artvandelay
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The buzz on Tarzan sounds spot on.
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BROADWAY'S TARZAN and JANE
- Thread starter BRER STITCH
- Start date
nicholas
New Member
Talkin Broadway Review
Tarzan
Theatre Review by Matthew Murray - May 10, 2006
Tarzan Tarzan Music and lyrics by Phil Collins. Book by David Henry Hwang. Based on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Disney film Tarzan, screenplay by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker & Noni White, directed by Kevin Lima & Chris Buck. Direction by Bon Crowley. Choreography by Meryl Tankard. Choreography by Meryl Tankard. Aerial design by Pichón Baldinu. Scenic and costume design by Bob Crowley. Lighting design by Natasha Katz. Sound design by John Shivers. Hair design by David Brian Brown. Make-up design by Naomi Donne. Soundscape by Lon Bender. Special creatures by Ivo Coveney. Fight direction by Rick Sordelet. Vocal arrangements by Paul Bogaev. Dance arrangements by Jim Abbott. Orchestrations by Doug Besterman. Musical Director Jim Abbott. Music Coordinator Michael Keller. Cast: Josh Strickland, Jenn Gambatese, Merle Dandridge, Chester Gregory II, Tim Jerome, Donnie Keshawarz, Daniel Manche, Alex Rutherford, and Shuler Hensley; Darrin Baker, Marcus Bellamy, Celina Carvajal, Dwayne Clark, Veronica deSoyza, Kearran Giovanni, Michael Hollick, Joshua Kobak, Kara Madrid, Kevin Massey, Anastacia McCleskey, Rika Okamoto, Marlyn Ortiz, Whitney Osentoski, John Elliot Oyzon, Andy Pellick, Angela Phillips, Stefan Raulston, Horace V. Rogers, Sean Samuels, Nick Sanchez, Niki Scalera, Natalie Silverlieb, JD Aubrey Smith, Rachel Stern.
Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 West 46th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenues
Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes, with one intermission
Schedule: Tuesday through Saturday at 8 PM, Wednesday and Saturday at 2 PM, Sunday at 3 PM
Ticket price: Orchestra and Front Mezzanine $251.25 - $111.25, Rear Mezzanine $91.25 - $51.25
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Don't believe anyone who tells you there's no entertainment value in Tarzan. While Disney's stage adaptation of its 1999 animated film, which just opened at the Richard Rodgers, might at first seem a theatrical black hole, there are in fact numerous joys for the intrepid theatregoer.
And, believe it or not, they're found in David Henry Hwang's libretto. Where else could ammunition for mockery be proffered so readily, practically on a silver platter? Following are several sample lines from Tarzan's book, along with possible retorts. Theatre lovers are encouraged, nay expected, to devise their own as well:
"Not everybody can fall down that often and still get up!" "Disney Theatricals does a great job!"
"'Can't' is a box in which we hold our limitations." "You mean like the Richard Rodgers?"
"You're rapidly sliding down the evolutionary ladder!" "Tarzan proves there's not much farther for theatre to go!"
Yes, we can thank Hwang for the hours and hours of fun to be derived from Tarzan's book. But for the fact that hardly any of it is intentional, and that this bloated behemoth is one of the most deadening shows to arrive on Broadway since the last Hwang-Disney collaboration of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida in 2000, we must blame Hwang and director Bob Crowley. They've worked tirelessly to make this adaptation of Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White's Disney screenplay and Edgar Rice Burroughs's original story as offensive to serious theatregoers as it is inoffensive to mass audiences.
Julie Taymor successfully courted both groups with her direction for Disney's stage adaptation of The Lion King, using tried-and-true techniques to deliver sumptuous visuals while serving the story. And during the isolated times that happens in Tarzan, the results are as close to impressive as anything is here: The harrowing opening sequence, depicting the storm, shipwreck, and fateful Africa landfall of Tarzan's parents, suggests Crowley is following Taymor's visionary example in creating a spectacular, kinetic theatrical event.
But as soon as it's time to focus on the titular ape man, Tarzan becomes a huge, vine-entangled mess. It's clear that, following Tarzan's parents' deaths, apes Kerchak (Tony winner Shuler Hensley) and Kala (Merle Dandridge) raise him to youth (Daniel Manche and Alex Rutherford alternate) and adulthood (Josh Strickland), that Alpha Male Kerchak perceives him as a danger to the tribe, and that Tarzan falls for beautiful visiting biologist Jane Porter (Jenn Gambatese). But it seems that no vision - let alone common sense - has been used to bring this story to life.
The tree-representing "walls" of Crowley's sets look like the tissue-paper-streamer remnants of a birthday party for a child with an unhealthy green fixation. Crowley's costumes are half-hearted Victorian knock-offs for the humans, and for the ape chorus resemble a leather bar on caveman theme night. The mostly successful lighting (Natasha Katz) now and again plays with shadow, silhouette, and perspective in ways that might be effective were they supported by the writing.
As for the aerial design (Pichón Baldinu), it creates some spectacular moments, including a tense fight between Tarzan and a menacing leopard, and a giant moth (which descends from the mezzanine) that Jane discovers upon arrival in Africa. But the enormous, clunky ropes and harnesses that Tarzan and the ape chorus use to swing, rappel, and climb about all levels of the stage do little to conjure a world of illusion rather than one of rabid, jungly camp.
