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12/16/2015Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago' | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=785057cd-681d-4f8c-8e5d-9e1ead8b61bc&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago'Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago'DOCTOR ZHIVAGO no stars out of **** BROADWAY THEATRENever try to conquer Russia in winter. Napoleon ignored this lesson and paid dearly. Hitler ignored this lessonand it cost him World War II. Now director Des McAnuff and his foolhardy team of craftsmen and actors havefoundered miserably in that same punishing landscape with little warmth and even littler imagination. It beggarsbelief that this show has been in development for so long, even fully mounted in Australia and yet still theyforged ahead. Investors saw what they had to work with and gave it a full airing and saw how much it lacked (thereviews weren't any better years ago) and still they forged ahead. In-demand, Tony-winning talent behind thescenes realized this wasn't going to be a feather in their cap. But they forged ahead, like those mad invaderswho had come so far they couldn't cut their losses but preferred to lose it all on the vain hope of somehowturning things around.One feels most for the foot soldiers, the actors who are always looking for work and not yet name brands whocan pick a choose. A major role in a new Broadway musical! How could they say no? One understands but thechoice -- unfortunately -- will be much easier for audiences.The busy yet somehow still incoherent story is about the poet and physician Yuri Zhivago (Tam Mutu). He is partof high society despite his father's dissolute fall. Zhivago marries well, albeit dutifully; indeed, Zhivago and hiswife Tonia (Lora Lee Gayer) seem bored with each other even on their wedding day.That's when he fatefully spies the enigmatic, the beautiful, the doomed and glorious Lara (Kelli Barrett). Sheattempts to kill the oily Victor Komarovsky (Tom Hewitt), a hateful manipulator who preyed first on Lara's motherand then Lara herself (not to mention sucking the life out of Zhivago's father). She fails to kill him, but not beforebewitching both Zhivago and Komarovsky into yearning for her over the ensuing decades.Though Lara considers herself soiled goods, she dutifully marries the firebrand Pasha (Paul Alexander Nolan).He's always ready to mount the barricades (notably more ready for that than mounting Lara on theirunconsummated wedding night). But hearing of the aristocratic Komarovsky deflowering his love sends Pashainto a frenzy. He heads off to war to incite revolution on the front lines, but goes seemingly mad, terrorizing thecountry around Lara's home, stalking her mercilessly and doing anything in his power to woo her back. So wehave three men: the godly Zhivago of the aristocracy and Russia's glorious literary past, the cruel Komarovskywho would fit right in with Putin's gang and the crazed revolutionary Pasha who uses the cries of the powerlessfor his own mad designs. And they all love Lara.That's the story. But the presentation of the story is a failure from start to finish, with the overall effect of a verypoor man's Les Miserables. I really enjoy that musical but I don't know many theater buffs or critics that do. It's anutty idea to take such a sprawling novel as Victor Hugo's and turn it into a pop opera; but by God it's effectivein a broad brush-stroke way and filled with memorable tunes.Think it's easy? We've spent the last 30 years watching people try to do it again -- A Tale Of Two Cities, TheScarlet Pimpernel, Jane Eyre, the recent Hunchback Of Notre Dame to name just a few -- but failing, oftencompletely. On the most basic level of story, this attempt is confusing. Almost immediately Zhivago and his wifeseem indifferent to each other, though I've no idea why. More crucially Lara seems to love the hot-blooded
