Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals

Broadway's Color Purple Closing

The winter doldrums are really taking their toll. First the Off-Broadway revival of The Fantasticks announced that it was closing. Now comes the announcement that Broadway's The Color Purple will play its last performance in February. The show has long since made back its $11-million investment, has grossed over $100 million, and will have played 910 performances and 30 previews, putting it past such classic musicals as Carousel and Camelot.

The Broadway cast currently features Chaka Khan as Sofia, Bebe Winans as Harpo, and "American Idol" finalist Lakisha Jones as the church soloist. Apparently all of that supposed star power wasn't enough to make up for the loss of Fantasia Barrino.

I'm reminded of when Tony winner Gregory Hines left Jelly's Last Jam. Even when the producers brought in Ben Vereen, Phylicia Ryshad, and Brian Stokes Mitchell, it wasn't enough to keep the show afloat without its original star. Although the original star of The Color Purple, the Tony-winning LaChanze, has long since left the show, Fantasia provided a box-office lift that Khan, Winans, and Jones apparently couldn't replicate.

I never got a chance to see The Color Purple on Broadway. Although I did make the effort, I was waylaid by traffic. (See my tale of woe posted here.) But I do hope to catch the national tour when it wends its way to somewhere in the Boston vicinity. And there is talk of making a movie version of the musical.

The Color Purple plays at the Broadway Theater until February 24th.

Passing Strange: Under the Radar

It's not often that a musical just descends upon Broadway without my having heard at least something about it, but somehow the new Broadway-bound musical Passing Strange never made it onto my radar. After a successful and critically acclaimed run at the Public Theater, Passing Strange will open at the Belasco Theater in February.

The show arose out of concert sets with co-creators Heidi Rodewald and the mononymic Stew and their band, The Negro Problem. The pair, aided by director Annie Dorsen, then further developed the show in various workshops, including some at the Sundance Institute. Playbill.com describes the show as "the story of a young black bohemian who leaves behind his middle-class, church-ruled upbringing in Los Angeles to travel the world in search of his artistic and personal identity."

I'm concerned that the score may be a bit too downtown for my taste, although the two numbers on the Passing Strange Web site seem accessible, with some cool colloquial touches. And I'm a huge fan of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which rocks out pretty gosh-darned hard. Another red flag for me is that plot description: it sounds a bit ponderous, like something out of Dude or Via Galactica. And there's a character named "Youth," which really sets my pretense-o-meter on edge.

But I do have a ticket to see the show next month. I'll be seeing Next to Normal at the Second Stage Theater on the same day. Look for my reviews here shortly thereafter.

Sweeney Todd Gets Three Oscar Nominations

The Academy Award nominations came out this morning, and "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" received three nods: best art direction, best costume design, and best actor for the sensational Johnny Depp in the title role.

It would be very easy to start talking about how the movie deserved more recognition, and how Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton were robbed, and blah blah blah. But that would be just fan-based bitterness and musical myopia. Yes, "Sweeney Todd" was a masterful film all around (read my review here). But this was a year of very strong non-musical contenders. And if you really want to get theater-queen pissy, you could note that "Hairspray" failed to land a single nomination.

As theater fans, we should probably be content that Hollywood has resumed making musicals at all. We went for decades without a decent musical film to speak of, apart from the occasional artistic and box-office disaster (e.g. "Annie," "A Chorus Line," "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," "Little Shop of Horrors"). For my part, I'm simply happy that the "Sweeney" movie came out as stunningly as it did, and I look forward to rooting for Johnny Depp on Oscar night, although he has some insanely stiff and worthy competition.   

Shrek on Broadway in 2008

The Broadway-aimed musical version of Shrek, based on the Dreamworks movie, will bow in New York in November 2008 after a tryout run in Seattle. The show will have music by Jeanine Tesori (Caroline or Change, Thoroughly Modern Millie) and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, High Fidelity). Jason Moore of Avenue Q will direct. The cast will likely include Christopher Sieber, but it's not clear which role he'll play. The green one himself, perhaps? The princely guy from the second movie? Or maybe Lord Farquaad, the John Lithgow role?

