"I'm not, therefore I am"

I have to admit it kind of ticks me off when new musicals define themselves by what they are not. There's really no need to, and it usually comes off as a bit of a slur towards "what they are not".

In its early days, LORD OF THE RINGS was touting that it was "not a Jerry Herman" musical (i.e. no tap-dancing hobbits). Why didn't it focus on clearly defining what it was, instead of indirectly insulting Jerry Herman? Like I've said before, you could do a lot worse than being a classic Jerry Herman musical like MAME and HELLO DOLLY!. I would have liked to have known more about what made LORD OF THE RINGS special.

So when I was reading page 58 of the fall preview issue of the latest New York magazine (September 4 to 11), I was disappointed to find the same thing happening. As everybody knows, HIGH FIDELITY is coming to Broadway this season, and I for one, am totally jazzed about it. I'm a huge fan of the movie and it seems like material that really "sings" (being set in a record store helps!). So I'm all ready to read an interview with Will Chase (who stars as Rob Gordon) to get the 411 on HIGH FIDELITY:

Jada Yuan, New York Magazine: How will this be better than, say, ALL SHOOK UP...

Will Chase: I don't want to whale on any shows, but this isn't THE WEDDING SINGER. Tom Kitt, who wrote it -- he's rock-influenced. He had a band. It's all original music. It's not razzle-dazzle.

Oh come on! So when you say it isn't THE WEDDING SINGER, you mean it doesn't have a fabulous score, it isn't touching, it isn't funny and it won't create standing ovations? I also don't understand the original music comment...

OK, I might be a bit of a Wed Head, but that seems kind of a cheap shot. Instead, why don't you tell me what the music is like, and what you are doing in HIGH FIDELITY that is really cool.

And I think that the way the question was asked was a tad mean-spirited...ALL SHOOK UP was a terrific show that didn't deserve it's fate...

So endeth the rant.

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