King Kong

[foxy]

Anyone who follows theater probably knows some of the history of this show that originated in Melbourne, Australia in 2013. While not a flop exactly it's been hard, slow transition to Broadway. So is it worth the time and money to see it? Maybe. Let's face it, it was a crazy idea in the first place.

I've always been a fan of the original 1933 movie. No one could scream quite like Fay Wray. I've never been a big fan of all the remakes despite the cgi.

Sometimes overlooked is the incredible score of the original movie by Max Steiner. I have a vinyl recording of just the score and I think it's a wonderful piece of orchestral music. I wish there would be a concert performance some day.

So the main reason to see the show is the big 20 foot 2,000 pound puppet. It's impressive to say the least.

The large crew of puppeteers, which you can see but often don't notice does an amazing job bringing the creature to life.

So that's a big plus. The sets which use a lot of sepia toned moving projections are quite beautiful at times recreating a New York cityscape of the '30's. There are exciting uses of lasers shooting beams across the stage that are impressive.

There's a big cast of mostly male dancers performing very athletic choreography.

Those are the good parts of the show.

The music is forgettable. Not one interesting song I can think of. You won't walk out humming any of these tunes.

The 3 leads are Eric William Morris as Carl Denham who has a rather annoying nasal quality to his voice. Eric Lochtefeld as a character called Lumpy who I suppose is the nice guy comic relief and the foil for the not so nice Carl Denham and Christiani Pitts as Ann Darrow, Kong's love interest.

I really wanted to like her. She tried hard to do something with the lackluster tunes she was given to sing. I kept thinking had she been on American Idol she may have been a 3rd place winner. I hope after this show closes something better will come along for her.

The audience seemed to like the show but I doubt if any of the investors are going to make a profit. See it if you can get a discount seat. I think there will be plenty of them.

Edited November 8, 2018 by foxy

[+ g56whiz]

Thnx @foxy.

[Cooper]

Saw King Kong and was very impressed with the huge gorilla on stage. Those puppeteers worked so hard to make Kong come to life. Reminded me of War Horse.

 

The appeal for this show might be for a younger audience. There was a school group of 8th graders sitting in front of me. They were mesmerized by the show.

 

First off, it's very loud. At times when over-miked Christiani Pitts (Ann Darrow) was singing it actually hurt my ears. She puts so much energy into her singing that I was waiting for a church choir to join in.

 

There were many pluses to this show: the amazing scenery, the laser light show, the growling of Kong that vibrates throughout the theater, the orchestra, the dancing, all the special effects.... However, what was lacking was good acting, singing, memorable music, and good lines. Just wasn't up to par for Broadway but remember it's still in previews.

 

If you decide to see it, don't sit too close to the stage and definitely avoid the front row unless you want Kong to step on you. This show is best viewed from a distance as Kong is enormous and the moving scenery, which reminded me of a 3D movie, takes up the entire stage.

 

I was somewhat entertained by King Kong for 2hrs and 20 minutes and I did find myself laughing at times.

 

Discounted tickets are easy to get. Purchased mine at TKTS.

 

Thanks @foxy for your interesting and informative review. Saved me from writing about the history of King Kong!

[foxy]

The reviews are in. No better than mine. Read on.

[foxy]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/theater/reviews/la-et-cm-king-kong-review-20181108-story.html

[edjames]

Double whammy from the NYTimes, both Jesse Green and Ben Brantley HATED it!

 

Sorry I cannot paste the review as it exceed the 10000 character limit, so you'll have to check the NYTimes website.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/theater/king-kong-review.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

 

[edjames]

NYPost panned it as well!

 

Broadway’s ‘King Kong’ is a gorilla-size mess

By Joe Dziemianowicz

November 8, 2018 | 11:31pm | Updated

 

The musical's animatronic leading man is a marvel.Matthew Murphy

THEATER REVIEW

KING KONG

Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway. 2 hours, 15 minutes, with one intermission.

 

Show me the monkey! That gargantuan gorilla in “King Kong” is the top banana of the $35 million musical that opened Thursday night on Broadway. Too bad that most everything else wrapped around this animatronic marvel, onstage for just a quarter of the show, is such a mess.

 

The story, like the 1933 original film and several remakes (including one where the ape gives Jessica Lange a Drybar-worthy blowout), is essentially the tale of Girl Meets Chimp. As written by Jack Thorne, who won a Tony for the infinitely superior “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” this plot could fit on a postage stamp.

 

The setting is 1930s NYC, where plucky, wannabe actress Ann Darrow (Christiani Pitts) has come straight off her family’s farm to fulfill her “dream,” a word that recurs repeatedly. She’s nobody’s fool, but she’s desperate enough to join filmmaker Carl Denham (Eric William Morris) and his lackey, the kindhearted Lumpy (Erik Lochtefeld), on a ship bound for remote Skull Island, home to King Kong.

