I DON'T WANNA KEY CHANGE NO MORE: Tony Award nominations are out. Drowsy Chaperone -- a musical that had me rather squirmy with anticipation -- has received thirteen of them.
I never got around to posting my thoughts on Chaperone, partially because I was busy and partially because I found it more than a little disappointing. It's been characterized as a musical for people who love musicals, but I do love musicals -- a lot, actually -- and I found it to be more a musical about people who are somewhat incomprehensibly obsessed with musicals. The structure -- a man plays the soundtrack of a dated old walnut of a musical for the audience and comments upon it and its role in his own life, all while the soundtrack comes to life in his apartment -- is clever and sweet, as far as it goes. But the structure also serves to detract from the heart of the musical itself. Every scene with any potential emotional resonance is interrupted by some intrusion from the Man Who Loves Musical's real life, and the central conceit, that the dated old walnut is a dated old walnut, just seems to be an excuse for the fact that none of the music is any good. It's not all terrible -- Sutton Foster's intended showstopper has some hilarious bits in it (see tag line), the over-the-top-Latin-Lover Rodolpho is a hoot, even the wanna-be Shakespeare-brusher-uppers are sort of fun in a wanna-be-kind-of-way -- but a lot of it really is pretty terrible.
This might be the most curmudgeonly I've ever felt about a musical. Maybe something's wrong with me.
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