Of course, as the apes and humans are all singing Phil Collins songs, magic was probably always a long shot. Collins, a soft-rock sensation of the 1980s whose career has somehow not waned as his contemporaries' have, has retained his songs for the film (including the syrupy, inexplicably Oscar-winning "You'll Be In My Heart") and penned new ones every bit as forgettable. His lyrics are better than those Bernie Taupin gave this season's other pop-schlock score, Lestat, but are too droning, repetitive, and nonspecific to be even decent theatre music.
Thus the casting of Strickland, an erstwhile American Idol semifinalist, makes sense; he can at least sing in the overblown, overamplified manner Collins's anesthetic music calls for. True, you don't get much deep character work (nor, to be fair, does Hwang's book encourage it). But you do get plenty of vine swinging, backflips, and primal grunting, as befit all good apes living in Meryl Tankard's choreographic wild kingdom.
Of the other performers, only Dandridge creates a believable human being, though unfortunately she's playing an ape. Chester Gregory II doesn't have enough free-wheeling fun with Tarzan's primate pal Terk, and Hensley, in full-force furrowed-eyebrow-brooding mode, has real difficulties overcoming Kerchak's one-level motivations. This means that other performers with less to do - such as Tim Jerome as Jane's well-meaning professor father and Donnie Keshawarz as a bloodthirsty American-hick hunter - have no chance at all.
But if you must pity someone, make it Gambatese. An adept singer and game young actress constantly misused by Broadway (she last starred in All Shook Up), she gets the show's only intentionally funny line (comparing ape-speak to the Romance languages), but is otherwise saddled with nonstop thankless tasks as the story's token Sierra Club representative. How can you help but feel for someone whose introductory number requires her to marvel at Africa's native flora and fauna (which resemble an LSD-fueled Little Shop of Horrors) while rattling off their scientific names in all their incomprehensible glory?
The rest of the lyrics and dialogue could just as well be in Latin, too, for all the difference it would make. But then you'd likely miss timeless lines like Gregory's "Should I be punished for my intelligence?" No, Terk. But Hwang, Crowley, Collins, and the rest should be punished for their lack of it in bringing this fur-trimmed fiasco to Broadway.
Tarzan
Theatre Review by Matthew Murray - May 10, 2006
Tarzan Tarzan Music and lyrics by Phil Collins. Book by David Henry Hwang. Based on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Disney film Tarzan, screenplay by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker & Noni White, directed by Kevin Lima & Chris Buck. Direction by Bon Crowley. Choreography by Meryl Tankard. Choreography by Meryl Tankard. Aerial design by Pichón Baldinu. Scenic and costume design by Bob Crowley. Lighting design by Natasha Katz. Sound design by John Shivers. Hair design by David Brian Brown. Make-up design by Naomi Donne. Soundscape by Lon Bender. Special creatures by Ivo Coveney. Fight direction by Rick Sordelet. Vocal arrangements by Paul Bogaev. Dance arrangements by Jim Abbott. Orchestrations by Doug Besterman. Musical Director Jim Abbott. Music Coordinator Michael Keller. Cast: Josh Strickland, Jenn Gambatese, Merle Dandridge, Chester Gregory II, Tim Jerome, Donnie Keshawarz, Daniel Manche, Alex Rutherford, and Shuler Hensley; Darrin Baker, Marcus Bellamy, Celina Carvajal, Dwayne Clark, Veronica deSoyza, Kearran Giovanni, Michael Hollick, Joshua Kobak, Kara Madrid, Kevin Massey, Anastacia McCleskey, Rika Okamoto, Marlyn Ortiz, Whitney Osentoski, John Elliot Oyzon, Andy Pellick, Angela Phillips, Stefan Raulston, Horace V. Rogers, Sean Samuels, Nick Sanchez, Niki Scalera, Natalie Silverlieb, JD Aubrey Smith, Rachel Stern.
Theatre: Richard Rodgers Theatre, 226 West 46th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenues
Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes, with one intermission
Schedule: Tuesday through Saturday at 8 PM, Wednesday and Saturday at 2 PM, Sunday at 3 PM
Ticket price: Orchestra and Front Mezzanine $251.25 - $111.25, Rear Mezzanine $91.25 - $51.25
Tickets: Ticketmaster
Don't believe anyone who tells you there's no entertainment value in Tarzan. While Disney's stage adaptation of its 1999 animated film, which just opened at the Richard Rodgers, might at first seem a theatrical black hole, there are in fact numerous joys for the intrepid theatregoer.
And, believe it or not, they're found in David Henry Hwang's libretto. Where else could ammunition for mockery be proffered so readily, practically on a silver platter? Following are several sample lines from Tarzan's book, along with possible retorts. Theatre lovers are encouraged, nay expected, to devise their own as well:
"Not everybody can fall down that often and still get up!" "Disney Theatricals does a great job!"
"'Can't' is a box in which we hold our limitations." "You mean like the Richard Rodgers?"
"You're rapidly sliding down the evolutionary ladder!" "Tarzan proves there's not much farther for theatre to go!"
Yes, we can thank Hwang for the hours and hours of fun to be derived from Tarzan's book. But for the fact that hardly any of it is intentional, and that this bloated behemoth is one of the most deadening shows to arrive on Broadway since the last Hwang-Disney collaboration of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida in 2000, we must blame Hwang and director Bob Crowley. They've worked tirelessly to make this adaptation of Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White's Disney screenplay and Edgar Rice Burroughs's original story as offensive to serious theatregoers as it is inoffensive to mass audiences.
