Tuesday, October 09, 2012
News at 11
I forgot to mention that I saw Newsies while I was in New York. And by "forgot to mention," I mean "deliberately withheld so that I would have something left to write about on another day." But anyway, it was pretty good. It certainly is not giving Sondheim a run for the money in the intellectual content or musical complexity departments, but it's high energy and a lot of fun. The choreography is quite incredible, most notably in a sequence that involves people sliding around on sheets of newsprint without killing themselves. And the songs are really, really catchy, to the point that I'm starting to fear I'll be taking them with me to my grave. On the other hand, the female lead is pretty clearly a role they just kind of made up and stuck in there so they could have a girl onstage for at least some of the time, and the accents sounds like the New Yawk accents that people do in junior high drama club (which may or not be a comment on their accuracy -- I was sadly not alive to hear the real thing). And there is a character named "crutchie" who, believe it or not, walks with a crutch. This is the kind of subtlety that made Newsies the movie the kind of ginormous flop that absolutely screams for a multimillion dollar stage adaptation. Strange that Christian Bale has not been involved.
But anyway, I enjoyed it! There's nothing like an crazily upbeat, apologetically pro-union song and dance extravaganza brought to you by a giant, multinational corporation with a history of somewhat questionable labor practices. I thought about waiting around to get autographs afterwards, but then I realized I'm not a thirteen-year-old girl and I actually don't know who any of these people are. So I decided to roam the streets hoping to get hit by Amanda Bynes' car instead. But of course it's New York, so even she probably takes public transit.
I forgot to mention that I saw Newsies while I was in New York. And by "forgot to mention," I mean "deliberately withheld so that I would have something left to write about on another day." But anyway, it was pretty good. It certainly is not giving Sondheim a run for the money in the intellectual content or musical complexity departments, but it's high energy and a lot of fun. The choreography is quite incredible, most notably in a sequence that involves people sliding around on sheets of newsprint without killing themselves. And the songs are really, really catchy, to the point that I'm starting to fear I'll be taking them with me to my grave. On the other hand, the female lead is pretty clearly a role they just kind of made up and stuck in there so they could have a girl onstage for at least some of the time, and the accents sounds like the New Yawk accents that people do in junior high drama club (which may or not be a comment on their accuracy -- I was sadly not alive to hear the real thing). And there is a character named "crutchie" who, believe it or not, walks with a crutch. This is the kind of subtlety that made Newsies the movie the kind of ginormous flop that absolutely screams for a multimillion dollar stage adaptation. Strange that Christian Bale has not been involved.
But anyway, I enjoyed it! There's nothing like an crazily upbeat, apologetically pro-union song and dance extravaganza brought to you by a giant, multinational corporation with a history of somewhat questionable labor practices. I thought about waiting around to get autographs afterwards, but then I realized I'm not a thirteen-year-old girl and I actually don't know who any of these people are. So I decided to roam the streets hoping to get hit by Amanda Bynes' car instead. But of course it's New York, so even she probably takes public transit.
