Overrated musicals?

I noticed that nobody in the other thread has mentioned Rent or Cats, except I mentioned Cats as an "I hate."

So I nominate both for most-overrated musicals. Rent ran for 12 years! Cats ran for 21 years in London. (I saw it there.) Neither are, I think, very good. The Rent music isn't very good. Cats is emotionally irritating.

Anyone?

I watched Cabaret too young and it was disturbing....

I agree with you on Cats. I fell asleep at Les Miserables (not from tiredness) and I could hardly wait for intermission so I could leave The Producers.

I enjoy theater especially musicals. The deal with Cats is that it has been around so long and so much has been produced to compare it with. Not too sure I was emotionally irritated but it wasn't my favorite

Two favorites : The Lion King and Wicked......least favorite Rent. Rent had a kind of cult following. Younger people seemed to love it. Did not like it at all.

Did not see Les Miserables but wish I had.

I absolutely adore Les Miserables. I think it's a masterpiece. I even know the French concept one. But I saw it in Boston (twice). When I took my wife to see it at a small semi-professional theater in Maine (semi-professional because the top people are all paid and from Broadway, but I think not everyone). It was terrible. The best Lisa could say was something along the lines of "I can imagine how it might have been something."

The Hitler song in the Producers is simply wonderful. I think it's post-intermission.

I actually kind of liked both of your least-favorites, Tim -- Cats, because it was my big Broadway, first-time-in-NYC experience as a teen, and Rent because the whole theatre crowd I hung out with at college loved it, and I got swept up in the excitement. I think the angst of it all appealed to that college-student age; I notice that I don't listen to the soundtrack nearly as much now that several years have gone by.

My nominee for Most Overrated goes to The Sound of Music -- but then again, I fail to be objective about that one because I was in a college production of it, and you never saw such a toxic backstage atmosphere!

>5 timspalding:
I've heard that Les Miserables was wonderful. Know someone who has seen it three times and would go again. I love the story.....in fact, there is an artist who lives not far from my home, Bradley Parrish. He paints primarly religious art but he also does the posters for the Performing Art Center in Milwaukee. He painted a awesome portrait of "Cosette" as a child. Had to have a print....it hangs in my library room.
http://parrishfineart.com/javahome.html

>5 timspalding:
I saw Les Mis in Chicago my senior year of high school (1993 or 94). I read the book first, but found the musical much more enjoyable.

Carousel. It's worse than overrated. It's evil.

My aunt took me to Cats on Broadway a million years ago . . . enjoyed it but it wouldn't make my favs list (and I can see why most would find it irritating and/or not good) . . . though it did prompt me to read T. S. Eliot's poems so it can't be all bad.

Tried to watch the big Les Mis anniversary show on PBS but couldn't get into it . . . I like that one famous song but guess you have to see the actual show for the anniversary hubbub to resonate.

I know there are musicals I hate, but it's late so I will ponder and report back.

I do tend to hate the "special dream dance sequence" that showed up in lots of old musicals . . . (e.g., Oklahoma, West Side Story) . . .

I've seen Les Mis three times too and would certainly go again - love it. I'm inclined to agree with Tim about Cats and I'm also going to throw in Phantom. I know the rest of the world loves it and I quite enjoyed it - just found it a bit lacking in heart and nowhere near as good as it was cracked up to be. And Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is pretty awful too.

As for Carousel - I love the songs and enjoy watching the film (have yet to see it live) so I do my best to blank out the 'he hit me and it felt like a kiss' message. I wouldn't want my daughter brought up on it though.

I dislike West Side Story intensely.

I saw Phantom in LA in the '90s and agree with you, Booksloth. Meh.

#12 Loving WSS, though. I still cry at the end every single time.

Phantom in Chicago was meh for me too.

Did anyone ever see The Fix? I have the sound track, which I like a lot, but I don't think it was ever staged in the UK. It's one of those I've always wondered about.

