jeanine Tesoris and The Jason Robert Browns of the world to write this stuff? Do professors think it’s Sondheimian? It isn’t. The Man in the Chair: “Jeanine Tesori, must we continue with this charade?” (I’m guessing personality is also not encouraged in the world of academia where they seem to grind them out apparently because theatre departments at colleges and universities are money-makers. Non-profit theatre companies, separate from academia, often have acting schools because that’s how they make money to pay for their productions. The students pay, hoping to get onstage.) Question: did Michelle Williams write that “I love me” bio before or after the NY Times review which praised to the skies the comic chops of the other two ladies? The review barely mentioned Williams, and nothing about her singing or “acting.” Is Michelle Williams the REAL Madeline Ashton??? |
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