Webber's Wench

I'm a huge fan of musicals. I started seeing them on Broadway with my parents when I was little (my first was Me and My Girl at the Marriott) and have been seeing them ever since. I'm such a fan of musicals that I can't remember ever seeing one that I didn't like (aside from those god awful Rodgers and Hammerstein bombs Oklahoma and Carosel; it's hard to say which one of these I hate most). In fact, 9 times out of 10, after I would see a musical, I'd go and buy the soundtrack on CD. Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of those artists who has never let me down - until last night.

I went to see his latest musical, The Woman in White on Broadway. In short, it was astonishingly bad. I guess I can't expect all his works to be as big as Phantom, Jesus Christ Superstar, etc., but putting that aside, the musical was still downright awful. The fundamental problem with the play was that it was boring. The music is largely uninteresting. There was one good song, but it tries to build itself up to something powerful and then just loses steam in a heartbeat. The casting is also annoying as two of the three female leads look a lot alike. I dealt with this initially until every character kept mentioning how the two looked alike. They did it so many times that they gave away the story's plot twist. Of course, all the old ladies sitting next to me were aghast at the twist nonetheless. The thing that annoyed me the most was how pathetic the characters were. I didn't care about any of them except Count Fosco who was at least funny and played with real mice and rats on the stage (see, I'm not the only one who plays with rodents for a living). The other characters were dumb as can be. The leading man literally walked out of the story for 2/3 of the musical because he was being given a hard time by the other characters. Is that how you repsond when you've found the love of your life? You just pout and leave? Please. When the intermission came around I was tempted to leave. I really did consider it, which was a first for me. In the end I decided to stay - I have one of these personal rules which is to always finish something I start, even if it sucks, that way if I'm ever in a situation where the suck comes up in discussion and I'm there, I can thoroughly and intelligently rip the bitch apart.