Julie Taymor successfully courted both groups with her direction for Disney's stage adaptation of The Lion King, using tried-and-true techniques to deliver sumptuous visuals while serving the story. And during the isolated times that happens in Tarzan, the results are as close to impressive as anything is here: The harrowing opening sequence, depicting the storm, shipwreck, and fateful Africa landfall of Tarzan's parents, suggests Crowley is following Taymor's visionary example in creating a spectacular, kinetic theatrical event.
But as soon as it's time to focus on the titular ape man, Tarzan becomes a huge, vine-entangled mess. It's clear that, following Tarzan's parents' deaths, apes Kerchak (Tony winner Shuler Hensley) and Kala (Merle Dandridge) raise him to youth (Daniel Manche and Alex Rutherford alternate) and adulthood (Josh Strickland), that Alpha Male Kerchak perceives him as a danger to the tribe, and that Tarzan falls for beautiful visiting biologist Jane Porter (Jenn Gambatese). But it seems that no vision - let alone common sense - has been used to bring this story to life.
The tree-representing "walls" of Crowley's sets look like the tissue-paper-streamer remnants of a birthday party for a child with an unhealthy green fixation. Crowley's costumes are half-hearted Victorian knock-offs for the humans, and for the ape chorus resemble a leather bar on caveman theme night. The mostly successful lighting (Natasha Katz) now and again plays with shadow, silhouette, and perspective in ways that might be effective were they supported by the writing.
As for the aerial design (Pichón Baldinu), it creates some spectacular moments, including a tense fight between Tarzan and a menacing leopard, and a giant moth (which descends from the mezzanine) that Jane discovers upon arrival in Africa. But the enormous, clunky ropes and harnesses that Tarzan and the ape chorus use to swing, rappel, and climb about all levels of the stage do little to conjure a world of illusion rather than one of rabid, jungly camp.
Of course, as the apes and humans are all singing Phil Collins songs, magic was probably always a long shot. Collins, a soft-rock sensation of the 1980s whose career has somehow not waned as his contemporaries' have, has retained his songs for the film (including the syrupy, inexplicably Oscar-winning "You'll Be In My Heart") and penned new ones every bit as forgettable. His lyrics are better than those Bernie Taupin gave this season's other pop-schlock score, Lestat, but are too droning, repetitive, and nonspecific to be even decent theatre music.
Thus the casting of Strickland, an erstwhile American Idol semifinalist, makes sense; he can at least sing in the overblown, overamplified manner Collins's anesthetic music calls for. True, you don't get much deep character work (nor, to be fair, does Hwang's book encourage it). But you do get plenty of vine swinging, backflips, and primal grunting, as befit all good apes living in Meryl Tankard's choreographic wild kingdom.
Of the other performers, only Dandridge creates a believable human being, though unfortunately she's playing an ape. Chester Gregory II doesn't have enough free-wheeling fun with Tarzan's primate pal Terk, and Hensley, in full-force furrowed-eyebrow-brooding mode, has real difficulties overcoming Kerchak's one-level motivations. This means that other performers with less to do - such as Tim Jerome as Jane's well-meaning professor father and Donnie Keshawarz as a bloodthirsty American-hick hunter - have no chance at all.
But if you must pity someone, make it Gambatese. An adept singer and game young actress constantly misused by Broadway (she last starred in All Shook Up), she gets the show's only intentionally funny line (comparing ape-speak to the Romance languages), but is otherwise saddled with nonstop thankless tasks as the story's token Sierra Club representative. How can you help but feel for someone whose introductory number requires her to marvel at Africa's native flora and fauna (which resemble an LSD-fueled Little Shop of Horrors) while rattling off their scientific names in all their incomprehensible glory?
The rest of the lyrics and dialogue could just as well be in Latin, too, for all the difference it would make. But then you'd likely miss timeless lines like Gregory's "Should I be punished for my intelligence?" No, Terk. But Hwang, Crowley, Collins, and the rest should be punished for their lack of it in bringing this fur-trimmed fiasco to Broadway.
nicholas
New Member
And finally the NY Times (that's enough for one night, I should think. someone else can post the rest 
)
Tarzan Arrives on Broadway, Airborne
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: May 11, 2006
The tree-surfing title character is not the only creature sailing through the air in "Tarzan," the giant, writhing green blob with music that opened last night at the Richard Rodgers Theater. Apes, flowers, moths, a snake, a leopard, a hut-size spider, two shipwrecked Victorians, an English botanist in her underwear: no sooner do such figures make their entrances in this restless adaptation of the 1999 Disney animated film than they find themselves pulled into some kind of airborne aerobics.
Almost everybody and everything swings in "Tarzan." Which is odd, since the show itself, to borrow from Duke Ellington's famous credo, definitely ain't got that swing.
"Tarzan" is the latest, and most insistently kinetic, offering from Disney Theatrical Productions, the Goliath that conquered little old Broadway by turning cartoon movies from its mother company into stage shows, including "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King." Directed (and largely designed) by Bob Crowley, with songs by Phil Collins and a book by David Henry Hwang, "Tarzan" feels as fidgety and attention-deficient as the toddlers who kept straying from their seats during the performance I saw.
Though much money (a reported $12 million to $15 million) and international research (with special emphasis on what a character in the show calls pendulation) has been lavished on "Tarzan," it somehow never acquired the art of focus. Momentous events — from fatal fights with evil animals to Freudian struggles between parents and children of two species — occur regularly in the course of this retelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs's evergreen adventure novel. But any tension or excitement is routinely sabotaged by overkill and diffuseness.
