Arrived in New York on Saturday, to gorgeous, crisp, sunny weather. But Sunday turned downright cold and rain is expected today.
Sunday evening I saw Finding Neverland, the new musical based on the 2004 movie that starred Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and Kate Winslet as the widow whose four kids inspired the timeless fable of the boy who never grew up.
The musical was savaged by the New York critics last week, which lowered my expectations considerably. The audience was packed with fans of Matthew Morrison (of Glee fame) and they cheered every number and laughed at all the jokes, lame and otherwise.
Although the show is uneven, not nearly as good as this audience thought it was, there is a lot to like in the score by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, in the staging by Diane Paulus and the quirky choreography by Mia Michaels. Surely some of the resistance to the show is due to the heavy-handed offstage presence of producer Harvey Weinstein, a bull in the Broadway china shop.
Finding Neverland may not be a great show, but audiences that are indifferent to reviews are eating it up. Expect it to have a healthy run, while being largely ignored for Tony nominations.
On Saturday, I began my theatergoing week with Dr. Zhivago (yes, The Musical), which sounds like a joke in search of a punch line. The show features music by Lucy Simon (The Secret Garden) and lyrics by Michael Korie (Grey Gardens) and newcomer Amy Powers, who have been working on the musical for the past two decades. It clearly wants to be the next Les Misérables, and it begins with musical material that is at least as improbable.
I saw a press preview, with the show not opening officially until later this week, so I can’t get more specific about my opinion yet, but suffice it to note that the creative team felt the need to cave in to audience demands by adding in the movie version’s big music theme, Somewhere, My Love. Not a good sign.
Next up: The broadly comic Elizabethan send-up of how the musical was invented, Something Rotten!