I had a few quibbles - the vocal mix early on was poor, making it hard to decipher the lyrics, but was fixed by the second hour; John Legend wasn't quite up to the vocal demands of "Gethsemane," but worked his way around it with phrasing; and the cheering of the crowd at inopportune moments was annoying, intrusive, and contrived.
But in just about every other way, this was SUPERB television. I haven't seen every one of the spate of televised musicals in recent years, but this was far better than the ones I've seen in every way. They didn't try to turn it into a live movie; instead they treated it as a highly theatrical arena rock spectacular, and it worked on that level. And while I'm not a huge fan of either Rice or Lloyd Webber, this score has held up really well. Casting was excellent all around. One friend noted that NBC could have easily gone to the lowest common denominator and cast Britney Spears or Katy Perry or one of their imitators as Mary Magdalene, but instead they went with Sara Bareilles, who gave the role a lot of maturity, not to mention some excellent phrasing. John Legend was excellent also. And as a Broadway nut, I was thrilled to see Norm Lewis - with his rich, powerful voice and presence - spotlighted so well. The same goes for Jin Ha. And then there's Brandon Victor Dixon, who I'd already been a fan of from his Broadway work, especially after seeing him as Aaron Burr in "Hamilton." He gave a star-making performance here. Great design work too. I only saw one technical blooper: the shadow of a TV camera projected against the wall. But in a production like this, with head mics and musicians (and occasional hand-held cameras) clearly visible, it almost fit in. On Monday, April 2, 2018 at 2:43:04 AM UTC-4, PGage wrote: > > Bravo NBC! This is how you do a broadway musical on television. Everyone > and everything about this production was really good. Legend was the > perfect choice and was amazing - but the other main players were great too. > Bareilles’s voice was pure. Dixon was outstanding. I loved too the way they > staged it and the images they were able to capture. The thing was > breathtaking. I never saw the show on Broadway, but I have seen it done > professionally (an unprofessionally) many times - and of course the in many > respects unfortunate film. This is how I always imagined it would look. > > I know a lot of people like to bash this show - either Broadway purists or > religious fundamentalists. It is not a perfect show - Hamilton does what > JCS wanted to do so much better that it almost spoiled appreciation for > anything else like it. And I have a few theological bones to pick with it > (I don’t think it is anti-Semitic per se, but it does in some ways serve > the anti-Semitic line if one wants to take it. But those are problems with > the show - I can’t really imagine a production of this show being much > better than what we had tonight. > > If I had two nits to pick: 1) the soloists were so strong, I wished the > chorus could have been, in some key spots, just another level or two > stronger. Maybe they could have had a standing choir in the background to > support the players who were moving on stage? 2) the closed captioning was > a line or two behind, which seems odd since the lyrics are well known and > could have been pre-loaded (couldn’t they?). > > > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