No moment seems to carry more dramatic weight than any other. All instances of swinging (and they are countless) have been created equal. And Mr. Collins's soda-pop songs (expanded from those he wrote for the film) surface and evaporate more or less at random, like bubbles on a pond. The whole experience starts to feel like a super-deluxe day care center, equipped with lots of bungee cords and karaoke synthesizers, where kids can swing when they get tired of singing and vice versa.
The Disney film on which this "Tarzan" is based remains a charmer, notable for its vivid dimensional perspective and the chameleon virtuosity of its hero (given voice by Tony Goldwyn), who never met an animal he couldn't imitate. As several members of the movie's creative team observed in commentary that comes with the DVD version, it required animation to create the physically protean Tarzan of Burroughs's imagination. A live actor, it was suggested, could never begin to capture the ape-man's animal artistry.
Which goes to prove, employees of Disney, that you should be very careful what you say when a camera is running, even when the camera comes from the head office. For we now have conclusive evidence that the Disneyfied Tarzan does indeed flatten perversely when translated from two dimensions into three.
A few somersaults and cartwheels, plus hovering in a suspended harness, just don't convince you that this show's grown-up Tarzan (played by Josh Strickland, an "American Idol" contestant) can float like a butterfly, sting like a serpent, swing like an ape and love like a man.
Clearly at some point the show's creators decided that if they could just get the swinging part right, then everything else would fall into place. So they recruited Pichón Baldinu, the Argentine theater artist responsible for the Off Broadway hit "De La Guarda," an antic revue performed mostly in midair.
Mr. Baldinu may be the king of his area of specialization, but his skills have been drawn upon too generously. The opening scene, which portrays the shipwreck that brings baby Tarzan and his English parents to the African coast, finds mom, dad and child floating behind a watery scrim. Shortly thereafter, a host of vine-riding, hooting apes flies over the audience.
After that, I hate to say, the thrill is gone. And the moments when flying should take on wondrous emotional significance — like when the child Tarzan (alternately portrayed by Daniel Manche and Alex Rutherford) first learns to ride the wild vines — pass by almost unnoticed.
Like the Disney movie, the stage "Tarzan" emphasizes family-therapy dynamics and uplifting messages about misfits finding their places in the world. Tarzan has Oedipal issues with his grouchy adoptive ape father, Kerchak (Shuler Hensley, of the mighty baritone, a Tony winner for his Jud in "Oklahoma"), and adoring mother, Kala (Merle Dandridge).
Jane Porter (Jenn Gambatese), the plucky English botanist, must also declare her independence from her father, a doting and dithery Darwinian professor (Tim Jerome), while shedding her maidenly Victorian inhibitions. (Actually, Ms. Gambatese's Jane seems ready to strip down to her underwear and party from the moment she sets foot in the jungle, and she openly drools over Mr. Strickland's naked torso in the manner of Miss Hathaway ogling the muscular Jethro in "The Beverly Hillbillies.")
There are also an assortment of vignettes — featuring Kerchak, Kala and Tarzan's best friend, Terk (Chester Gregory II, the show's liveliest presence) — that could collectively be described as "Apes: They're Just Like Us!" This means that Kerchak and Kala have a syrupy reconciliation song that might have been lifted from "I Do! I Do!"
In contrast to the treacle of Mr. Collins's music and lyrics is the abrasively wiseguy tone of the script by Mr. Hwang ("M. Butterfly," the book for the Disney musical "Aida"). "Do you know how many apes are lost to underripe bananas?" asks Terk, trying to steal Tarzan's snack. "It's a silent epidemic." And the Latin-quoting Jane, upon realizing she is trapped in that spider's web, says, "O excrementum!"
Better, perhaps, to shift your attention from plot and dialogue to song and dance, except that it's often impossible to tell who's singing. (Even solos are coated with layers of disembodied offstage voices.) And Meryl Tankard's choreography is just a grounded version of Mr. Baldinu's aerial acrobatics.
So that leaves you with the visuals, and since Mr. Crowley is known to be a brilliant stage designer (his work includes the Lincoln Center "Carousel" and the Broadway-bound "Mary Poppins"), there should be plenty to divert the eye. Well, the apes — who suggest a cross between heavy-metal band refugees and Daryl Hannah in "The Clan of the Cave Bear" — are certainly novel looking. And those floating, singing flowers have a kind of "Fantasia" appeal.
But only Natasha Katz's lighting, especially the impressionist dots that suggest flocks of butterflies, summons a magical spirit. Otherwise all those layers and layers of green — walls of shredded cloth and scrims and floor coverings — start to induce claustrophobia after a while. No wonder the cast members spend so much time in the air. Even with a personal spotlight, no one has much of a chance of standing out in this oppressive jungle.
)Tarzan Arrives on Broadway, Airborne
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: May 11, 2006
The tree-surfing title character is not the only creature sailing through the air in "Tarzan," the giant, writhing green blob with music that opened last night at the Richard Rodgers Theater. Apes, flowers, moths, a snake, a leopard, a hut-size spider, two shipwrecked Victorians, an English botanist in her underwear: no sooner do such figures make their entrances in this restless adaptation of the 1999 Disney animated film than they find themselves pulled into some kind of airborne aerobics.
Almost everybody and everything swings in "Tarzan." Which is odd, since the show itself, to borrow from Duke Ellington's famous credo, definitely ain't got that swing.
"Tarzan" is the latest, and most insistently kinetic, offering from Disney Theatrical Productions, the Goliath that conquered little old Broadway by turning cartoon movies from its mother company into stage shows, including "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Lion King." Directed (and largely designed) by Bob Crowley, with songs by Phil Collins and a book by David Henry Hwang, "Tarzan" feels as fidgety and attention-deficient as the toddlers who kept straying from their seats during the performance I saw.
