Pretty Woman or pretty lousy?

[edjames]

reviews are in and unfortunately, not glowing...

 

NYTimes says...

 

CREDITRICHARD TERMINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Review: Chasing Shopworn Dreams in ‘Pretty Woman: The Musical’

 

This wan resuscitation of the 1990 movie about a Cinderella prostitute is likely to make you nostalgic for Julia Roberts’s original performance.

 

By Ben Brantley Aug. 16, 2018

No one should have had to step into that red dress again. I’m talking about the long, strapless number that Julia Roberts wore in the 1990 film “Pretty Woman,” in a moment of pure, movie-magic apotheosis.

 

Let me refresh your memory of that occasion before I proceed to the less pleasant topic of “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” which opened on Thursday night at the Nederlander Theater without Ms. Roberts in the title role. In the movie, Ms. Roberts’s character, a prostitute named Vivian Ward, is going to her first opera (all too appropriately, “La Traviata”) with her date and client, Edward Lewis, a very rich and emotionally frozen businessman played by Richard Gere.

 

She materializes with coltish grace and freshness in said dress, and the smitten Mr. Gere presents her with a small box, containing an obscenely expensive necklace. He playfully snaps it open and closed, and Ms. Roberts erupts into a spontaneous shout of laughter that totally and improbably dispels the creepy transactional haze of the scene.

 

For many of us who saw “Pretty Woman” when it first opened, that was the precise instant when we realized that we had been watching a young actress turn into a singular, full-fledged movie star of a stripe we thought had ceased to exist. And I at least decided that I was going to sit through the rest of this unsavory movie, after all.

 

 

 

A facsimile of that red dress — and of many of the other outfits worn by Ms. Roberts, including her skimpy hooker clothes — show up in “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” which lowers the already ground-scraping bar for literal-minded adaptations of film to stage. And once again Edward starts to hand Vivian the jewelry box and then abruptly opens and closes it.

 

This time, Vivian (Samantha Barks) giggles halfheartedly, as if she were a little embarrassed. Edward (Andy Karl), too, seems slightly sheepish. Well, why wouldn’t they feel that way?

 

 

 

Let me make it clear that I mean no disrespect to Ms. Barks when I say that she is not Julia Roberts. Best known for playing

” Ms. Barks is clearly a talented singer and actress. But being used as a paper doll for Gregg Barnes’s “I Love Julia” costumes, while speaking verbatim Ms. Roberts’s lines from the film, she has been given no chance to banish stardust memories of the woman who created her part.

 

Directed and choreographed as if on automatic pilot by Jerry Mitchell, “Pretty Woman: The Musical” has a book by the original film’s director, Garry Marshall (who died in 2016), and screenwriter, J.F. Lawton, with songs by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. Its creators have hewed suffocatingly close to the film’s story, gags and dialogue.

 

 

And what an uncomfortable story it is. A seemingly soulless Wall Street takeover king picks up a young hooker on Hollywood Boulevard and pays her $3,000 to be his companion, on social occasions as well as in the hotel suite, for a week.

 

He introduces her to fine dining, fancy clothes, discreet makeup and the opera, while she transforms him from a cold fish into a free spirit. The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote that the film “manages to be giddy, lighthearted escapism much of the time,” but she also noted a classically 1980s spirit of materialistic “covetousness and an underlying misogyny.”

 

Yet even committed feminists I know have a soft spot for “Pretty Woman,” and I suspect the principal, if not the sole, reason is Ms. Roberts. In her early 20s and previously a supporting actress of electric presence, Ms. Roberts unsheathed her full, unsullied radiance here, and it cast a cosmetic glow on everything around her.

 

The biggest problem for the musical adapters thus becomes selling an essentially tawdry tale minus Ms. Roberts’s lewdness-proof, megawatt charm. Instead of retailoring Vivian to Ms. Barks’s specific talents, the creative team has chosen to play up the narrative’s twinkly fairy-tale aspects, which can be summed up in the lyric, “If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?”

 

Oops, that’s “Happy Talk,” from “South Pacific.” The words in “Pretty Woman,” to quote from the opening number, are “Hopes and dreams are what this town is made of./ Give it a shot, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

 

 

This prescription is delivered by a character called (I swear) Happy Man (Eric Anderson), who also morphs into the kindly concierge at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where Edward takes Vivian on their first, uh, date. Mr. Anderson is likable, flexible and hard-working, which is not quite enough to keep us from wincing every time Happy Man starts to sing about dreams again.

 

He doesn’t have to convince Vivian, who has dreams from the outset, though she’s not quite sure what they are. Others require more persuasion, including the money-minded Edward and Vivian’s roommate, Kit (the inimitable Orfeh, the cast’s loudest member), a fellow hooker who finally remembers she always wanted to be a cop.