I already posted about Rent in the other thread before I saw this one. It is definitely a 'right place and time' kind of love.

Cats. Ugh. I saw it when I was like 8 and I liked it then, but otherwise, meh. Phantom I think I don't like because it is so dang soprano heavy and I just don't like listening to sopranos. Give me a belty alto any day!

Somebody mentioned Grease on the other thread (and not in a positive light). Grease is a show that a lot of my friends liked when I was a teenager. I didn't get it then; I don't get it now.

Gotta say I can't really think of anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber that gets me excited - there's just something about his work that lacks heart. Anything by Sondheim, on the other hand . . . The two couldn't be more different - ALW writes songs that become brainworms on the first hearing but soon go stale, whereas Sondheim wirtes songs that take a million re-listenings to really appreciate and you love forever.

Every time I come over to this thread I want to post the musicals I DO like but am resisting..... just thought of a few more I love but am continuing to resist.....

The only reason I liked Beauty and the Beast was that my daughter liked it so much. For children in my opinion.

#19 -- There's a thread for that . . . :-)

I've seen both Footloose the Musical and Xanadu the Musical on stage because I got offered free tickets. I don't know that either could qualify as being 'overrated' though, since the expectations were not that high. Footloose was hilariously bad, and since it was free I could enjoy it. Xanadu was actually a bit better than expected, since it was intentionally cheesy. I guess you could say it was underrated then.

Bleh to Mamma Mia. Chorus Line was way too self-indulgent. Theater people do love themselves so.
Eta I dated a professional dancer for some time and it didn't end well. I'm sure that has colored my opinion.

My son's school (he's 5, but it goes to 12th grade) recently did Footloose. It's the perfect high-school musical—lots of parts. And it completely sucks. It's horrible.

My high school drama teacher would just kludge together shows from a bunch of different musicals and call it a 'revue' so that we wouldn't have to pay rights since we were a poor inner city school. When I was in Grease it was called 'Reunion at Rydell High' and featured a weird part in the beginning that was from Sister Act, and when I was in Les Mis, the first half was Tommy and the second half Les Mis. I think one year we tried doing the Little Mermaid. They were all highly overrated.

>24 AntiLeah:

Ah. Is that why high schools do that? They did it once at mine too. It's nice to get a lot of good songs together. (They did "Tonight," which is wonderful.) And I suppose you get more stars. But it's not the same as doing a real musical.

Daughter's high school did some great musicals the four years she was there - Grease, Into the Woods, Guys and Dolls and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I don't envision too many more wonderful musicals what with the money problems the county schools are facing - licensing rights would be expensive.

Marching Bands face the same issue for their shows and music. For this fall's Marching Band Show daughter's high school MB program had to pay $830 in licensing fees for just 2 songs. (Caravan and... I forget the other one.)

Ahem. Sound of Music. Don't like it much.

Anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

>27 ncgraham: Agreed. He lost me once he and Tim Rice split.

>1 timspalding: At least one of the friends who came with me to Cats in college fell asleep. I am not a fan either, but I didn't fall asleep. >3 Jenni_Canuck: Producers was colored by the fact that I'd had met my younger boyfriend's parents for the first time just before the show and was sitting next to his father.

So horrible it was funny goes to Liberty Smith. My musical going companion and I just looked at each other at intermission and laughed. We are both American history buffs. This show was... special. After intermission Marie Antoinette did the can-can.

ETA: Apparently the critics loved Liberty Smith. Perhaps my friend and I are are too devoted to historical accuracy or something.

I'm not sure I like anything Weber's done, except Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I recently heard the main Evita song. It's got one good hook. The rest is crap.

Pretty much all of them (except Singing in the Rain - film, of course). The Producers must rate as one of the top 50 films of all time - why mess with it?

I can never understand the interminable runs musicals get. For my last 20 or so visits to the Royal Opera House I have walked past cheerful crowds going into The Lion King. Strange!

Opera, on the other hand,......