ASPECTS OF LOVE
Sat, 27 July 2002, 10:57 amBrigida14 posts in thread
ASPECTS OF LOVE
Sat, 27 July 2002, 10:57 am"Aspects of Love", the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that critics have rated better than "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera" is on at the Playhouse this week from Wed 31st July (the preview - a fundraiser for Anglicare) to Sat 3rd August.
See "What's on" for further details.
This is the first time that Aspects has been performed in WA and the feedback from rehearsals is that it is going to be FANTASTIC.
Tickets from BOCS or on 9442 1584 (limited tickets).
Brigida
Friends of Midnite
See "What's on" for further details.
This is the first time that Aspects has been performed in WA and the feedback from rehearsals is that it is going to be FANTASTIC.
Tickets from BOCS or on 9442 1584 (limited tickets).
Brigida
Friends of Midnite
Re: ASPECTS OF LOVE (pt 2)
Tue, 6 Aug 2002, 06:34 pmHmmm.
Okay. Now let's qualify things. Firstly, how dare you attack me and my opinion without uttering one word in rebuttal other than 'naa, you're wrong'. I never articulated my standpoint on Cats or Phantom - I merely questioned how this play could possibly claim to be 'great' as one of 'the best ever written'. Incidentally, I have not very much time for Andrew Lloyd Webber at all, apart from a fondness for Phantom as I heard it so much growing up (with a mum obsessed for a period!). The 'tripe' I enjoy? Sondheim's 'Assassins', 'Sweeney Todd', 'Into the Woods', 'Sunday in the Park with George'; Schmidt/Jones' 'The Fantasticks'; Schwartz's 'Godspell'; and Bernstein's 'West Side Story' to name a few favourites. Compared with this list, in my opinion, 'Aspects of Love' is a diabolical failure. There was very little to 'Aspects' - Lloyd Webber was trying far too hard to create an epic for his dear wife and out-smarted himself by trying to create the most technically difficult show possible, but succeeds in doing little more than confirming what most in musical circles already know. Lloyd Webber is considered nothing but a hack in musical circles, enhanced by his posturings to be a major composer who has had a serious impact on twntieth century works. He has done little more than add to the canon of lightweight, Disney style musicals that are about as satisfying as a Chinese dinner - not too bad at a pinch but you want another one later to fill that nagging gap. A little too intellectual for me? I hold two degrees, including a Bachelor of Music and am currently working towards a Ph.D. Watch your mouth before you start flinging statements like that around.
As for your statement about the Academy-Con system. Well, well. Sounds like someone's a little bit bitter that they were never accepted over in Mount Lawley... Sigh. The Academy produces a consistently high calibre of performer, but of course they will never be to the satisfaction of people like yourself. I'm not sure if you have any part in the industry, but very few performers come straight from an institution and walk right into work. It just doesn't happen, because there aren't that many jobs out there. You could say the same for NIDA and VCA - all three are great institutions, but none guarantee you work - something which all three would confirm for you immediately if you asked. What they do is assist in training your instruments - Erin and Shai (thankyou for names) both had pleasant voices due to their training there - and in assisting contacts and networking. Just because you might have met a snobby WAAPA graduate before or couldn't get your head around something that one of the excellent staff at the institution told you, doesn't mean that they are of a poor standard. And as for Chorus Parts in Mamma Mia? I could name thousands of out of work actors who would love to be in that position. Get off the bitter train, mate - it's your attitude that's sad. Speaking of bitter - laughing at the misfortune of the conductor struggling? Less a sadist as a small small person to laugh at such an incredibly talented person as Justin Freind - perhaps it's just the realisation that he has a long career ahead of him? And went to the con? Gasp!
Shai as Alex: didn't say he set my world on fire, but stated that he was excellent as he seemed to carry the role off with more confidence than most. And bagging a young kid for not having the technical prowess yet to pull off a large role? How petty are you? I thought, for his age, he was just fine. Someone older would have been nice, but that's what youth theatre companies are for: giving young actors a chance to play older roles. I wouldn't cast him in that role in a professional adult production, but he did well enough in this show. Incidentally, if anyone catches me mounting a professional adult production of this show, assume the frontal lobotomy went as planned.