Overall, that's some pretty high-caliber talent, but as we know all too well that is certainly no guarantee of success. Just ask David Henry Hwang about Tarzan. But you really can't blame big companies like Disney for snatching up award-winning writers: the company did the same thing when it hired Doug Wright to pen the book to The Little Mermaid. And it's unlikely to be the fault of these talented scribes, at least not totally, when the shows don't work out. It's far more likely to be the result of the inevitable writing-by-committee and art-by-consensus processes that no doubt plague the shows as they develop.

On a side note, it's interesting to note how lately Seattle and San Diego have become the tryout cities of choice. Seattle has played host to tryouts of Young Frankenstein, Hairspray, The Wedding Singer, and the abortive Lone Star Love. San Diego saw pre-Broadway productions of Cry-Baby, A Catered Affair, The Times They Are A-Changin', Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Full Monty, and Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Why have Seattle and San Diego replaced Boston and New Haven? It's not as though advanced word about the shows doesn't get around anyway, thanks to the Internet and bloggers like me. Possibly it's because the real taste-makers -- the "mavens," as it were -- are less likely to schlep 3,000 miles  to see a show in tryouts.

Another possible explanation: enhancement deals. The two key venues in San Diego are the Old Globe Theater and the La Jolla Playhouse, both of which are non-profit organizations. Enhancement deals, in a nutshell, occur when for-profit companies help fund a non-profit run for a show in development in return for a share of the take should the show move on to a commercial run. Shows that have benefited from enhancement deals include Spring Awakening, The Drowsy Chaperone, Avenue Q, and Rent. Shrek, however, is unlikely to involve an enhancement deal, mostly because it's already occurring under the auspices of a deep-pocketed for-profit venture: Dreamworks Animation.

Care to speculate, dear reader, as to the tryout popularity of these fair cities?

Legally Blonde Reality Show on MTV

The Hollywood writers' strike seems to be affecting Broadway in some indirect ways. Faced with a lack of scribes for its scripted shows, MTV has announced a reality show  to help the producers of the Broadway musical Legally Blonde choose a successor for Laura Bell Bundy in the lead role of Elle Woods. (Reality shows employ "content producers," who are cheaper and don't belong to the writers' union.) The network recently announced national auditions in anticipation of taping the show in February and March.

It's a questionable tactic, at least from a ratings perspective. By all accounts, the reality show "Grease: You're the One That I Want" wasn't much of a Nielsen bonanza, although the Grease revival that it helped to cast seems to be holding its own at the box office. On the other hand, ticket sales for Legally Blonde got a shot in the arm from its recent airings on MTV, despite predictions from many people that running the show on TV would prove disastrous.

Many people will also likely decry this reality-show move as a publicity stunt. Well, I say, what's wrong with a publicity stunt, if it keeps a decent show running? I've long defended stunt-casting as an effective way to keep good shows up and good people employed. And Legally Blonde, while certainly not a masterpiece, is a fun bit of fluff, if a bit on the shrill side. (See my review here.) The show is an intentionally populist Broadway offering, and thus is in no danger of compromising its "artistic integrity" by relegating its central casting to a populist voting process. Plus, the show will bring increased visibility to Broadway in general beyond Broadway's typical demographic (i.e. from old, rich, white people to young, rich, white people).

Let's just hope the whole reality-show thing doesn't go too far. I mean, we certainly wouldn't want this casting-by- popular-vote thing to become a habit or anything. In a larger sense, art is not a democratic process, nor should it be.

Broadway's Rent Closing

After more than 5,256,000 minutes on Broadway, the late Jonathan Larson's Rent will close in June 1st, 2008. By that time, the show will have played more than 5,000 performances, making it the seventh-longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing the runs of such fabled shows as Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly!, and The Producers.

Because the show's been playing for so long, and because it has long since passed beyond its "must-see" status, it's easy to forget what an impact the show had when it first came on the Broadway scene. Sure, it was hyped beyond belief, particularly by a gushing New York Times. And once the smoke had settled, it was all too easy to recognize that the show was actually quite flawed. The movie version met with a shrug from critics and audiences alike, and did little to re-ignite the flame of public affection for the show.

But the night I saw Rent was one of the most electrifying evenings I've ever had in the theater. I saw the show the night before it opened on Broadway, and it simply blew me away. Part of this was because my boyfriend at the time was HIV-positive, and this was right before protease inhibitors came out, so we thought that we had very little time together. So by the time Collins sang the reprise of "I'll Cover You" in the second act, I was a weepy, sloppy mess. Rent became a musical catharsis for many people, across many different demographics, and there was just enough heart, energy, and raw passion in the piece to overcome its many faults.

