Noel - we find what we want to find. If you consider the New York Sun and curtainup.com and the Siegels' review (and theirs is just as much a review from Talkin' Broadway as Matthew Murray's) as discouraging people from seeing LITTLE MERMAID, then you are finding what you want to find.
I've made my agenda clear on trying to be supportive of the show. You made a blanket statement that the critics were "fairly unanimous" that MERMAID was "bad."
Here's a post of mine from All That Chat, making clear my biases regarding this show, which I've also detailed here on HHW:
"I've conceded a desire to see this show succeed, between enjoying the show, an appreciation and a Workshop connection to some of the creative people, and my other half having at one point worked for Disney and still happily getting checks from that work.
I still haven't done a comprehensive read-through of all the reviews, but doing a search of ATC, of the fifteen or so I've read (including a few I've linked), the Associated Press (Michael Kuchwara), New York 1 (Roma Torre), Wall Street Journal (Terry Teachout) are as good as the Philadelphia Inquirer review you [referring to Bob Rendell] linked last week in terms of highly recommending the show, and those three reviews are in a strong target market for theatergoers in NYC and on tour.
I also see in googling that USA Today gave it a very respectful analysis and overall really recommended it (though not a rave like the above critics, it would sell tickets to a very wide readership). And of the internet reviewers on major sites, Theatermania liked the songwriting calling several of the new songs "enthralling" even though negative on the show, and curtainup.com was very respectful and favorable despite their disappointment with certain elements.
Several of the raves and recommendations are either widely-read (AP, USA Today) or read/heard by a great target audience for theatergoers (the theatre-oriented NY1 Onstage, and the business-oriented Wall Street Journal readership). Obviously, they surely would have loved to have had a recommendation from the NY Times, but is the Times review any more discouraging than Brantley's review of shows like Wicked (the show, not the star) or Legally Blonde?"
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Topic: RANT (Read 35627 times)