Now: where was I? Ah yes, the music and story - 'beautiful' and 'best ever'. Right. Your beautiful story is about a guy whose girlfriend marries his uncle, and then he fools around with his uncle and ex-girlfriend's daughter (15 years old, mind) and ends up going off with his uncle's ex. Hmm. 'Beautiful'? Well, the phrase 'creepy incest' comes to my mind more than anything. I have no idea whether this was an original story, or was adapted from somewhere, but myself and my wife (Oh, and we are both in our twenties, in case I was going to be accused of 'old fashioned ideas') were mildly uncomfortable with the whole set-up, and more importantly, unengaged with the story. The characters were badly drawn, springing from Black and Hart's shocking lyrics (Lloyd Webber should never have let Tim Rice go...) which had to develop the entire story but just never got around to it. I didn't care when George died. I didn't care when Jenny was dumped by Alex. I didn't care when Rose was shot. I just didn't care. It was supposed to be about love, it was supposed to glamorise the bohemian world of France, but George and Alex are so remarkably unenaging that it all seems like a long and drawn out subterfuge to distract us from the fact that they are related but Alex is wanting to sleep with his first cousin. Eek. I got no sense through the lyrics why Rose ever fell for George - and the large chorus numbers seemed tacked on and uninspired. Musically. Right. Lloyd Webber, as I said, is not a composer who is taken seriously in the music world - he just isn't. He got away with JCS and Joseph because he was riding on Tim Rice's coattails, and Cats and Phantom can be accredited to TS Eliot and Gaston Leroux for coming up with the stories which distracted us from the repetitive, sterile nature of his work. Aspects, sadly, had no text to hide behind. Lloyd Webber's musical theatre cred is about at the same level as Elton John's Lion King stuff - catchy, but don't you dare mention him in the same breath as Sondheim or Bernstein... In Aspects, he was trying to write an opera - and his reliance on this specific artform meant that he didn't get a chance to stick in enough of his catchy tunes, which is what he is known for - instead we were subjected to a lot of uninspired recitative-like music. We could argue all day about 'leitmotifs' and the rest, but it just comes down to the fact that I was not inspired. Nor, I might add, was one of the leads (a friend) who reiterated, post show, most of what I have just said. And worse.
Now, you all might think this was a long post as rebuttal and affected no-one but 'Erik' and myself. I agree. I would have just emailed it, but I couldn't - little 'erik' decided to bag me and my opinions, along with his own opinions (see - I never said yours were wrong, just differed from mine - democracies are lovely things, aren't they?) under what I assume is a pseudonym, and no email address to attach any feedback to. tsk tsk. Pretty gutless, methinks. Now, erik, if you want to continue this, click on the name 'Justin Hammond' above and it will connect to my email account. Then write those things down and we won't have to continue boring the nice ITA people with your 'nah, you're wrong so there' trash.
Apologies everyone else for this rant - 'erik' has niggled me and I don't like being bagged. It just makes me want to bag back. And that's not polite.
J
[%sig%]
Okay. Now let's qualify things. Firstly, how dare you attack me and my opinion without uttering one word in rebuttal other than 'naa, you're wrong'. I never articulated my standpoint on Cats or Phantom - I merely questioned how this play could possibly claim to be 'great' as one of 'the best ever written'. Incidentally, I have not very much time for Andrew Lloyd Webber at all, apart from a fondness for Phantom as I heard it so much growing up (with a mum obsessed for a period!). The 'tripe' I enjoy? Sondheim's 'Assassins', 'Sweeney Todd', 'Into the Woods', 'Sunday in the Park with George'; Schmidt/Jones' 'The Fantasticks'; Schwartz's 'Godspell'; and Bernstein's 'West Side Story' to name a few favourites. Compared with this list, in my opinion, 'Aspects of Love' is a diabolical failure. There was very little to 'Aspects' - Lloyd Webber was trying far too hard to create an epic for his dear wife and out-smarted himself by trying to create the most technically difficult show possible, but succeeds in doing little more than confirming what most in musical circles already know. Lloyd Webber is considered nothing but a hack in musical circles, enhanced by his posturings to be a major composer who has had a serious impact on twntieth century works. He has done little more than add to the canon of lightweight, Disney style musicals that are about as satisfying as a Chinese dinner - not too bad at a pinch but you want another one later to fill that nagging gap. A little too intellectual for me? I hold two degrees, including a Bachelor of Music and am currently working towards a Ph.D. Watch your mouth before you start flinging statements like that around.