12/16/2015Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago' | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=785057cd-681d-4f8c-8e5d-9e1ead8b61bc&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4Pasha. He goes off to war and is believed lost. Quite reasonably, she falls for the soulful and world famous poetYuri Zhivago while they're healing the wounded during WW I. (His marriage is an inconvenience best leftunmentioned.) As far as we know, Lara believes she is a widow.Yet, her husband appears again in the small town where Lara lives under an assumed name. He terrorizeseveryone else but stays away from her. So it's a little shocking and surprising to find out she knows this demonis her husband. When did she find out he wasn't dead? Wasn't she happy to see him? Why are they estranged -- other than his madness, which seems mostly rooted in the fact that she won't be with him?Similarly, Lara and Zhivago love each other deeply but he maintains his marriage and sees her only at thelibrary. When Zhivago's wife Tonia shows up at that same library (Zhivago has gone missing), the drama isagain muddied entirely. In one brief scene, we realize Tonia knows Zhivago is cheating on her, confronts Laraand finds that their mutual love for Zhivago -- not to mention Lara's shining decency and goodness -- allowsTonia to make her peace with Lara in a heartbeat. So much for drama: we're given betrayal, battle andresolution in about three minutes, tops. Countless other examples abound.Mind you, this is a musical so if it had good songs many ills would be forgiven. It doesn't. The flat, unimaginativerhymes and bland anthems are too numerous to mention. In David Lean's turgid film version of Doctor Zhivago,Maurice Jarre's theme for Lara was pounded into the dirt. It was used so extensively that you almost despairevery time it pops up on the soundtrack. The tune was set to lyrics and became a smash hit called "SomewhereMy Love." That version springs up in the middle of act one, a simple folk tune sung by nurses that is like anoasis in the desert, or should I say a warm fire in the wasteland of the steppes. I was sorry they didn't give it areprise. The one modest exception is a quiet ballad called "Watch The Moon" (Lucy Simon of The SecretGarden did the music and the lyrics are by the team of Michael Korie and Amy Powers).Certainly the songs are sung well by a cast that is valiant even in despair. Mutu is fine as Zhivago and belts outhis big numbers with passion and vigor. Nolan is especially good in the early stages, when Pasha makes a littlemore sense. In the thankless, modest role of Tonia, Gayer sings with a lovely tone and acts appropriatelyresigned. Hewitt keeps his dignity intact more than the others as the wily Komarovsky, almost managing tocreate a vivid, opportunistic character out of this mess. One hates to judge any actor's talent in the context ofsuch a show, but it must be said that Barrett is notably as misguided and bad as the show, delivering at mostone broad emotion at a time when not singing in a strained voice. The pressure of Julie Christie's shadow? Thestrain of being the central object of desire in a train wreck of a show? Who knows?It doesn't help that Barrett is the only blonde within a hundred miles of Zhivago. Every other woman on stage isa brunette or black-haired and I'm a little surprised they didn't ban blondes from the audience. It's a ham-fistedvisual idea, typical for the show. The scenic design by Michael Scott-Mitchell is hopelessly ugly. The idea of asort of flat-bed platform to stand in for a train is especially misguided but that's just one of many touches, like thewould-be iconic jumble of chairs or the simple wooden desk that remains on stage most of the night and seemsto be sat at by just about every character at one point or another.The low point surely is an abandoned mansion at the finale where Zhivago and Lara hide out at winter. It's socartoonish in design, with cardboard icicles hanging down from the ceiling that it looks like something one woulduse for a stage adaptation of a tale about Santa Claus, not a realistic epic about Russia amidst revolution.In an awful idea, video projections are used throughout. Poorly designed by Sean Nieuwenhuis, they'redesperately unattractive and distracting attempts to intimate flames and crowds and snow and other mayhem.But even they become absurd when photographs of random folk are displayed on a large scrim or the deeplyunfortunate choice to have video of Lara loom overhead at two key moments. In one video/image, she isnaughtily dressed and her gown lowers; in the other, she is meant to be the bewitching vision that hauntsZhivago and indeed every man who sees her. Didn't anyone see how godawful these effects were? Snow drifts
