Top ten musical theatre writers:
Bock & Harnick
Frank Loesser
Rodgers & Hart
Rodgers & Hammerstein
The Gershwins
Lerner & Loewe
Maltby & Shire
Cole Porter
Johnny Mercer
Stephen Sondheim
Johnny Mercer wrote one of my favorite scores, music and lyrics - Top Banana, and lyrics to BK's fav. Lil Abner
No big surprises on the shows, there's the 3 by Loesser
How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
The Most Happy Fella
Guys and Dolls
the three helmed by Jerome Robbins
Gypsy
West Side Story
Fiddler on the Roof
plus a Bock & Harnick I like even better
The Apple Tree
two by Rodgers and Hammerstein
(one with Robbins choreography)
Carousel
The King and I
and the last truly great musical
A Chorus Line
I see some people have already listed some of my least favorite shows: Starmites, Miss Saigon - both offended me to the core.
I can't call Wildhorn or Lloyd Webber over-rated, as nobody I know rates them very highly. You have to start with someone who's been praised highly, and then say, Well, they're really rather ordinary, aren't they?
And so it's no surprise that I've landed upon the much heralded Jason Robert Brown.
His reputation is based on three shows for which he wrote the entire score. Another Broadway bomb, Urban Cowboy, had many songs by him, but not a majority. Songs For a New World has a nice number or two. Stars and the Moon works very well, although Sondheim said the exact same thing in the verse to So Many People, which is twenty times shorter. A good actress can eke some laughs out of the Weill spoof, although it's not as funny as anything in Das Lusitania Songspiel. (How many Weill spoofs must we endure, anyway? Yes, I'm talking to you, Urinetown guys!) But a lot of that score is loud, busy and pretensious. Still, it was a modest revue done in a tiny theatre, and a new voice - all are things it's fair to get excited about.
Then Harold Prince took him to Broadway, and these two Yankees came up (with Alfred Uhry's assistance) with the most stereotypical portrayal of Southen bigots ever. If I were from Georgia, I would have picketed Lincoln Center. But the theatre was never quite full. Parade was a non-hit, that won the Tony (for score) in an easy year, and so the over-praise begin. The songs sung by the Franks are the best, but each is painfully obvious. Your husband is wrongfully accused of murder, what are you going to say to the press? You Don't Know This Man. It's so obvious, you could snore.
Brown's next excruciating endeavor told the story of his failed marriage in a twee and convoluted way, with the wife's songs going backwards in time and the husband's going forward. "Jamie is gone and I'm still hurting" she tells us at the top. Fine. Go cry for your plight because I can't. You tell me you're hurting, I'm not going to feel for you. Again, it's obvious, and dull.
And still this guy gets praise. 3 musicals. 2 that are snore-fests. Compare Maltby & Shire to that, please.
For most overrated show I'm going to pick a show with simply marvelous songs. I really think it's the writer's best score (and he's on the top ten above) and I'm told the original staging was fantastic with a capital F. So, why is Follies such a bore to sit through? I mean, you'd think with wonderful staging of a wonderful score you'd have something wonderful. (And a lot of people name Follies as the greatest musical ever.) It's about four middle-age dweebs regretting their pasts. In the present, they do nothing remotely interesting. In the past, there was betrayal and "settling" for a marriage to one not truly loved. The best musicals celebrate something, and it's telling that the great celebratory number from the show, I'm Still Here, could not be given to a main character. The four leads are too busy lying, self-deluding, and, most frequently, regreting. It's simply not very fun to watch for two hours. Oddest of all, the book gives way in the second half. Instead of continuing its cheerfless story, we are treated to a bunch of "performance" numbers that don't advance any plot. They just ruminate on the situtation. Situational ruminations are dull, dull, dull - and both Follies and Last 5 Years are filled with them.
Give me action, and fun, and humor. Is that too much to ask? I promise to return the favor in all my shows.