When I ask my students at the Boston Conservatory to write a paper about the most overrated musical, I present them with the following paragraph to give them a sense of what kind of analysis I'm looking for in their papers:

Rent has a number of songs that simply don’t ring true: songs that describe events so lacking in credibility that they strain the audience’s suspension of disbelief. One example is “Today 4 U,” the song that introduces the audience to Angel Dumont Shunard, the show’s resident drag queen and free spirit. The song is meant to be a comedic, up-tempo dance number that sets Angel up as a fun, sympathetic character, but Larson achieves this by having Angel tell the story of how he incites some poor defenseless Akita to commit suicide. That’s not only cruel, it’s unbelievable. Some rich woman asks Angel to play his pickle-tub drum nonstop, under the assumption that the din will induce the noisy dog next door to “bark itself to death.” Later Angel sings “who could foretell that it would work so well. For sure as I am here that dog is now in doggy hell.” Rather than barking itself to death, the dog jumps from the balcony of its owner’s luxury Manhattan high-rise. But dogs don't kill themselves. This is a lame anthropomorphic conceit on Larson's part, and even if it were possible, it simply isn't funny.

So Rent certainly isn't a perfect show. However, we need look no further than tick, tick...Boom! to confirm that Jonathan Larson was indeed a gifted man. Who knows if he ever would have produced something to equal or surpass Rent? But the quality of the music and lyrics in both of these shows makes it all the more heartbreaking to contemplate what might have been.

On a side note, it will be interesting to see how quickly another show books the Nederlander Theater once Rent has closed. Prior to Rent's tenancy, the Nederlander was considered a bit unlucky, if not downright cursed. The theater was frequently dark, when it wasn't hosting flop musicals like Raggedy Ann or Wind in the Willows. Of course, that was before Times Square and 42nd Street in particular received their respective makeovers. The Nederlander is the southernmost Broadway house, on 41st Street, and prior to the Times Square cleanup, the next nearest Broadway house was on 44th Street. Peripheral theaters like the Nederlander, the Belasco, the Lyceum, and the Cort often have a hard time attracting audiences, even though they're really only a stone's throw from the rest of Broadway. Will Rent and the new family-friendly 42nd Street reverse the Nederlander's future fortune?

Cry-Baby Will Play Marquis Theater

The new musical Cry-Baby, based on the John Waters movie of the same name, will play Broadway's Marquis Theater, recently vacated by The Drowsy Chaperone. The show recently played San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse to very solid reviews. According to the New York Times, tickets for previews will be $54, in honor of 1954, the year in which the musical is set.

The cast will include Tony winner Harriet Harris and newcomer James Snyder in the Johnny Depp role. The book is by Hairspray's Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell. Mark Brokaw directs, and Rob Ashford choreographs. The score comes from a pair of Broadway tyros, David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger.

Baltimore Sun critic Mary Carole McCauley recently quoted musical-theater blogger Chris Caggiano about the show's chances for success:

"I hear that Cry-Baby might be the sleeper hit of the year," says Chris Caggiano, a Boston Conservatory professor who teaches the history of musical theater, and who is a longtime fan of Waters' films.

"In musical theater, there often is pressure on sophomore efforts. But it always comes down to the merits of that particular show. The classic example is Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma, which was a giant watershed that changed the course of musicals forever. And they followed that with Carousel, which might be even better than Oklahoma. It's not a given that a second effort will be hyped so much that audiences will be disappointed."

Oh, wait. That's me. (I mean, how friggin' self-aggrandizing can you get? Sometimes, I'm just unbearable...) Yeah, McCauley called me one day because she was looking for someone who was not only a theater queen but also a John Waters fan, and she came across my blog in the process. Even though I'm a member of the media, I still get a kick out of seeing my name in print. (An unquenchable thirst for attention? Yeah, so what's your point?)

BTW, when I said "I hear that Cry-Baby might be the sleeper hit of the year," I had just read that in Michael Riedel's column in the New York Post. It wasn't like it was based on all my fictitious inside connections in show biz. "My sources tell me it's the show to watch. There's a little something you can take to the bank, little lady..."