12/16/2015Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago' | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=785057cd-681d-4f8c-8e5d-9e1ead8b61bc&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4down from the ceiling every time something makes a noise or gets jarred, an unintentional precursor to the snowthat will inevitably fall at the finale.One hates to go on. The costumes by Paul Tazewell are handsome, but absurdly so. Even peasants andworking class folk like Pasha look decked out to the nines in what seem to be brand new duds. If it's a characterflaw of Tonia that she refuses to dress down even when it means risking the life of herself and her child, it wouldbe nice to have that pointed out by someone. (Revolution is in the air, she's trying to slip away unnoticed andstill looks like she'd draw attention on Fifth Avenue during Fashion Week.) Lighting and choreography andeverything else are similarly hapless. Director Des McAnuff has enjoyed great triumphs on Broadway like BigRiver and Jersey Boys (which will surely be playing long after Dr. Zhivago) has closed. This won't be one ofthem.Is it the curse of Doctor Zhivago? The novel was used to embarrass the Soviet Union since it takes a veryjaundiced attitude towards the Revolution. (In the show, suddenly some actors come scuttling out like rats andspit out their lines like cartoon villains; they represent the revolutionary spirit. Subtle it's not.) Pasternak won theNobel Prize but everyone he knew was threatened, his home surrounded, his mistress threatened andPasternak had to refuse the honor, dying of cancer in two years, frightened for those he loved.The film was a massive commercial hit for director David Lean. But it's been pilloried by critics ever since andseen its stock fall dramatically (whatever Wikipedia may say). His career was immediately entombed creatively,with Lean struggling to make just two more films in the last 26 years of his life, with one of them being thedisastrous Ryan's Daughter. And now we have this woeful stage musical. Isn't this what out of town tryouts arefor?THEATER OF 2015Honeymoon In Vegas ** The Woodsman *** Constellations ** 1/2 Taylor Mac's A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music 1930s-1950s ** 1/2 Let The Right One In ** Da no rating A Month In The Country ** 1/2 Parade in Concert at Lincoln Center ** 1/2 Hamilton at the Public *** The World Of Extreme Happiness ** 1/2 Broadway By The Year 1915-1940 ** Verite * 1/2 Fabulous! * The Mystery Of Love & Sex ** An Octoroon at Polonsky Shakespeare Center *** 1/2 Fish In The Dark * The Audience *** Josephine And I *** Posterity * 1/2 The Hunchback Of Notre Dame ** Lonesome Traveler ** On The Twentieth Century *** Radio City Music Hall's New York Spring Spectacular ** 1/2 The Heidi Chronicles *
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=785057cd-681d-4f8c-8e5d-9e1ead8b61bc&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago'Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago'DOCTOR ZHIVAGO no stars out of **** BROADWAY THEATRENever try to conquer Russia in winter. Napoleon ignored this lesson and paid dearly. Hitler ignored this lessonand it cost him World War II. Now director Des McAnuff and his foolhardy team of craftsmen and actors havefoundered miserably in that same punishing landscape with little warmth and even littler imagination. It beggarsbelief that this show has been in development for so long, even fully mounted in Australia and yet still theyforged ahead. Investors saw what they had to work with and gave it a full airing and saw how much it lacked (thereviews weren't any better years ago) and still they forged ahead. In-demand, Tony-winning talent behind thescenes realized this wasn't going to be a feather in their cap. But they forged ahead, like those mad invaderswho had come so far they couldn't cut their losses but preferred to lose it all on the vain hope of somehowturning things around.One feels most for the foot soldiers, the actors who are always looking for work and not yet name brands whocan pick a choose. A major role in a new Broadway musical! How could they say no? One understands but thechoice -- unfortunately -- will be much easier for audiences.The busy yet somehow still incoherent story is about the poet and physician Yuri Zhivago (Tam Mutu). He is partof high society despite his father's dissolute fall. Zhivago marries well, albeit dutifully; indeed, Zhivago and hiswife Tonia (Lora Lee Gayer) seem bored with each other even on their wedding day.That's when he fatefully spies the enigmatic, the beautiful, the doomed and glorious Lara (Kelli Barrett). Sheattempts to kill the oily Victor Komarovsky (Tom Hewitt), a hateful manipulator who preyed first on Lara's motherand then Lara herself (not to mention sucking the life out of Zhivago's father). She fails to kill him, but not beforebewitching both Zhivago and Komarovsky into yearning for her over the ensuing decades.Though Lara considers herself soiled goods, she dutifully