I don't know.... there's just something about Little Women that seems so... empty. Like I'm waiting for it to break out into full emotion, or a real exploding number or something. Sutton Foster does a good job considering the awkward material that seems to rush through the novel all too quickly (same overall issue as Dracula; too much crammed in). I personally happen to especially like Danny Gurwin, who really brought his character to life. But really... articles on Playbill and articles in New York Metro and then this one make me wonder. Another case of some producers taking something with promise and killing its heart.?

Anyway. I usually write what's "coming soon" here... and sometimes, I'm actually right. Over the course of the next month, expect abridges for Spamalot and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Both have good Buzz, so we'll see. I'm looking forward to both of them; word is that the Tonys will be a showdown between the two... and if the buzz about Spamalot is right, then poor David Yazbek... sigh.

Very nice of me to get an abridge of Pacific Overtures out just after the revival closed, isn't it? Very nice of me to actually update this site, isn't it? And why do I do it in large chunks like this?

Pacific Overtures was easily the most difficult for me to write yet. Now I'm a huge Stephen Sondheim shill, and every Sondheim show I've seen has some elements of genius involved. I find that even the worst Sondheim show is often better than so many of the things on Broadway right now.
That said, Pacific Overtures is, to me, just very fundamentally flawed. It's not like so many other shows where I feel like "if someone just did a good rewrite of the book, it would be fixed". It's just so disjointed. It was worth seeing for further insight into the genius of Sondheim. But "solid" it ain't. And by the way, B.D. Wong was seriously mis-cast or mis-directed.

Next up is Harvey Fierstein in Fiddler and let me say, sometimes it's amazing how much the changing of the lead character can makeover an entire play and make up for some (some) of the mistakes of misdirection. I ran into Harvey Fierstein on the street the other day and was telling him how much I loved the show until I realized I had left a friend on the phone . "Hold on, I'm talking to Harvey Fierstein" I told her. He laughed. "Yeah, and hurry it up because I have to go to the bathroom." Good guy.

And finally, what I would like to call Really Really Awful Vibrations. In this age of jukebox musical crap (and there's more coming this season), I think the abridge speaks for itself.