Monday, August 15, 2005
And On a Sour Note...
I don't have to read another word. Ben Brantley's review of Lennon -- "Then John Met Yoko, and the Rest Is a Musical" -- is enough to scare me away.
He contextualizes the show as "the latest in the bland crop of shows known as jukebox musicals that have been spreading over Broadway like kudzu.
Don Scardino's "drippy" attempt reportedly uses five actors to portray Lennon because the musician's life resonated on so many different levels for so many different people.
"Yet instead of making Lennon seem multifaceted and multiform," Brantley writes, "this device turns him into a one-size-fits-all alter ego to the world... The subtext, to borrow from a Dr. Pepper commercial of years ago, is something like "I'm a Lennon/ You're a Lennon/ He's a Lennon/ She's a Lennon/ Wouldn't you like to be a Lennon too?"
Maybe. But I sure don't want to watch a crappy show about it.