marries the firebrand Pasha (Paul Alexander Nolan).He's always ready to mount the barricades (notably more ready for that than mounting Lara on theirunconsummated wedding night). But hearing of the aristocratic Komarovsky deflowering his love sends Pashainto a frenzy. He heads off to war to incite revolution on the front lines, but goes seemingly mad, terrorizing thecountry around Lara's home, stalking her mercilessly and doing anything in his power to woo her back. So wehave three men: the godly Zhivago of the aristocracy and Russia's glorious literary past, the cruel Komarovskywho would fit right in with Putin's gang and the crazed revolutionary Pasha who uses the cries of the powerlessfor his own mad designs. And they all love Lara.That's the story. But the presentation of the story is a failure from start to finish, with the overall effect of a verypoor man's Les Miserables. I really enjoy that musical but I don't know many theater buffs or critics that do. It's anutty idea to take such a sprawling novel as Victor Hugo's and turn it into a pop opera; but by God it's effectivein a broad brush-stroke way and filled with memorable tunes.Think it's easy? We've spent the last 30 years watching people try to do it again -- A Tale Of Two Cities, TheScarlet Pimpernel, Jane Eyre, the recent Hunchback Of Notre Dame to name just a few -- but failing, oftencompletely. On the most basic level of story, this attempt is confusing. Almost immediately Zhivago and his wifeseem indifferent to each other, though I've no idea why. More crucially Lara seems to love the hot-blooded
12/16/2015Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago' | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=785057cd-681d-4f8c-8e5d-9e1ead8b61bc&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4Pasha. He goes off to war and is believed lost. Quite reasonably, she falls for the soulful and world famous poetYuri Zhivago while they're healing the wounded during WW I. (His marriage is an inconvenience best leftunmentioned.) As far as we know, Lara believes she is a widow.Yet, her husband appears again in the small town where Lara lives under an assumed name. He terrorizeseveryone else but stays away from her. So it's a little shocking and surprising to find out she knows this demonis her husband. When did she find out he wasn't dead? Wasn't she happy to see him? Why are they estranged -- other than his madness, which seems mostly rooted in the fact that she won't be with him?Similarly, Lara and Zhivago love each other deeply but he maintains his marriage and sees her only at thelibrary. When Zhivago's wife Tonia shows up at that same library (Zhivago has gone missing), the drama isagain muddied entirely. In one brief scene, we realize Tonia knows Zhivago is cheating on her, confronts Laraand finds that their mutual love for Zhivago -- not to mention Lara's shining decency and goodness -- allowsTonia to make her peace with Lara in a heartbeat. So much for drama: we're given betrayal, battle andresolution in about three minutes, tops. Countless other examples abound.Mind you, this is a musical so if it had good songs many ills would be forgiven. It doesn't. The flat, unimaginativerhymes and bland anthems are too numerous to mention. In David Lean's turgid film version of Doctor Zhivago,Maurice Jarre's theme for Lara was pounded into the dirt. It was used so extensively that you almost despairevery time it pops up on the soundtrack. The tune was set to lyrics and became a smash hit called "SomewhereMy Love." That version springs up in the middle of act one, a simple folk tune sung by nurses that is like anoasis in the desert, or should I say a warm fire in the wasteland of the steppes. I was sorry they didn't give it areprise. The one modest exception is a quiet ballad called "Watch The Moon" (Lucy Simon of The SecretGarden did the music and the lyrics are by the team of Michael Korie and Amy Powers).Certainly the songs are sung well by a cast that is valiant even in despair. Mutu is fine as Zhivago and belts outhis big numbers with passion and vigor. Nolan is especially good in the early stages, when Pasha makes a littlemore sense. In the thankless, modest role of Tonia, Gayer sings with a lovely tone and acts appropriatelyresigned. Hewitt keeps his dignity intact more than the others as the wily Komarovsky, almost managing tocreate a vivid, opportunistic character out of this mess. One hates to judge any actor's talent in the context ofsuch a show, but it must be said that Barrett is notably as misguided and bad as the show, delivering