Cry-Baby begins previews March 15th, toward a planned April 24th opening.

Young Frankenstein: Abridged and Imperiled

OK, so you've read my pan of Mel Brooks' horribly cynical and lazy Young Frankenstein. Perhaps you've even read the reviews, which were less than stellar, to say the least. But if you really want to know what's wrong with the show, read Gil Varod's very funny and painfully spot-on parody: Young Frankenstein Abridged: Or Gene Wilder How We Miss You to Pieces.

I've long been a fan of Gil's Broadway Abridged blog, and his savage skewering of Young Frankenstein only makes me a bigger fan. For the uninitiated, Varod parodies Broadway plays and musicals by condensing them in a very snarky and disrespectful fashion. I don't always agree with him. (I actually really enjoyed the revival of 110 in the Shade.) But I always look forward to reading his take on the latest over-hyped mega-musical or highfalutin artsy-fartsy play.

Oh, BTW, according to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, all those $450 seats aren't exactly selling like hotcakes, and can be had for around $100 from outlets in the Times Square area. I can't help thinking about one of my favorite foreign words:

Schadenfreude: [Origin: 1890–95; < G, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy] Happiness at the misfortune of others. ("Happiness at the misfortune of others? That is German..." Gary Coleman, Avenue Q)

Eat it, Mel.

The 24 Hour Musicals: Fascinating and Frightening

Periodically, when I've been looking through some actor's Internet Broadway Database listing, I would come across a reference to The 24 Hour Plays. I must confess I wasn't really sure what they were, but I did note that they were one-night-only events, so I figured they must be benefits. I didn't really pay much closer attention than that, mainly because they didn't bear the title The 24 Hour Musicals.

Well, now they will, or at least there are plans afoot to create a tuner version of same. For those of you, like me, who don't really care about theater unless there's a cast album, The 24 Hour Plays are an annual fund raiser (the first edition was in 2003) in which writers, directors, and actors attempt to create, rehearse, and perform new works all within one 24-hour period. Participant playwrights have included Terrence McNally, Tina Howe, Adam Rapp, David Lindsay-Abaire, and Theresa Rebeck. The performer roster has included such Broadway and Hollywood luminaries as Hope Davis, Dan Fogler, Kate Burton, Hayden Christensen, Cheyenne Jackson, Liev Schrieber, Sam Rockwell, Billy Crudup, and Bebe Neuwirth.

Based, apparently, and the success of that venture, those involved have decided to branch out by producing The 24 Hour Musicals, an admirable attempt to produce four brand-new (albeit short) musicals in one day. The event will take place at Joe's Pub in New York City on January 21st, 2008, and will benefit The Exchange and its Orchard Project. The production staff will include composer/lyricist David Yazbek, playwright Moises Kaufman, and choreographer Jonathan Butterell. Among the participating performers will be Raul Esparza, John Ellison Conlee, Victoria Clark, Denis O'Hare, Cheyenne Jackson, Kerry Butler, Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks), Celia Keenan-Bolger, Gavin Creel, Claudia Shear, and Mo Rocca.

I'm kinda bummed I won't be in the Manhattan to see it. I can only hope that, if it turns out to be any good, that there'll be a cast album or a...er..."noncommercial" recording, shall we say? If it sucks, well, it will probably be best that the whole thing is forgotten. Part of me is intrigued, but another part of me is frightened at the very prospect. I mean, how can they really be any good if they're all thrown together in one day? It's both fascinating and appalling. I can only assume that Yazbek and Kaufman won't be writing all four shows, but rather some other as-yet-unannounced creative types will fill out the roster, but then again who knows? Heck, it's worked at least five times before with The 24 Hour Plays, so I guess The 24 Hour Musicals is at least worth a shot, huh?

Aw, C'Mon. The Little Mermaid Isn't THAT Bad

Disney's The Little Mermaid opened last night at the Lunt-Fontanne to predictably but unnecessarily excoriating reviews. Check out my blogging colleague Steve on Broadway for a complete roundup of the gleefully malicious reviews. Ben Brantley of the New York Times is especially snide and snarky. (Hmm, quelle surprise.)

As I said in my review, it's certainly no masterpiece, but there's much to enjoy in this admittedly flawed production, particularly the cast of Broadway stalwarts, including Norm Lewis as King Triton, and newcomers, especially the lovely and talented Sierra Boggess in the title role.

