Back from a horrid show and a good dinner. I won't say much about the show in the notes, since I know the director and a couple of the actors, but it was dreadful for all the same reasons it was dreadful eighteen years ago when I saw it under a different title. It is very difficult to make a musical about a despicable person no matter how the book writers lie and try to turn him into someone lovable, even inventing a faux happy ending without any context. None of the songs have context (the show is about lyricist Al Dubin), the production, which cost a LOT of dough, looks like it cost nothing, and while it's swell that the wealthy producer has all her friends and the writer theirs and that that little pocket of ten people scream, hoot, and whoop it up every time someone utters what they consider to be a witticism, well, they're not fooling anyone. The theater seats 1200 people. The balcony is closed. And downstairs there were maybe 200 people. But there was a critic there tonight and he'll give it his usual "Wow" - other reviewers, while trying to be kind, all concur that the book is crap. For me, it's worse than crap, it's bogus.
