| Hollywood Reporter: this is why you should use musical theatre pros | |
| Last Edit: GrumpyMorningBoy 11:07 am EST 11/20/24 | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 11:06 am EST 11/20/24 | |
| In reply to: Wicked Reviews out - sensational reviews - merle57 06:27 pm EST 11/19/24 | |
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| David Rooney at The Hollywood Reporter devotes a full four graphs to make the point that movie musicals must rely on trained musical theatre professionals to properly perform this material: "The respective casting of those roles — Ariana Grande as the minimally gifted sorcery student who will go on to become Glinda, Good Witch of the North, and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, future Wicked Witch of the West — is the movie’s winning hand. Their vocals are clear and strong and supple to a degree many of us have learned not to expect after too many movie musicals that cast merely adequate singers and then Auto-Tune them to death. Grande and Erivo give Stephen Schwartz’s songs — comedy numbers, introspective ballads, power anthems — effortless spontaneity. They help us buy into the intrinsic musical conceit that these characters are bursting into song to express feelings too large for spoken words, not just mouthing lyrics and trilling melodies that someone spent weeks cleaning up in a studio. The decision to record the songs live on set whenever possible is a major plus. Both actors have deep roots in musical theater, making them skilled at keeping the transitions between dialogue scenes and songs fluid. They fully integrate one part into the other, with none of those awkward moments in which some stars seem to pause and gather themselves, all but announcing, “I’m going to sing for you now.” While suspension of disbelief can be hard to achieve in contemporary movie musicals, Grande and, especially, Erivo (who does her best screen work to date, making Elphaba the bruised, beating heart of the film with a performance of breathtaking raw vulnerability and emotional shading) draw us into the story and the characters’ experiences to a degree that lets us forget the genre’s inherent artificiality." Couldn't agree more. Can't wait to see it. - GMB |
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