DR Ben: I completely agree with you about BOMBAY DREAM's terrible book. Unfortunately, I think the predictablilty and stilted dialogue really is representative of honest-to-Buddah Bollywood movies. I'm not so much surprised by the number of people filling up the Broadway Barn, but the fact that they're mostly South Asians. I really didn't think there were enough of them in New York to fill the seats, but when I saw it, I'd say the house was at least 85% South Asian, which was pretty impressive. They all seemed to be having a ball while we whities were kind of like, "huh?" It's not a terrible show--certainly not terrible enough for me to obsess over it (hehe)--it's more unfortunate, I suppose. I think it could have been wonderful, really, had they taken some more time with the book, not played down to the audience in terms of blatantly over-explaining Bollywood to Americans who are, for the most part, totally ignorant of Bollywood films, and if they hadn't futzed with the score in the transfer from London. I don't know if you've heard the London recording, but they cut a FANTASTIC song from the first act--Akaash's "I Want" song--called "Like An Eagle" and they added fourteen reprises of "Salaam Bombay." I still think "The Journey Home" (Akaash's eleven o'clock number) is gorgeous and the Shakalaka whose name shall not be mentioned is one of the catchiest, if not kitchiest, songs I've heard in the last five or six years. I stand by the score as one of the most interesting--and in some instances, beautiful--pieces I've heard in musical theatre, but that's based on what I've heard of the London production--not what they've done to it at the Broadway.
And Ben--you can get CALL ME MADAM at Tower Records at Lincoln Center. Last I saw, they had it for $10.99, but that was a couple of weeks ago.
Re. BOUNCE: BK, I'm with you all the way on this one. The show is a pastiche of every other show Sondheim has written, and if you think it's hard to listen to, you should have tried sitting through it. I had a ticket to see it a second time and I simply couldn't stomach the idea of it. I thought Howard McGillin was wonderful in the show and Michelle Pawk can do no wrong in my book. Richard Kind was OK, but he didn't bowl me over as he did countless others, and quite frankly, Jane Powell made me squirm in my seat. I understand where you're coming from regarding SUNDAY IN THE PARK and INTO THE WOODS. I love the concept of turning the fairy tales upside-down in the second act, but one starts to get the feeling that perhaps Mr. Sondheim ran out of musical ideas and just started to repeat himself. I know that's sort of the point, but after a while the audience gets bored with the eighteenth reprise of the title number. And I've always hated the second act of SUNDAY IN THE PARK. MERRILY has some wonderful moments ("Our Time" can make me uber-weepy), but sadly I don't think the show will ever work--they've been trying for 23 years to make it work and still it doesn't. I hated PASSION until I saw the Kennedy Center production, but even then I wondered if it was the show I enjoyed or simply the wonderful cast. That score, like BOUNCE, is a hodge-podge of his other stuff, and is SO incredibly dreary that it's difficult to take in, but Judy Kuhn was stunning as Fosca.
