The reviews of this show have caused a stir, but here's a good reminder that without criticism what you're left with is...marketing. And, in this case, deceptive marketing. Neither of these phrases appear in the reviews as written. Scroll for context.
The reviews of this show have caused a stir, but here's a good reminder that without criticism what you're left with is...marketing. And, in this case, deceptive marketing. Neither of these phrases appear in the reviews as written. Scroll for context.
@MJSchulman Yeah I don't care if shows have to mess with pull quotes from cranky reviewers (Jesse Green) who are fine with killing original-inclusive-diverse shows -- which kills jobs on and around Broadway, BTW -- that they're not in the mood so see in the first place. 👍🏽
@MJSchulman There's gall, and then there's Gall with a capital G
The handwringing is pretty rich, @mjschulman, since this has been standard practice forever. Even more so from the publication that promoted the Fine People Hoax that literally took the *opposite* context from an incomplete pull quote. IInstead of complaining about something almost every Broadway show does in its ads, you should ask why Jesse Green found it necessary to spend most of his review helpfully mansplaining to us the "actual" history of an obviously somewhat fictional story about mostly fictional characters (Has he met Dot? Maybe he thought 1776 was what actually happened? Or that Jefferson was Black?) Maybe you should run a Bechdel test on the musicals this year (Go SUFFS!). Maybe the whole point of Lempicka is that Tamara, like Sondheim's George in Sunday in the Park, is also "bizarre, fixed, cold" - but she's a woman, and that's not cool, if you're a male critic. And did anyone notice that's what the show is actually about? And how about your NY Mag review- yes, only Sondheim, could possibly use desciptions of painting like color and line (sounds so much like "light") - I mean, he should have copywrited those words. Because a man, describing a male painter, 40 years ago, said it all. George in Sunday was "Fixed and Cold" and we love him for it. Tamara, and the women she painted, was "Fixed and Cold" and the critics take her to the cleaners. Over and over, the critics: "We want to know more about her character." Because that's not how a woman should be. Shame on you all. That was the whole point! And while we're at it -- Tamara painted Rafaella 7 times, her husband once, and called that painting "Portrait of an unfinished man." And the critics clutched their pearls and said "The husband is underwritten." Yep. Mansplain us some more exactly why the husband should dominate the show.