 

The score’s many, country-tinged power ballads bring to mind B-sides of Top 40 hits from the 1980s, the era in which Mr. Adams became a rock star. And they are often delivered with a straight-to-the-audience, note-holding “American Idol” earnestness. (In her big numbers, Ms. Barks brings to mind

 

Whether the setting is luxurious Beverly Hills or seedy downtown Hollywood, David Rockwell’s set has a kind of “Sesame Street” friendliness, and Kenneth Posner and Phillip S. Rosenberg’s lighting saturates everything in Disney shades of orange and fuchsia. This is true even for the show’s sex (or foreplay) scenes, which find Vivian in a series of cleavage-enhancing bras and slips.

 

Mostly, Ms. Barks conducts herself like a peppy, tomboyish cutup from a sitcom. She often doesn’t seem entirely at ease, but her discomfort is nothing compared to Mr. Karl’s. This fine musical performer,

” often looks as if he would rather be anywhere but here, especially when he has to sing internal monologues about how free Vivian makes Edward feel.

 

“Pretty Woman: The Musical” is already doing big box office, proving that on Broadway you can’t go broke overestimating the popular appeal of clones. But it’s worth noting that at the performance I attended, the number that received the biggest applause wasn’t one of those wistful soliloquies about feelin’ free, or even a high-spirited number about following your dreams.

 

No, the loudest clapping came when Allison Blackwell, the soprano performing Violetta in “La Traviata,” sang her character’s farewell declaration of love. Something like real passion had finally entered the building.

[edjames]

NYPost says...

 

‘Pretty Woman’ musical just feels wrong in the #MeToo era

By Joe Dziemianowicz

 

August 16, 2018 | 10:01pm | Updated

 

Andy Karl and Samantha Barks star in "Pretty Woman: The Musical."Matthew Murphy

THEATER REVIEW

"PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL"

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes, one intermission. Nederlander Theatre, 208 W. 41st St.; 212-921-8000.

 

The hooker with the heart of gold is singing a new tune — but it’s the same old icky story.

 

“Pretty Woman: The Musical,” which opened Thursday on Broadway, boasts slick direction and choreography (by Jerry Mitchell of “Kinky Boots”), plus fine performances.

 

But, like so many movies churned into musicals, the show is a warmed-over copy of the original.

 

Seriously: Why would anyone revisit such a funky fable, especially in the #MeToo age? It follows Vivian (Samantha Barks), a Hollywood Boulevard streetwalker whose $3,000 deal with Edward (Andy Karl), a cold-hearted billionaire, leads to love. It’s a fairy tale replete with condoms, cash and contrivances — and a nagging yech factor.

 

That was there even in 1990, when “Pretty Woman” made Julia Roberts a star and cemented Richard Gere’s status as a hunk. It’s there when Viv plops a pillow on the floor and slithers between Ed’s legs. Watching the encounter on film and onstage, you imagine thought balloons over her head filled with dollar signs. The same goes when the duo redefines what it means to bang on a piano, as Edward tickles more than the ivories.

 

The musical adheres faithfully to the film, with J.F. Lawton duplicating much of the dialogue — verbatim — from the script he wrote for the Garry Marshall film. Even Barks’ wardrobe is a replica of Roberts’, from her blue working-girl micro-mini to the flowing red opera gown.

 

The pleasant score, by Canadian pop star Bryan Adams and longtime music partner Jim Vallance, is all soft rock and smooth grooves, though earworms are in short supply. Production numbers like the ridiculous fashion show, “Rodeo Drive, Baby,” become exhausting, even when it’s led by the explosively talented Orfeh, who plays Vivian’s streetwalking BFF, Kit.

 

At least three songs (“Anywhere but Here,” “Welcome to Our World” and “You and I”) touch on Eliza Doolittle territory, enough to make you think you’re watching “My Fair Lady of the Night.”

 

The look of the show is a head-scratcher. Skimpy set pieces — an arch here, a palm tree there — slide into place as locations change. Scenic designer David Rockwell appears to have been on a budget.

 

In contrast, the leads go for broke. Karl (“Groundhog Day”) has a quirky way of making Edward his own: Whenever he sings about Vivian, he channels Adams, and his vocals morph into marshmallow-y lite FM.

 

It takes guts to step into Roberts’ thigh-high boots, but Barks, late of the film version of “Les Miserables,” sings the hell out of the part, especially in her song of defiant reckoning, “I Can’t Go Back.” At times, she comes close to overselling, but she always has you rooting for her.

 

One noteworthy theatrical tweak is merging several characters into one: A genial, gyrating Eric Anderson plays Vivian’s fairy godfather, who pops up everywhere — on the dirty boulevard, at the swank Beverly Wilshire Hotel and even in the orchestra pit.

 

The show opens with a view of Los Angeles, seen from behind the iconic Hollywood sign. It’s an unusual vantage point, hinting at fresh angles and insights into a dated story.

 

No such luck. “Pretty Woman: The Musical” is a singing rerun.

[bostonman]

Closing August 18, almost exactly a year after its Broadway opening.