Though much money (a reported $12 million to $15 million) and international research (with special emphasis on what a character in the show calls pendulation) has been lavished on "Tarzan," it somehow never acquired the art of focus. Momentous events — from fatal fights with evil animals to Freudian struggles between parents and children of two species — occur regularly in the course of this retelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs's evergreen adventure novel. But any tension or excitement is routinely sabotaged by overkill and diffuseness.
No moment seems to carry more dramatic weight than any other. All instances of swinging (and they are countless) have been created equal. And Mr. Collins's soda-pop songs (expanded from those he wrote for the film) surface and evaporate more or less at random, like bubbles on a pond. The whole experience starts to feel like a super-deluxe day care center, equipped with lots of bungee cords and karaoke synthesizers, where kids can swing when they get tired of singing and vice versa.
The Disney film on which this "Tarzan" is based remains a charmer, notable for its vivid dimensional perspective and the chameleon virtuosity of its hero (given voice by Tony Goldwyn), who never met an animal he couldn't imitate. As several members of the movie's creative team observed in commentary that comes with the DVD version, it required animation to create the physically protean Tarzan of Burroughs's imagination. A live actor, it was suggested, could never begin to capture the ape-man's animal artistry.
Which goes to prove, employees of Disney, that you should be very careful what you say when a camera is running, even when the camera comes from the head office. For we now have conclusive evidence that the Disneyfied Tarzan does indeed flatten perversely when translated from two dimensions into three.
A few somersaults and cartwheels, plus hovering in a suspended harness, just don't convince you that this show's grown-up Tarzan (played by Josh Strickland, an "American Idol" contestant) can float like a butterfly, sting like a serpent, swing like an ape and love like a man.
Clearly at some point the show's creators decided that if they could just get the swinging part right, then everything else would fall into place. So they recruited Pichón Baldinu, the Argentine theater artist responsible for the Off Broadway hit "De La Guarda," an antic revue performed mostly in midair.
Mr. Baldinu may be the king of his area of specialization, but his skills have been drawn upon too generously. The opening scene, which portrays the shipwreck that brings baby Tarzan and his English parents to the African coast, finds mom, dad and child floating behind a watery scrim. Shortly thereafter, a host of vine-riding, hooting apes flies over the audience.
After that, I hate to say, the thrill is gone. And the moments when flying should take on wondrous emotional significance — like when the child Tarzan (alternately portrayed by Daniel Manche and Alex Rutherford) first learns to ride the wild vines — pass by almost unnoticed.
Like the Disney movie, the stage "Tarzan" emphasizes family-therapy dynamics and uplifting messages about misfits finding their places in the world. Tarzan has Oedipal issues with his grouchy adoptive ape father, Kerchak (Shuler Hensley, of the mighty baritone, a Tony winner for his Jud in "Oklahoma"), and adoring mother, Kala (Merle Dandridge).
Jane Porter (Jenn Gambatese), the plucky English botanist, must also declare her independence from her father, a doting and dithery Darwinian professor (Tim Jerome), while shedding her maidenly Victorian inhibitions. (Actually, Ms. Gambatese's Jane seems ready to strip down to her underwear and party from the moment she sets foot in the jungle, and she openly drools over Mr. Strickland's naked torso in the manner of Miss Hathaway ogling the muscular Jethro in "The Beverly Hillbillies.")
There are also an assortment of vignettes — featuring Kerchak, Kala and Tarzan's best friend, Terk (Chester Gregory II, the show's liveliest presence) — that could collectively be described as "Apes: They're Just Like Us!" This means that Kerchak and Kala have a syrupy reconciliation song that might have been lifted from "I Do! I Do!"
In contrast to the treacle of Mr. Collins's music and lyrics is the abrasively wiseguy tone of the script by Mr. Hwang ("M. Butterfly," the book for the Disney musical "Aida"). "Do you know how many apes are lost to underripe bananas?" asks Terk, trying to steal Tarzan's snack. "It's a silent epidemic." And the Latin-quoting Jane, upon realizing she is trapped in that spider's web, says, "O excrementum!"
Better, perhaps, to shift your attention from plot and dialogue to song and dance, except that it's often impossible to tell who's singing. (Even solos are coated with layers of disembodied offstage voices.) And Meryl Tankard's choreography is just a grounded version of Mr. Baldinu's aerial acrobatics.
So that leaves you with the visuals, and since Mr. Crowley is known to be a brilliant stage designer (his work includes the Lincoln Center "Carousel" and the Broadway-bound "Mary Poppins"), there should be plenty to divert the eye. Well, the apes — who suggest a cross between heavy-metal band refugees and Daryl Hannah in "The Clan of the Cave Bear" — are certainly novel looking. And those floating, singing flowers have a kind of "Fantasia" appeal.
But only Natasha Katz's lighting, especially the impressionist dots that suggest flocks of butterflies, summons a magical spirit. Otherwise all those layers and layers of green — walls of shredded cloth and scrims and floor coverings — start to induce claustrophobia after a while. No wonder the cast members spend so much time in the air. Even with a personal spotlight, no one has much of a chance of standing out in this oppressive jungle.
artvandelay
Well-Known Member
Two bad reviews. Broadway.com will have a synopsis of all the reviews by the morning. My prediction, it'll run 5 years and probably never pay back it's initial investment. The show requires a lot of hours each week for maitenance and rehersals, and not just 'work light' rehersals, but full crew rehersals. The weekly nut has to be around $700,000 to $800,000 a week.
cherrynegra
Well-Known Member
Fumble in the Jungle: Disney's Tame 'Tarzan'
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 11, 2006; C01
NEW YORK You Tarzan. Me looking at watch.
