Broadway Watch - Ring of Fire
Tue, 14 Mar 2006, 10:55 amWalter Plinge1 post in thread
Broadway Watch - Ring of Fire
Tue, 14 Mar 2006, 10:55 amRing of Fire: The Johnny Cash Musical Show
Created by Richard Maltby, Jr.
Conceived by William Meade
Directed by Richard Maltby, Jr.
Choreographed by Lisa Shriver
Opened 12th March 2006
Extracts from various reviewers:
“It takes a genius to create art from the everyday, but a skilled craftsman can at least make the pedestrian above average. And as far as theatre craftsmen go, you can do much worse than Richard Maltby, Jr., the primary saving grace behind the Broadway production of Ring of Fire that just opened at the Barrymore.”
“Maltby has attempted less here, instead using his cast (Jeb Brown, Jason Edwards, Jarrod Emick, Beth Malone, Cass Morgan, and Lari White) to play a variety of archetypal people who use Cash's songs to narrate isolated events from their lives. These events are organized by theme into musical sequences revolving around home and family, the farm, the local tavern, the Grand Ole Opry, prison, death, and so on.”
“But as there's no real continuity, neither a story nor characters can ever fully form.” “Forcing songs to bear narrative weight they were never intended to carry is the typical jukebox musical trap, and what makes nearly all of them dramatically inert. Given the bountiful talent of this performing troupe, the show would have been better served had Maltby had them perform the songs simply, honestly, and with as little fringe filigree as possible. As it is, specific highlights only come when the individual cast members are matched with material in ways that especially suit their unique gifts.”
“Ring of Fire won't go down in theatre history as a titanic disaster (like Good Vibrations), or as a legitimately inspired hit (like Jersey Boys). But it knows what it is and never pretends to be anything else. Of that, if nothing else, Cash would have been rightfully proud.”
Talkin’ Broadway – Matthew Murray
“Conceived by William Meade, and created and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr., the show has a cast of 14 singing Cash's chart-toppers as well as some lesser-known numbers. Maltby, who has acknowledged that he knew little of the Cash oeuvre when he got the offer to do the show, has thumbed through the icon's catalogue for repeated and related themes that would point him in one story-telling direction or another. In the end, he decided that 38 of the myriad songs that Cash wrote and/or performed could be arranged to suggest the lives of three couples living under one roof in an isolated rural house.”
“Also unsurprising is the facility with which the cast performs the songs. Most of the numbers are stingingly sung by Jason Edwards and Cass Morgan as the older couple, Jeb Brown and Lari White as the more or less middle-aged couple, and Jarrod Emick and Beth Malone as the younger couple.”
“It might be easy to dismiss this show as yet another "jukebox musical," but since Maltby is involved, maybe that term needs reexamination. After all, it could be said that it was Maltby, creator and director of Ain't Misbehavin' (1978), who's responsible for setting so many of the more recent theatrical catalogue studies in motion. Back then, such shows were called revues -- a genre that Broadway supposedly welcomes no longer. "Revue" is also a word that Maltby says he dislikes because it connotes a collection of songs performed in a non-theatrical style. The truth is that most of these musicals, no matter what they're termed, are simply cashing in on the popularity of the material. The only thing that distinguishes Ring of Fire from the rest of the mediocre pack is that it's literally Cash-ing in.”
Theater Mania – David Finkle
“The new Johnny Cash musical Ring of Fire boasts toe-tapping songs, an accomplished director in Richard Maltby Jr. (Ain't Misbehavin', Fosse) and a company of talented singers and musicians. But only country-music diehards are likely to have a good time at this uninspired revue. Most city slickers won't find it nearly as enjoyable or enlightening as the recent Cash biopic Walk the Line.”
“Cash didn't write all 38 songs in the show, but he did record all of them. Along with well-known tunes such as "Folsom Prison Blues," "Walk the Line" and the title song, there are plenty of obscure ditties. Some of the less-well-known songs, like the ode to farming "Look at Them Beans," didn't need to be unearthed.”
“Edwards, Emick and Brown act out "A Boy Named Sue," which Maltby sets in a saloon. Like most of the comic bits, it falls flat.”
“As for the sets, they use the same kind of projections pioneered by The Woman in White earlier in the season. For instance, a long- distance shot of a farmhouse leads to a close-up view and then an interior shot. There are also sunsets, barrooms, a recording studio and (naturally) a jail backdrop for "Folsom Prison Blues." While a rainstorm contributed a nice mood to one song, most of the projections look pretty cheesy. Hopefully I hope this isn't the wave of the future in Broadway set design.”
“Theatergoers who loved the recent John Denver musical Almost Heaven and who make frequent trips to the Grand Ole Opry might enjoy Ring of Fire. For the rest of us, Broadway's latest jukebox musical is a tedious exercise in rehashed Cash. The Man in Black deserved better.”