The Little Mermaid is infinitely more enjoyable than the lumbering Mary Poppins, and although it's not as visually inspired as The Lion King, it's a damn sight more dramatically cohesive. In the spring, my mother and I are planning to take my eight-year-old niece to NYC. We hope to take her to a show or two, and I fully intend to bring her to The Little Mermaid. Despite its flaws, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it again. That's a hell of a lot more than I can say for Disney's other Broadway installations.

Christmas at Radio City: 75 Years of Spectacle

Here's one more entry in the just-a-tad-too-late department.

On my most recent NYC trip, I was in a festive, holiday mood, and decided to take in a few touristy shows to which I otherwise might have given a very wide berth. See my reviews of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk below.

I also took in the 75th anniversary version of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and overall was quite entertained. Yeah, the whole thing tends to be far too flashy and slick by half, but I focused mostly on the stellar choreography, which was sharp, uniform, and plentiful, with wonderful witty touches. One number had the Rockettes performing a wordless rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and it was very cleverly done. I particularly liked when they got to "seven swans a-swimming" and did a mini homage to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. I hadn't been expecting genuine wit, and was pleasantly surprised.

Speaking of Tchaikovsky, another charming section of the show was the all-teddy-bear version of The Nutcracker, an abbreviated ballet for short attention spans. Again, there were numerous humorous touches, such as using panda bears in the "Chinese Dance" section.   

The obligatory toy soldiers section was simple yet sweet, and executed to near perfection by the Rockettes. The first time I saw the Radio City Christmas show, I was perplexed as to why the crowd-pleasing inline backwards fall (see this video on YouTube) happened so slowly. Is that part of what makes the feat impressive? If so, I don't see why. But that seemed to be a point of interest to the folks seated around me. "Look how slow they do it," said one nearby father, apparently oblivious to the finer points of adverbs and their usage.

In fact, the Rockettes were hardly ever offstage. These are some hard-working women, executing extended, intricate dance routines nearly flawlessly, amid a bewildering succession of costume changes. But whereas the choreography was excellent, the original songs that accompanied them were simply awful, which is surprising since the program lists Mark Waldrop as supplying the book and lyrics. (The music is by Mark Hummel.) I've always admired Waldrop's work, particularly When Pigs Fly. But when creating content for a corporate gig, you don't always have free rein, and the art-by-committee process may have watered down the talented Waldrop's work to the point of insipidity.

The production made ample use of digital projections, no doubt a major difference between this version and the first 75 years ago. The crowd ooh-ed and aah-ed in wonder as a full-size double-decker sightseeing bus came on-stage, which the Rockettes boarded to take the crowd on a digital bus ride through a yuletide bedecked Manhattan (with not-so-subtle product placements for event sponsors North Fork Bank, Panasonic, American Express, Lincoln, and Swarovski Crystal). Other touches that seemed to impress the masses: ice-skating on-stage, fireworks, Peter-Pan-esque flying children, dwarfs, and of course the camels, donkeys, and sheep. ("It has live sheep and real airplane motors on stage. It's devastating, simply devastating...").

Because another obligatory aspect of the Christmas Spectacular is the "Living Nativity," which basically comprises the entire cast crossing downstage in Bethlehem garb, the aforementioned tranquilized fauna in tow, followed by a stage picture in front of the creche itself. It's certainly admirable that Radio City insists on including tribute to the reason behind this whole holiday season to begin with: the birth of Jesus Christ. It's nice reminder amid the glitz and schmaltz about what the holidays are really about.

Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk: All the Pretense, None of the Wonder

I apologize for my extended absence from the blogosphere. Holidays and whatnot. I haven't even had time to post reviews of the remaining two shows I saw on my recent NYC trip.

Here's the first: Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk (because it's not Cirque du Soleil if it doesn't have a pretentious foreign-sounding name) at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden. The show recently closed, being holiday-themed and all, but it will no doubt make another lucrative appearance in future seasons.

I must say, the WaMu seems a much more suitable venue for a Cirque du Soleil show than for Alan Menken's and Lynn Ahrens's A Christmas Carol, the last thing I saw at this enormous, cold, unappealing venue. A Christmas Carol really got lost in the cavernous 5,600-seat auditorium. (Point of comparison, Radio City Music Hall has about 5,900 seats) The WaMu is more a wedge-shaped stadium than a true theater, and certainly more fitting as a location for an affected Québécois circus than an overproduced musical.