Disney's gone back to the jungle -- the scene of its greatest stage success, "The Lion King" -- for an ape's-eye view of "Tarzan," a Broadway extension of the company's 1999 animated movie. The show, which opened last night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, has gorillas in midair, a potential teenybopper idol in loincloth and Phil Collins as show-tune guy.
What it doesn't have much of is drama, and so after you've finished admiring director-designer Bob Crowley's bouncing primates and curtains of green streamers -- it's as if the stage is wrapped in a hula skirt -- you wait for some other appeal to the senses. And then wait some more. Neither a rash of Collins's sound-alike pop ditties nor David Henry Hwang's libretto offers anything like a stirring crescendo. "Tarzan" seems content to mark time with shimmering landscapes and simian calisthenics.
And where the musicalized story of the ape man is concerned, it don't mean a thing if it's just got those swings.
You might say the production's fate hangs by a rope. "Tarzan" employs an "aerial designer": Pichon Baldinu, co-founder of De La Guarda, creators of the high-flying off-Broadway hit "Villa Villa." He puts actors costumed as subtropical flora and fauna in harnesses and dangles them above us. The acrobatics are fine, but anyone who's seen Cirque du Soleil in action might regard the stunt work as less than heart-stopping.
The little ones in the audience will fidget during the leaden dialogue scenes: "Nothing in the jungle has proven more savage than human greed," says the show's standard-issue old-limey-in-safari-wear. They'll settle down, though, any time the gorillas buckle up and lift off. (For the record, Tarzan and his knuckle-dragging crew tend to cling to solitary ropes. They don't attempt much vine-to-vine transport.)
But the core audience might be a slightly older demographic: girls who once swooned over Simba and his "Circle of Life" menagerie and who now, at 13 or 14, are ready for a more adult crush. "Tarzan" submits for their consideration one Josh Strickland, playing a slender, wiry, sweet-faced variation of the ape man. The image clearly has undergone a makeover since the heyday of Johnny Weissmuller or even television's Ron Ely. (If Ely even qualifies for a heyday.)
Strickland's look is more out of the Justin Guarini mold -- in fact, the 22-year-old was bounced from "American Idol" a few seasons back. It's hard to tell what kind of career is ahead of him, because in this outing he's called on mostly to act with his torso. Strickland's crown of unruly blond dreadlocks obscures his expression much of the time, and the gawky, apelike mannerisms he's required to flash for his intruding fellow sapiens get old fast. Still, he's clearly meant to be the show's designated babe -- sorry, Jane -- and young girls might go gaga the way they do for that taciturn, wild-looking boy in trigonometry class.
As set designer, Crowley has a glorious eye, a talent he's demonstrated on projects as diverse as "The History Boys" and Disney's "Aida." As for his skills as a director: Did we mention that he designs a heck of a set?
No one who put together this production seems to have noticed that almost nothing happens in Act 1. The show's first hour is a slog through the story of Tarzan's orphaning and rescue by a "tribe" of gorillas. As is sometimes the case in an underdeveloped musical, the opening minutes are the most scrupulously detailed: The shipwreck that immerses baby Tarzan and his parents off the African coast is bewitchingly staged. (A later duet under the stars, for Tarzan and Jenn Gambatese's Jane, is a similar exercise in technical wizardry.)
Crowley, Hwang and Collins have decided that "Tarzan" is essentially an adoption story, with a hero whose identity crisis has to do with whether he's really meant for a life of picking nits out of relatives' fur. Little insight is offered, however, that would help an audience understand what Tarzan desires (besides Jane) or why we would wring our hands over whether he gets it. Not until the end of Act 1, when he meets Jane, does grown-up Tarzan -- he's played by a child, Daniel Manche, for much of the hour -- even get a song of his own.
The plot becomes more urgent in the second act, with the emergence of a villain, the expedition leader (Donnie Keshawarz) who brings Jane and her father (Timothy Jerome) to gorilla territory. The properly British Jane somehow manages to teach Tarzan to speak English with an American accent, but who's really paying attention? The mechanics all feel wan, perfunctory. Even the war of nerves between Tarzan and his gorilla dad -- the great Shuler Hensley, in a harsh, thankless role -- goes nowhere. Weakest of all are the lame attempts at humor, assigned mostly to Chester Gregory II, a talented actor who's compelled to deliver unfunny-sidekick asides.
Occasionally, a familiar Collins tune from the Disney movie crops up: "You'll Be in My Heart," for example, is sung twice. Other numbers that Collins has added for Broadway just sort of trail off, as they might on the radio.
Such is the fly-by wispiness of "Tarzan," a production with pretty surfaces that bungees unremarkably into thin air.
By Peter Marks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 11, 2006; C01
NEW YORK You Tarzan. Me looking at watch.
Disney's gone back to the jungle -- the scene of its greatest stage success, "The Lion King" -- for an ape's-eye view of "Tarzan," a Broadway extension of the company's 1999 animated movie. The show, which opened last night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, has gorillas in midair, a potential teenybopper idol in loincloth and Phil Collins as show-tune guy.