Broadway.Com – William Stevenson
Next Broadway Musical opening – The Threepenny Opera – 20th April
Created by Richard Maltby, Jr.
Conceived by William Meade
Directed by Richard Maltby, Jr.
Choreographed by Lisa Shriver
Opened 12th March 2006
Extracts from various reviewers:
“It takes a genius to create art from the everyday, but a skilled craftsman can at least make the pedestrian above average. And as far as theatre craftsmen go, you can do much worse than Richard Maltby, Jr., the primary saving grace behind the Broadway production of Ring of Fire that just opened at the Barrymore.”
“Maltby has attempted less here, instead using his cast (Jeb Brown, Jason Edwards, Jarrod Emick, Beth Malone, Cass Morgan, and Lari White) to play a variety of archetypal people who use Cash's songs to narrate isolated events from their lives. These events are organized by theme into musical sequences revolving around home and family, the farm, the local tavern, the Grand Ole Opry, prison, death, and so on.”
“But as there's no real continuity, neither a story nor characters can ever fully form.” “Forcing songs to bear narrative weight they were never intended to carry is the typical jukebox musical trap, and what makes nearly all of them dramatically inert. Given the bountiful talent of this performing troupe, the show would have been better served had Maltby had them perform the songs simply, honestly, and with as little fringe filigree as possible. As it is, specific highlights only come when the individual cast members are matched with material in ways that especially suit their unique gifts.”
“Ring of Fire won't go down in theatre history as a titanic disaster (like Good Vibrations), or as a legitimately inspired hit (like Jersey Boys). But it knows what it is and never pretends to be anything else. Of that, if nothing else, Cash would have been rightfully proud.”
Talkin’ Broadway – Matthew Murray
“Conceived by William Meade, and created and directed by Richard Maltby, Jr., the show has a cast of 14 singing Cash's chart-toppers as well as some lesser-known numbers. Maltby, who has acknowledged that he knew little of the Cash oeuvre when he got the offer to do the show, has thumbed through the icon's catalogue for repeated and related themes that would point him in one story-telling direction or another. In the end, he decided that 38 of the myriad songs that Cash wrote and/or performed could be arranged to suggest the lives of three couples living under one roof in an isolated rural house.”
“Also unsurprising is the facility with which the cast performs the songs. Most of the numbers are stingingly sung by Jason Edwards and Cass Morgan as the older couple, Jeb Brown and Lari White as the more or less middle-aged couple, and Jarrod Emick and Beth Malone as the younger couple.”
“It might be easy to dismiss this show as yet another "jukebox musical," but since Maltby is involved, maybe that term needs reexamination. After all, it could be said that it was Maltby, creator and director of Ain't Misbehavin' (1978), who's responsible for setting so many of the more recent theatrical catalogue studies in motion. Back then, such shows were called revues -- a genre that Broadway supposedly welcomes no longer. "Revue" is also a word that Maltby says he dislikes because it connotes a collection of songs performed in a non-theatrical style. The truth is that most of these musicals, no matter what they're termed, are simply cashing in on the popularity of the material. The only thing that distinguishes Ring of Fire from the rest of the mediocre pack is that it's literally Cash-ing in.”
Theater Mania – David Finkle
“The new Johnny Cash musical Ring of Fire boasts toe-tapping songs, an accomplished director in Richard Maltby Jr. (Ain't Misbehavin', Fosse) and a company of talented singers and musicians. But only country-music diehards are likely to have a good time at this uninspired revue. Most city slickers won't find it nearly as enjoyable or enlightening as the recent Cash biopic Walk the Line.”
“Cash didn't write all 38 songs in the show, but he did record all of them. Along with well-known tunes such as "Folsom Prison Blues," "Walk the Line" and the title song, there are plenty of obscure ditties. Some of the less-well-known songs, like the ode to farming "Look at Them Beans," didn't need to be unearthed.”
“Edwards, Emick and Brown act out "A Boy Named Sue," which Maltby sets in a saloon. Like most of the comic bits, it falls flat.”
“As for the sets, they use the same kind of projections pioneered by The Woman in White earlier in the season. For instance, a long- distance shot of a farmhouse leads to a close-up view and then an interior shot. There are also sunsets, barrooms, a recording studio and (naturally) a jail backdrop for "Folsom Prison Blues." While a rainstorm contributed a nice mood to one song, most of the projections look pretty cheesy. Hopefully I hope this isn't the wave of the future in Broadway set design.”
“Theatergoers who loved the recent John Denver musical Almost Heaven and who make frequent trips to the Grand Ole Opry might enjoy Ring of Fire. For the rest of us, Broadway's latest jukebox musical is a tedious exercise in rehashed Cash. The Man in Black deserved better.”
Broadway.Com – William Stevenson
Next Broadway Musical opening – The Threepenny Opera – 20th April