Two Peas in a Pot
Jun. 24th, 2007 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeirdA very short combined review for two Tony-award winning musicals' OBC CDs.
Spring Awakening won the Best Musical award. It also won Best Original Score and Best arrangement. I am sure glad I am not on the same drugs the judges were on when they came up with these awards, because this is not a musical. It is a play which has lots of music in it. The music is in several genres, but most of it is derivative of gospel. Which is pretty weird for a play set in rural Germany two centuries ago. There are no tunes I can even vaguely remember an hour after hearing the CD. There is no way anyone could remotely guess the story from the songs in this show, which completely defeats the purpose of a musical. Reading the liner notes, it's a total downer of a play, nothing I would want to see or be in. Maybe it won all those awards because there are songs written around the words bitch and fuck.
Grey Gardens snagged both best actress awards, and won costumes too. This is a musical. The songs tell the story, I didn't need the liner notes to tell me it is a farce about Jackie Onasis' aunt and cousin (both named Edie) who live in squalor in a decaying mansion on Lawn Guyland, with 50-some-odd cats, a lot of rubbish, and broken plumbing. Turns out to be a true story. Music by Scott Frankel is pretty darned good, lyrics by Michael Korie have their moments but there is entirely too much talking and shouting over the songs. Some is called for - the mother and daughter fight like fishwives (as the dialog says) - but most is not. This is a show I would like to see, and would love to be in, in the part of the Major Bouvier. Very much like the father-in-law-to-be in La Cage.
Spring Awakening won the Best Musical award. It also won Best Original Score and Best arrangement. I am sure glad I am not on the same drugs the judges were on when they came up with these awards, because this is not a musical. It is a play which has lots of music in it. The music is in several genres, but most of it is derivative of gospel. Which is pretty weird for a play set in rural Germany two centuries ago. There are no tunes I can even vaguely remember an hour after hearing the CD. There is no way anyone could remotely guess the story from the songs in this show, which completely defeats the purpose of a musical. Reading the liner notes, it's a total downer of a play, nothing I would want to see or be in. Maybe it won all those awards because there are songs written around the words bitch and fuck.
Grey Gardens snagged both best actress awards, and won costumes too. This is a musical. The songs tell the story, I didn't need the liner notes to tell me it is a farce about Jackie Onasis' aunt and cousin (both named Edie) who live in squalor in a decaying mansion on Lawn Guyland, with 50-some-odd cats, a lot of rubbish, and broken plumbing. Turns out to be a true story. Music by Scott Frankel is pretty darned good, lyrics by Michael Korie have their moments but there is entirely too much talking and shouting over the songs. Some is called for - the mother and daughter fight like fishwives (as the dialog says) - but most is not. This is a show I would like to see, and would love to be in, in the part of the Major Bouvier. Very much like the father-in-law-to-be in La Cage.
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