at mostone broad emotion at a time when not singing in a strained voice. The pressure of Julie Christie's shadow? Thestrain of being the central object of desire in a train wreck of a show? Who knows?It doesn't help that Barrett is the only blonde within a hundred miles of Zhivago. Every other woman on stage isa brunette or black-haired and I'm a little surprised they didn't ban blondes from the audience. It's a ham-fistedvisual idea, typical for the show. The scenic design by Michael Scott-Mitchell is hopelessly ugly. The idea of asort of flat-bed platform to stand in for a train is especially misguided but that's just one of many touches, like thewould-be iconic jumble of chairs or the simple wooden desk that remains on stage most of the night and seemsto be sat at by just about every character at one point or another.The low point surely is an abandoned mansion at the finale where Zhivago and Lara hide out at winter. It's socartoonish in design, with cardboard icicles hanging down from the ceiling that it looks like something one woulduse for a stage adaptation of a tale about Santa Claus, not a realistic epic about Russia amidst revolution.In an awful idea, video projections are used throughout. Poorly designed by Sean Nieuwenhuis, they'redesperately unattractive and distracting attempts to intimate flames and crowds and snow and other mayhem.But even they become absurd when photographs of random folk are displayed on a large scrim or the deeplyunfortunate choice to have video of Lara loom overhead at two key moments. In one video/image, she isnaughtily dressed and her gown lowers; in the other, she is meant to be the bewitching vision that hauntsZhivago and indeed every man who sees her. Didn't anyone see how godawful these effects were? Snow drifts
12/16/2015Theater: The Curse of 'Doctor Zhivago' | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=785057cd-681d-4f8c-8e5d-9e1ead8b61bc&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4down from the ceiling every time something makes a noise or gets jarred, an unintentional precursor to the snowthat will inevitably fall at the finale.One hates to go on. The costumes by Paul Tazewell are handsome, but absurdly so. Even peasants andworking class folk like Pasha look decked out to the nines in what seem to be brand new duds. If it's a characterflaw of Tonia that she refuses to dress down even when it means risking the life of herself and her child, it wouldbe nice to have that pointed out by someone. (Revolution is in the air, she's trying to slip away unnoticed andstill looks like she'd draw attention on Fifth Avenue during Fashion Week.) Lighting and choreography andeverything else are similarly hapless. Director Des McAnuff has enjoyed great triumphs on Broadway like BigRiver and Jersey Boys (which will surely be playing long after Dr. Zhivago) has closed. This won't be one ofthem.Is it the curse of Doctor Zhivago? The novel was used to embarrass the Soviet Union since it takes a veryjaundiced attitude towards the Revolution. (In the show, suddenly some actors come scuttling out like rats andspit out their lines like cartoon villains; they represent the revolutionary spirit. Subtle it's not.) Pasternak won theNobel Prize but everyone he knew was threatened, his home surrounded, his mistress threatened andPasternak had to refuse the honor, dying of cancer in two years, frightened for those he loved.The film was a massive commercial hit for director David Lean. But it's been pilloried by critics ever since andseen its stock fall dramatically (whatever Wikipedia may say). His career was immediately entombed creatively,with Lean struggling to make just two more films in the last 26 years of his life, with one of them being thedisastrous Ryan's Daughter. And now we have this woeful stage musical. Isn't this what out of town tryouts arefor?THEATER OF 2015Honeymoon In Vegas ** The Woodsman *** Constellations ** 1/2 Taylor Mac's A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music 1930s-1950s ** 1/2 Let The Right One In ** Da no rating A Month In The Country ** 1/2 Parade in Concert at Lincoln Center ** 1/2 Hamilton at the Public *** The World Of Extreme Happiness ** 1/2 Broadway By The Year 1915-1940 ** Verite * 1/2 Fabulous! * The Mystery Of Love & Sex ** An Octoroon at Polonsky Shakespeare Center *** 1/2 Fish In The Dark * The Audience *** Josephine And I *** Posterity * 1/2 The Hunchback Of Notre Dame ** Lonesome Traveler ** On The Twentieth Century *** Radio City Music Hall's New York Spring Spectacular ** 1/2 The Heidi Chronicles *