I was given the liberty of seeing the new show yesterday. I was not impressed.
What the :censored: were they thinking?!
First of all, for the small set that they have, the cast is too big. It turns an already weak choreography into a very messy choreography. There are moments where there is just too much going on that has little to do with each other. I understand the theatrical device of "background action" but this just doesn't fall under that category. The only performers who seem to have any skill on their feet are the actual dancers. The vocals are hit and miss. The Bride and Phantasia had power house vocals, but Drac and Frankie fell short. I was fortunate enough to see the black Cleo perform, and she did a great job with what she was given. As far as the overall music lineup... Not impressed. The lineup is not very strong, nor do many of the mashups make much sense. (Sweet Dreams and Smooth Criminal? Really?) The finale did not feel like a finale. What doesn't help is that there is no breathing room between selections. The audience I was in had no idea when it was appropriate to clap. I'll also note that the costumes and makeup didn't impress me; particularly for the ghosts. When I can see where the makeup artist couldn't blend contours properly *from the very last row* that's a bad makeup job. The wigs on the ghosts are awful. I wish I knew who thought that up so I could slap them.
But the thing that bothers me most is that the small semblance of story that we had in the last show was completely stripped in this version. The monsters have almost no personality whatsoever. At least in the last show we could see that Frank and his Bride had an awkward relationship, or that Dracula was a hopeless romantic and womanizer. In this show... nothing. And for that matter... What happened to Beetlejuice? Considering that this is Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue, there is very little presence anymore. To me they should just remove him and rename the show "Universal's Classic Monsters Mashup" if they don't want to use him. Having BJ come out to the crowd before the start of the show was a fun way to include the audience. Now that that's gone, the show feels that much colder to me. Overall, I think they failed at this rewrite.
So sorry for writing a novel... I just can't believe how much they screwed up on this one.