October 26, 2006
"A fresh exploration of the timeless tale of a young man's coming of age."
The musical "The Times They Are A-Changin’" opens tonight. Here's a look at how the Broadway folk are interpreting Bob Dylan songs. Even if you're already convinced that there's no way the show could be any good, watching that clip, you'll still wonder if it can really be that bad... can this really be the show? Something is happening here, but I don't know what it is.
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12 comments:
Is it even possible to use the words "fresh exploration" when it comes to Bob Dylan, and when using the oldest and most well known songs from his catalog?
Did you watch the clip? I've never seen that before.
Good God in heaven. That was the most frightening vido clip I have seen this year.
I switched it off after the first lyric. Is there some legal mandate that Broadway Musicals must look campy, ridiculous, and entirely the same as each other?
What happened to Shakespeare and Aeschylus?! But I digress.
Ah, so you long for classical poetry. So to win your heart I must quote, with ease, Aeschylus and Euripides?
How timely! A Halloween theatrical that is genuinely frightening, spine-tingling, and blood-curdling.
I'd never before thought of Dylan in terms of Hoppity Hops.
Well, it's certainly a novel take on Dylan. No scruffy, gravel voiced wailing here. They have got to be praying that this show will be a big hit with the tourist trade (a particularly dull part that knows little about Dylan).
Even stranger is that Twyla Tharp has put together a show about a musician, part of whose charm was his physical and vocal awkwardness, where the music is taking second place to the dancing (acrobatics?). Basically, she wants to translate his music into dance. Good luck. (The bit in the clip with the dancers bouncing around with big beach balls suggests that luck, and taste, has completely abandoned her here.)
Has Dylan ever danced a step on stage? I always think of him perched on a stool, with the guitar and that harmonica contraption around his neck.
Dear God.
Emmett Kelly clowns on Hoppity-Hops? The president of the local chapter of the Young Republicans doing a bad James Cagney impersonation and twirling around a guitar coat rack he made in shop class? All set to Bob Dylan songs?
I imagine the woeful, ironic glances exchanged in the audience when the fresh-faced fetching lad on stage growls in his falsetto growl:
"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief."
You have to hang on for the very loud "Wow!" from Rosie O'Donnell at the very end.
The dancing/acrobatics was really good. The hoppity-hops were supposed to be "rolling stones" I suspect.
I laughed. I laughed some more. It moved me.
Hamsun56: Are you sure it wasn't produced by Bialystock & Bloom?
Somewhat off-topic, but here's Weird Al Yankovic's take on Dylan, using nothing but palindromes:
Bob
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