Recent Reviews for The Merry Widow
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MCT:May 15, 2008That man, the one who was singing. What's his name?
All righty, friends, I think almost all of us would agree that musicals are a bit removed from the "real" world. Because lots of us understand this, we venture wisely in to the experience of a musical ready to deploy a healthy dose of the good old willing suspension of disbelief. And if we play our part this way, we manage, with a good musical, to get caught up in the possibility that we are watching a "real" event, despite the fact that the cast may break into song and even into dance.
So when we're playing our part, the last thing we need are what I will call "meta" musical lines of dialog, such as the lines I've quoted above. The conscious pointing out of the fact that people are singing and/or dancing tends to break the illusion in which we're participating. Agreed? I mean, would it have changed much to have Lana Turner simply say: "That man. What's his name?"
Anywho, this is not what I would call a top drawer favorite musical of mine, but it is a musical nonetheless, and for that alone: plus one star. The music is mostly beautiful music: plus one star. We get Lana Turner, and lots of her, if you know what I mean : ) Plus one star. Una Merkel always makes me smile, and Richard Haydn is his usual idiosyncratically brilliant self: plus 1/2 star each.
So that's four stars so far.
Ah, hmmmmm, I wonder who decided to cast Fernando Lamas in this one. Yikes! Minus one star for that brilliant idea. He is not so good normally, but singing? Auwe . . . .
Total: three stars. For me that means average, and this is definitely a wee cut above average. So because of all that great Lana Turner exposure, plus 1/2 star more : )