As for your statement about the Academy-Con system. Well, well. Sounds like someone's a little bit bitter that they were never accepted over in Mount Lawley... Sigh. The Academy produces a consistently high calibre of performer, but of course they will never be to the satisfaction of people like yourself. I'm not sure if you have any part in the industry, but very few performers come straight from an institution and walk right into work. It just doesn't happen, because there aren't that many jobs out there. You could say the same for NIDA and VCA - all three are great institutions, but none guarantee you work - something which all three would confirm for you immediately if you asked. What they do is assist in training your instruments - Erin and Shai (thankyou for names) both had pleasant voices due to their training there - and in assisting contacts and networking. Just because you might have met a snobby WAAPA graduate before or couldn't get your head around something that one of the excellent staff at the institution told you, doesn't mean that they are of a poor standard. And as for Chorus Parts in Mamma Mia? I could name thousands of out of work actors who would love to be in that position. Get off the bitter train, mate - it's your attitude that's sad. Speaking of bitter - laughing at the misfortune of the conductor struggling? Less a sadist as a small small person to laugh at such an incredibly talented person as Justin Freind - perhaps it's just the realisation that he has a long career ahead of him? And went to the con? Gasp!
Shai as Alex: didn't say he set my world on fire, but stated that he was excellent as he seemed to carry the role off with more confidence than most. And bagging a young kid for not having the technical prowess yet to pull off a large role? How petty are you? I thought, for his age, he was just fine. Someone older would have been nice, but that's what youth theatre companies are for: giving young actors a chance to play older roles. I wouldn't cast him in that role in a professional adult production, but he did well enough in this show. Incidentally, if anyone catches me mounting a professional adult production of this show, assume the frontal lobotomy went as planned.
Now: where was I? Ah yes, the music and story - 'beautiful' and 'best ever'. Right. Your beautiful story is about a guy whose girlfriend marries his uncle, and then he fools around with his uncle and ex-girlfriend's daughter (15 years old, mind) and ends up going off with his uncle's ex. Hmm. 'Beautiful'? Well, the phrase 'creepy incest' comes to my mind more than anything. I have no idea whether this was an original story, or was adapted from somewhere, but myself and my wife (Oh, and we are both in our twenties, in case I was going to be accused of 'old fashioned ideas') were mildly uncomfortable with the whole set-up, and more importantly, unengaged with the story. The characters were badly drawn, springing from Black and Hart's shocking lyrics (Lloyd Webber should never have let Tim Rice go...) which had to develop the entire story but just never got around to it. I didn't care when George died. I didn't care when Jenny was dumped by Alex. I didn't care when Rose was shot. I just didn't care. It was supposed to be about love, it was supposed to glamorise the bohemian world of France, but George and Alex are so remarkably unenaging that it all seems like a long and drawn out subterfuge to distract us from the fact that they are related but Alex is wanting to sleep with his first cousin. Eek. I got no sense through the lyrics why Rose ever fell for George - and the large chorus numbers seemed tacked on and uninspired. Musically. Right. Lloyd Webber, as I said, is not a composer who is taken seriously in the music world - he just isn't. He got away with JCS and Joseph because he was riding on Tim Rice's coattails, and Cats and Phantom can be accredited to TS Eliot and Gaston Leroux for coming up with the stories which distracted us from the repetitive, sterile nature of his work. Aspects, sadly, had no text to hide behind. Lloyd Webber's musical theatre cred is about at the same level as Elton John's Lion King stuff - catchy, but don't you dare mention him in the same breath as Sondheim or Bernstein... In Aspects, he was trying to write an opera - and his reliance on this specific artform meant that he didn't get a chance to stick in enough of his catchy tunes, which is what he is known for - instead we were subjected to a lot of uninspired recitative-like music. We could argue all day about 'leitmotifs' and the rest, but it just comes down to the fact that I was not inspired. Nor, I might add, was one of the leads (a friend) who reiterated, post show, most of what I have just said. And worse.
Now, you all might think this was a long post as rebuttal and affected no-one but 'Erik' and myself. I agree. I would have just emailed it, but I couldn't - little 'erik' decided to bag me and my opinions, along with his own opinions (see - I never said yours were wrong, just differed from mine - democracies are lovely things, aren't they?) under what I assume is a pseudonym, and no email address to attach any feedback to. tsk tsk. Pretty gutless, methinks. Now, erik, if you want to continue this, click on the name 'Justin Hammond' above and it will connect to my email account. Then write those things down and we won't have to continue boring the nice ITA people with your 'nah, you're wrong so there' trash.
Apologies everyone else for this rant - 'erik' has niggled me and I don't like being bagged. It just makes me want to bag back. And that's not polite.
J
[%sig%]
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