What it doesn't have much of is drama, and so after you've finished admiring director-designer Bob Crowley's bouncing primates and curtains of green streamers -- it's as if the stage is wrapped in a hula skirt -- you wait for some other appeal to the senses. And then wait some more. Neither a rash of Collins's sound-alike pop ditties nor David Henry Hwang's libretto offers anything like a stirring crescendo. "Tarzan" seems content to mark time with shimmering landscapes and simian calisthenics.
And where the musicalized story of the ape man is concerned, it don't mean a thing if it's just got those swings.
You might say the production's fate hangs by a rope. "Tarzan" employs an "aerial designer": Pichon Baldinu, co-founder of De La Guarda, creators of the high-flying off-Broadway hit "Villa Villa." He puts actors costumed as subtropical flora and fauna in harnesses and dangles them above us. The acrobatics are fine, but anyone who's seen Cirque du Soleil in action might regard the stunt work as less than heart-stopping.
The little ones in the audience will fidget during the leaden dialogue scenes: "Nothing in the jungle has proven more savage than human greed," says the show's standard-issue old-limey-in-safari-wear. They'll settle down, though, any time the gorillas buckle up and lift off. (For the record, Tarzan and his knuckle-dragging crew tend to cling to solitary ropes. They don't attempt much vine-to-vine transport.)
But the core audience might be a slightly older demographic: girls who once swooned over Simba and his "Circle of Life" menagerie and who now, at 13 or 14, are ready for a more adult crush. "Tarzan" submits for their consideration one Josh Strickland, playing a slender, wiry, sweet-faced variation of the ape man. The image clearly has undergone a makeover since the heyday of Johnny Weissmuller or even television's Ron Ely. (If Ely even qualifies for a heyday.)
Strickland's look is more out of the Justin Guarini mold -- in fact, the 22-year-old was bounced from "American Idol" a few seasons back. It's hard to tell what kind of career is ahead of him, because in this outing he's called on mostly to act with his torso. Strickland's crown of unruly blond dreadlocks obscures his expression much of the time, and the gawky, apelike mannerisms he's required to flash for his intruding fellow sapiens get old fast. Still, he's clearly meant to be the show's designated babe -- sorry, Jane -- and young girls might go gaga the way they do for that taciturn, wild-looking boy in trigonometry class.
As set designer, Crowley has a glorious eye, a talent he's demonstrated on projects as diverse as "The History Boys" and Disney's "Aida." As for his skills as a director: Did we mention that he designs a heck of a set?
No one who put together this production seems to have noticed that almost nothing happens in Act 1. The show's first hour is a slog through the story of Tarzan's orphaning and rescue by a "tribe" of gorillas. As is sometimes the case in an underdeveloped musical, the opening minutes are the most scrupulously detailed: The shipwreck that immerses baby Tarzan and his parents off the African coast is bewitchingly staged. (A later duet under the stars, for Tarzan and Jenn Gambatese's Jane, is a similar exercise in technical wizardry.)
Crowley, Hwang and Collins have decided that "Tarzan" is essentially an adoption story, with a hero whose identity crisis has to do with whether he's really meant for a life of picking nits out of relatives' fur. Little insight is offered, however, that would help an audience understand what Tarzan desires (besides Jane) or why we would wring our hands over whether he gets it. Not until the end of Act 1, when he meets Jane, does grown-up Tarzan -- he's played by a child, Daniel Manche, for much of the hour -- even get a song of his own.
The plot becomes more urgent in the second act, with the emergence of a villain, the expedition leader (Donnie Keshawarz) who brings Jane and her father (Timothy Jerome) to gorilla territory. The properly British Jane somehow manages to teach Tarzan to speak English with an American accent, but who's really paying attention? The mechanics all feel wan, perfunctory. Even the war of nerves between Tarzan and his gorilla dad -- the great Shuler Hensley, in a harsh, thankless role -- goes nowhere. Weakest of all are the lame attempts at humor, assigned mostly to Chester Gregory II, a talented actor who's compelled to deliver unfunny-sidekick asides.
Occasionally, a familiar Collins tune from the Disney movie crops up: "You'll Be in My Heart," for example, is sung twice. Other numbers that Collins has added for Broadway just sort of trail off, as they might on the radio.
Such is the fly-by wispiness of "Tarzan," a production with pretty surfaces that bungees unremarkably into thin air.
cherrynegra
Well-Known Member
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — Orthopedists and chiropractors, take note: A golden career opportunity may have just arrived on Broadway.
In the new stage adaptation of Disney's animated film Tarzan (* * * out of four), agile young performers leap, flip and careen through stunts so relentlessly that you could get back pains just watching. Not infrequently, they accomplish these tasks while suspended from wires, adding to their difficulty.
In truth, I'm sure Disney already has the cast and its various body parts well covered. Certainly, the House of Mickey Mouse did not stint on other aspects of this production, which opened Wednesday at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. From Bob Crowley's lush, fanciful scenic and costume design to its intricate uses of animation and projected images, Tarzan offers plenty of the flash considered catnip for tourists and casual fans.
Here, though, it's not empty flash. Not since I saw Elton John's Billy Elliot in London last year have I been as impressed with the uncynical warmth and charm of a kid-friendly musical. Like Elliot, Tarzan has a score by a British pop star, Phil Collins, who reintroduces his adult-contemporary hit You'll Be in My Heart and a few other tunes he wrote for Disney's Tarzan soundtrack. Most songs are new and blend mildly agreeable melodies and Afrocentric rhythms with the odd nod to Gilbert and Sullivan.