 

The supersize simian takes a shine to Ann, who repays him by aiding in his capture. Chained and bound, Kong’s shipped back to New York for exhibition. He breaks loose, and so does all hell.

 

In one of the show’s better strokes, Marius de Vries’ orchestrations underscore such key moments as Kong’s clash with a cobra set on making Ann its lunch. But those few, faint atmospheric touches are undone by Aussie songwriter Eddie Perfect’s mishmash of period pastiche, power ballads and rap, their knuckle-headed lyrics sticking out for all of the wrong reasons.

 

Director Drew McOnie has the dubious distinction of overseeing the overwrought, out-of-place choreography. The show is a study in mood disorder, careening from high drama to even higher camp, to graphic stylized violence and tacked-on, artificial uplift.

 

Acting is basically beside the point, but, as guided, both leads give shrill, one-note performances. The creators are so intent on making Ann the opposite of Fay Wray’s portrayal of a damsel in distress that she lacks the vulnerability that made the Ann-and-Kong love story click.

 

That leaves it to King Kong to step up. This big, badass beauty of a beast does it with soulful eyes and a rafter-rattling roar that helps him hold the audience in the palm of his giant hand — even with a distracting, luggage-rack-like thing on his back for Ann and the puppeteers to climb on.

 

Early on, as the ship departs New York Harbor, the scenery, stagecraft and video projections merge so beautifully, you think this show may lead to someplace special. Nope. “King Kong” is less fun than a barrel of monkeys.

[edjames]

Here's what NYPost columnist Michael Reidal had to say about the future of King Kong:

 

Critics beat up ‘King Kong,’ but producers aren’t pulling the plug

By Michael Riedel

 

November 15, 2018 | 4:35pm

 

 

Never mind those Curtiss Helldiver fighter planes circling the Empire State Building in “King Kong.”

 

The real threat to Broadway’s big ape may be those vicious drama critics.

 

They strafed the $35 million spectacle, which opened Nov. 8 and is by far the most expensive show of the season. The 20-foot-tall puppet got its due — and it is a remarkable creation — but minor things like, oh, the script and score, got clobbered.

 

Can this wounded beast limp along until the Tonys?

 

Word is there aren’t plans to close “King Kong” anytime soon, though it’s an open secret that other shows are circling the Broadway Theater, wondering when it will be back on the market. January and February can be pretty cold, even if your leading man is covered in fur.

 

But “Kong” is blessed with deep-pocketed producers, the Australian firm Global Creatures. One of its shows, “Walking With Dinosaurs,” grossed millions of dollars.

 

Global Creatures spent nearly 10 years developing “King Kong,” and sources say the company is fighting for the show. What a source calls an “aggressive” television campaign began this week, and the footage of Kong is impressive.

 

Kong will also put in an appearance at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade next week which, with its millions of viewers, does move tickets.

 

The hope is that “Kong” can trample its bad reviews and go straight for tourists who now make up nearly 65 percent of the Broadway audience.

 

“We did not go into this naively,” a production source says. “I don’t think we ever thought the critics would be on our side. But we’ve got a great title and the big guy delivers the goods.”

 

The problem is the expense. “Kong” grossed a little more than $900,000 last week. But with a running cost north of $700,000, that’s not a big profit. Earning back $35 million is a tall order.

 

Global Creatures has another, infinitely more promising show headed to Broadway: “Moulin Rouge,” which earned raves over the summer in Boston.

 

Days after it opened, there were rumors it would come to Broadway this season. But Global Creatures didn’t want to compete with itself, so “Moulin Rouge” won’t get here until the summer.

 

The Broadway crowd doesn’t think much of “King Kong,” so don’t look for many Tony nominations in the spring. But there is a sense that the show got a raw deal from the Times, which reviewed “Kong” in the form of a dialogue between the paper’s critics, Ben Brantley and Jesse Green. They tried to out-Addison DeWitt each other, though neither came up with anything as good as the zingers in “All About Eve.”

 

Their one-two punch ticked off a lot of theater people.

 

“It’s bad enough to get a lousy review from one of them,” says a veteran producer not involved in “King Kong.”

 

“But to get dumped on by the two of them is excessive.”

 

Another producer calls the dialogue of dish “vile,” adding, “It’s beneath the paper.”

 

Carping about critics gets producers absolutely nowhere, but I haven’t seen people this agitated about press coverage in a long time.

 

The Broadway League may issue a formal complaint. Pointless, but producers have to let off steam somehow.

[bostonman]

But we’ve got a great title

 

A great title? That's all they can say? Shall we consider that they stole it from an iconic movie, lol?