As for Wintuk, I wasn't sure what to expect going in. Cirque du Soleil (hereafter: CdS) has long been a guilty pleasure of mine: I know it's precious and twee, but I just love the look and feel of the shows, and the acts almost always blow me away. I've seen Nouvelle Experience, Mystere, and O in Las Vegas, and Dralion when it stopped in Boston few years back. I also have the DVDs for Saltimbanco, Quidam, Allegria, Varekai, and La Nouba. I even watched the "The Fire Within" on Bravo a few seasons back, a rare foray for me into reality TV.

Wintuk represents a departure for CdS in many ways: It's smaller in scale than most of their other shows. And people actually speak and sing in English, which doesn't work much in the show's favor: it lets you hear exactly how puerile the lyrics are. One song repeats the phrase "dogs will be dogs" ad nauseum. Not exactly a trenchant observation.

The central premise of the show is the quest for a young boy to see snow, which is certainly a more quotidian theme than those of other CdS shows. Act one begins with the boy in an urban, winter landscape, versus the typical otherworldly CdS settings. The acrobatic acts are smaller and more intimate, making often clever use of the urban setting, with performances emerging directly from inhabitants of the city environment: construction workers, cops and robbers, skateboarders, etc. Wintuk represents the other end of the spectrum from O, the over-hyped and overrated CdS fixture at the Bellagio.

The irony of Cirque du Soleil for me is that, although it's impressive that they try to set some context, tell a story, and create another world, I always find myself just waiting for the next act. Australian comedian Eddie Perfect says it quite succinctly in the intro to his song that elegantly skewers CdS: "Do you know that if you guys really follow the narrative [of a Cirque du Soleil show], if you really study the the deeply embedded, cultural symbolic signposts, the whole thing doesn't mean shit? Yeah, it's magic: the illusion of content...We know it's a circus, we know you do tricks, just do some fucking tricks."

So, the CdS paradox is that what distinguishes them as a circus and as entertainment is how they build a larger story around the acrobatics, but the stories themselves are rarely distinguished. Sometimes the storyline is opaque as hell (Varekai), and sometimes it's so groan-inducing-ly pretentious that you wind up wishing it were opaque (Allegria: An Enchanting Fable, Journey of Man).

The main problem with Wintuk is that it fails to deliver on the Cirque du Soleil promise of spectacular physical performances. Act 1 has some juggling, a contortionist, some balancing and bike tricks, but nothing new or unusual, at least for the seasoned CdS fan. At least in Act 2 we get some real acrobats: a bit of tumbling, some hoola hoops, and a rather inscrutable act with those inflatable exercise balls. Finally at the end of the show there's a signature CdS acrobatic routine, but it's nothing CdS fans haven't seen before, and it's a bit of an anticlimax. 

What's more, Act 2 represents an irritating change of venue. This Eskimo priestess, or some such, shows up to transport the snow-seeking boy to a North-Pole-type place, and here's where CdS lays on the pretense fast and thick. At one point, the show employs these enormous, puppet-like, ponderously slow-moving snow beasts, who do very little except emerge, take up stage time, then disappear. Woo hoo.

The Eskimo priestess acts as an emcee for the whiny, unappreciative, young protagonist. She shows him the wonders of her people, in the form of the various acts and performers, and the boy just says, "This is all great, but where's the snow?" Finally, at the end of the show, the annoying kid gets his snow. In fact, we all do, care of strategically placed confetti cannons throughout the auditorium, which I have to admit was pretty impressive to witness.

Wintuk isn't a bad show, it just makes the mistake of scaling Cirque du Soleil down, and not including anything new in terms of the circus acts themselves. This places the flaws and pretense of CdS in dramatic, unflattering relief. In a way, Wintuk is charming and creative as only CdS can do. On the other hand, it's underwhelming in comparison with other CdS shows. If you haven't seen CdS before, you'll likely be impressed, if not blown away. If you have, well, Wintuk will certainly do until you can get a chance to see a fully fledged CdS show, rather than this half-pint imitation. (With apologies to Lorenz Hart)