But it's David Henry Hwang's sprightly libretto that makes this Tarzan fly. Hwang, whose credits range from Disney's Aida to the Tony Award-winning drama M. Butterfly, contributes a script with a light but full heart, one that aims to amuse and enlighten children without patronizing them, or us.
Hwang slips in sly references to grown-up boys and girls liking each other, particularly after Tarzan's Jane arrives in the jungle and spots her all-too-human hunk. But Tarzan ultimately promotes a broader sense of love and understanding, the kind that binds families together and unites people — and other primates, in this case — who would seem to have little in common.
The apes who take Tarzan in are winningly played by the warm-voiced Merle Dandridge and Shuler Hensley, whose skulking tribe leader reminded me at times of Rip Torn on The Larry Sanders Show.
In the title role, Josh Strickland gives an energetic and no doubt exhausting performance, and manages a goofy chemistry with Jenn Gambatese's veddy British Jane.
Watching these mammals cavort, I found myself thinking of a more highbrow show that hit Broadway recently, The Drowsy Chaperone, which takes a swipe at Disney while lamenting the sorry state of musical theater.
Tarzan is no more a major new musical than Chaperone is. But I'll take the former's good-natured exuberance over the latter's preening irony any day of the week.
NEW YORK — Orthopedists and chiropractors, take note: A golden career opportunity may have just arrived on Broadway.
In the new stage adaptation of Disney's animated film Tarzan (* * * out of four), agile young performers leap, flip and careen through stunts so relentlessly that you could get back pains just watching. Not infrequently, they accomplish these tasks while suspended from wires, adding to their difficulty.
In truth, I'm sure Disney already has the cast and its various body parts well covered. Certainly, the House of Mickey Mouse did not stint on other aspects of this production, which opened Wednesday at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. From Bob Crowley's lush, fanciful scenic and costume design to its intricate uses of animation and projected images, Tarzan offers plenty of the flash considered catnip for tourists and casual fans.
Here, though, it's not empty flash. Not since I saw Elton John's Billy Elliot in London last year have I been as impressed with the uncynical warmth and charm of a kid-friendly musical. Like Elliot, Tarzan has a score by a British pop star, Phil Collins, who reintroduces his adult-contemporary hit You'll Be in My Heart and a few other tunes he wrote for Disney's Tarzan soundtrack. Most songs are new and blend mildly agreeable melodies and Afrocentric rhythms with the odd nod to Gilbert and Sullivan.
But it's David Henry Hwang's sprightly libretto that makes this Tarzan fly. Hwang, whose credits range from Disney's Aida to the Tony Award-winning drama M. Butterfly, contributes a script with a light but full heart, one that aims to amuse and enlighten children without patronizing them, or us.
Hwang slips in sly references to grown-up boys and girls liking each other, particularly after Tarzan's Jane arrives in the jungle and spots her all-too-human hunk. But Tarzan ultimately promotes a broader sense of love and understanding, the kind that binds families together and unites people — and other primates, in this case — who would seem to have little in common.
The apes who take Tarzan in are winningly played by the warm-voiced Merle Dandridge and Shuler Hensley, whose skulking tribe leader reminded me at times of Rip Torn on The Larry Sanders Show.
In the title role, Josh Strickland gives an energetic and no doubt exhausting performance, and manages a goofy chemistry with Jenn Gambatese's veddy British Jane.
Watching these mammals cavort, I found myself thinking of a more highbrow show that hit Broadway recently, The Drowsy Chaperone, which takes a swipe at Disney while lamenting the sorry state of musical theater.
Tarzan is no more a major new musical than Chaperone is. But I'll take the former's good-natured exuberance over the latter's preening irony any day of the week.
nicholas
New Member
Posted a video here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=75308
Richie248
Well-Known Member
The reviews from last night seem to be pretty generous. They seem to lead more toward mixed and I was expecting complete negative. I think the show will last longer than it should, I personally didn't care for it. Disney will redeem itself with Mary Poppins.
You can check out my own "humble" opinion here.
Peace!
You can check out my own "humble" opinion here.
Peace!
cherrynegra
Well-Known Member
Nick, have you seen The Drowsy Chaperone? What are your thoughts?
And I agree about the reviews roundup. I thought the reviews would be brutal. But they seem to fall into the love it/hate it category. Pretty mixed.
And I agree about the reviews roundup. I thought the reviews would be brutal. But they seem to fall into the love it/hate it category. Pretty mixed.
cherrynegra
Well-Known Member
Awwww man!! I'm totally jealous of you guys now!!
cherrynegra
Well-Known Member
nicholas said:
I know!! It's been ages since I've been to NYC. Perhaps in October.:animwink:
crazycalf
New Member
I saw Tarzan yesterday afternoon.
Overall it was pretty good. I like the shipwreck and the shelter building. But after that a lot of the first act seemed to drag. There were too many scenes with Kerchick (sp). The second act was really good. I liked the new songs in this act much better than the first act.
I'm not a big broadway fan and have only seen 2 other shows before. So I was comparing Tarzan to the Tarzan annimated movie. Turk was much better on Broadway. He wasn't annoying like in the movie. There are some other differences but the story is pretty much the same.
Overall it was pretty good. I like the shipwreck and the shelter building. But after that a lot of the first act seemed to drag. There were too many scenes with Kerchick (sp). The second act was really good. I liked the new songs in this act much better than the first act.
I'm not a big broadway fan and have only seen 2 other shows before. So I was comparing Tarzan to the Tarzan annimated movie. Turk was much better on Broadway. He wasn't annoying like in the movie. There are some other differences but the story is pretty much the same.