Customer Reviews

Frankenstein: A New Musical

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I saw this show last fall during the stagehands' strike on Broadway. I so wanted to like this show. It seemed like a poor Off-Broadway underdog playing at the same time the big Broadway show Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein premiered. I'd been attracted by the amazing credentials and voices of the performers involved. This show is in what I'd call the Les Miz-style. Mostly sung, with the story hurtling forward with hardly a chance for a breath. And everything is so very, very earnest. You're made to feel a little guilty for just wanting a good, suspenseful, eerie monster story. Maybe with a little tragic romance. Instead it takes itself so very serious with its important issues of God and man and creation and, well, I just couldn't care because ultimately I didn't really care about any of the characters moving around an extremely uninteresting set with it's PowerPoint projections that told us where we were in what year. And it often seemed that everything truly dramatic and suspenseful happened off stage or behind a scrim.

Oh. And the music. The music didn't make me care too much about the characters either. Every "song" seemed more or less like the one preceding it. Except they didn't really seem so much like songs -- you could never really feel the shape of any tunes to grab onto, or that allowed any of the performers to shape into something enjoyable. I was so thankful when Hunter Foster finally got to sing "The Coming of the Dawn" almost at the very end. It was really the first time I felt he was able to just sing something that felt like a song and not just directionless declamatory drama. Amazingly, it seemed to be a real song. A nice power ballad that had a melody that stuck with me. It was the only thing that made a favorable impression on me. Well, I did buy a nice t-shirt in the lobby. I liked it. Still have it. It fits me well.

Check Frankenstein out for yourself though. If you enjoyed Les Miserables and some of the other attempts a bringing these old or gothic tales to musical theater (Jane Eyre, Lestat, Jekyll & Hyde and Phantom of the Opera come to mind) then you might find something to like in this.

I had the pleasure of seeing this show Off-Broadway at 37Arts. I knew some of the score from the Workshop production (the cast recording of which is hard to come by these days) prior to seeing the show, but didn't know what to expect with this production. Little did I know that I would fall head-over-heels for the cast, the music, and the design of this show.

Of course, this new recording (featuring the entire cast from 37Arts minus Eric Michael Gillett - who is replaced by the splendid Richard White) doesn't SHOW anyone the design or staging of the show...but it manages to capture 74 minutes of the 95 minute show perfectly!

The cast includes Hunter Foster (URINETOWN, THE PRODUCERS), Steve Blanchard (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST), and Christiane Noll (JEKYLL & HYDE). I won't go into detail about these wonderful performers, but I will say that each gives a truly unique and powerful performance. Foster's "Birth to My Creation" and "The Coming of the Dawn" are more than worth the price of the CD (or download). Blanchard's savage "The Waking Nightmare" and haunting "These Hands" show a tortured Creature worthy of pity. Noll's beautiful voice and presence deserve a standing ovation, especially on "Dear Victor" and "The Workings of the Heart." Also a standout is Jim Stanek (LESTAT), particularly in "The Modern Prometheus."

The orchestrations are not the "biggest," but that lends to the show's intimacy. The recording is perfectly engineered and produced.

If anyone were to make the perfect cast recording of a fantastic musical, this would be it!

Being an enormous fan of the amazing concept CD of Frankenstein Frankenstein, The Musical I was so pleased and felt assured that this CD would only enhance the original concept. I was wrong. This musical got on a train and the conductor toots the whistle and he never lets go of it for a minute. It is one long ride to nowhere because we don't care about any of the characters.

Get the original concept CD and hear just how beautiful this musical really is.

I unfortunately missed Frankenstein but got the CD immediately upon it's release. I was not dissapointed at all. I, truthfully, liked maybe 4 songs or so at first (I am a huge C. Noll fan) but slowly, after listening to the CD in the car for a few weeks of driving back and forth to rehearsals, I fell in love with the whole CD. I now have discovered Steve Blanchard who is wonderful, and never dissapoints. Not knowing the ending, I heard it for the first time about 2 weeks after I got the CD and cried as I'm driving! It touched me, I love Music and Love, These Hands, Modern Promethus, Amen and anything Ms. Noll sings on. Give it a chance, it's all there!

My partner and I tried to listen to this with an objective ear and we could barely get past the seventh song. What a mess! From the 'Concept CD' Frankenstein, The Musical to this contraption was really a long road. The 'Concept CD' was brilliant and we really wanted to like this so much. It has been a long time since we have felt so dissapointed in a musical. It took us twenty minutes to get the screaming vocals as well as the mismatched and unthreaded orchestrations out of our heads! No wonder it never made it Broadway. Somebody, please, take this show over and orchestrate it the way it should be done. There is no cohesiveness and no time stamp. We had no idea where the show was and at the point we turned it off we really did not care. This is a classic example of over production and too much tinkering. Try again and again and again. And then try some more. This show deserves better than this lame attempt.

My sister bought me this musical mistaking it for Young Frankenstein. I decided to give it a listen and I'm so glad I did. This has become one of my personal favourite musicals of all time and I listen to it so much. The songs are gorgeous and so lovely to listen to. The voices are top notch and the acting through the songs if superb. I definitely recommend this musical to anyone who is a fellow theater love.

I actually got to see it in New York during the brief off-broadway run. We loved it and the music is fantastic.

It's all here. I have waited too long to get this music. Since seeing the show I was intrigued and captivated by the music and I am so happy the music is finally available! Outstanding musical performances by the entire cast, and yes, this music can be enjoyed even if you did not see the show, but have the slightest inking of the story.
Hunter Foster is amazing in this masterpiece of Musical Theater.