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I saw this in Australia years ago. Sounds like they continued to not focus on the meat of the show (book/lyrics/music) and just kept pumping money into tech.

 

If you want spectacle, go to Vegas and see a Cirque show. It's sad to me that this kind of crap is now becoming commonplace on Broadway.

[+ g56whiz]

I saw this in Australia years ago. Sounds like they continued to not focus on the meat of the show (book/lyrics/music) and just kept pumping money into tech.

 

If you want spectacle, go to Vegas and see a Cirque show. It's sad to me that this kind of crap is now becoming commonplace on Broadway.

Agreed. But it’s becoming commonplace on Broadway because too many there have adopted the Vagas business model: glom onto as many tourist dollars as possible as quickly as possible.

 

A college classmate’s family lost money as angels for the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams Comino Real. Investors like that are increasingly difficult to find.

[edjames]

No surprise, closing notices, Aug 18...

 

‘King Kong’ and ‘Cher Show’ Musicals Announce Closings

Each show arrived on Broadway with a big name in its title and major creative talents behind the scenes. But audiences kept their distance.

“King Kong,” the big-budget musical driven by its massive namesake puppet, will close Aug. 18 after less than a year on Broadway, the show’s producers announced on Tuesday.

“The Cher Show,” the jukebox musical that won Stephanie J. Block a Tony Award in the title role, will wrap up on the same day.

Each show arrived on Broadway with a presold — and yes, larger than life — name in its title. And the closings come as major disappointments, given the time, talent and expense it took to bring them to the New York stage.

Boasting three title performers and a bounty of tunes from the singer’s lengthy career, “The Cher Show” featured a book by Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys”) and direction by Jason Moore (“Avenue Q”). Jeffrey Seller, who brought “Hamilton” to Broadway, was a co-producer. Bob Mackie did the lavish costumes.

But the critic Jesse Green, writing in The New York Times, called the production a “maddening mishmash.” For the week ending June 23, the show grossed $858,578, only 58 percent of its potential. Capitalized for up to $19 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it has not recouped those costs.

“King Kong” was the first traditional stage production from Global Creatures, the Australian company whose realistic animatronics brought life to arena shows like “Walking With Dinosaurs” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”

It arrived in New York later than expected. After a run in Melbourne, “King Kong” initially considered a 2014 opening, before eventually announcing its 2018 arrival in the spring of 2017. Various creative teams were attached along the way.

“King Kong” was capitalized for $30 million, according to the production. That sum — enormous by Broadway standards — has not been recouped.

The show eventually opened to stinging reviews, with most of the praise going to the towering title character himself, a colossal marionette clocking in at 20 feet tall and 2,000 pounds. For the week ending June 23, it grossed just shy of $783,000 at the box office, only 53 percent of its potential take.

Fourteen performers operate the lifelike ape, whose innovative expressions and movements exceed what most audiences have typically seen from puppetry on Broadway, and were recognized with a special Tony Award this month.

The creative team for “King Kong” included the writer Jack Thorne, who also was behind the script for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” and the director and choreographer Drew McOnie. The score was written by Marius de Vries, with songs by Eddie Perfect.

At the time of its closing, the show will have played 324 performances and 29 previews at the Broadway Theater. “The Cher Show” will have played 296 performances and 34 previews at the Neil Simon Theater.

[+ Cock Eyed Optimist]

No surprise, closing notices, Aug 18...

 

‘King Kong’ and ‘Cher Show’ Musicals Announce Closings

Each show arrived on Broadway with a big name in its title and major creative talents behind the scenes. But audiences kept their distance.

“King Kong,” the big-budget musical driven by its massive namesake puppet, will close Aug. 18 after less than a year on Broadway, the show’s producers announced on Tuesday.

“The Cher Show,” the jukebox musical that won Stephanie J. Block a Tony Award in the title role, will wrap up on the same day.

Each show arrived on Broadway with a presold — and yes, larger than life — name in its title. And the closings come as major disappointments, given the time, talent and expense it took to bring them to the New York stage.

Boasting three title performers and a bounty of tunes from the singer’s lengthy career, “The Cher Show” featured a book by Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys”) and direction by Jason Moore (“Avenue Q”). Jeffrey Seller, who brought “Hamilton” to Broadway, was a co-producer. Bob Mackie did the lavish costumes.

But the critic Jesse Green, writing in The New York Times, called the production a “maddening mishmash.” For the week ending June 23, the show grossed $858,578, only 58 percent of its potential. Capitalized for up to $19 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it has not recouped those costs.

.

 

I saw "The Cher Show" when it was in its early stages in Chicago. I wasn't impressed, but then read it was completely revamped before it open in NYC. I was hoping it would have been a success since the subject matter has such potential.