Motown The Musical - how many fails? Let me count the ways

[grab]

Wasn't sure whether this should go in the reviews section, but it's not equipment. Let's put it here instead as an example of just about everything you should want to not ever do to the music you're producing.

My girlfriend took me to see "Motown The Musical" last night at the Shaftesbury. I'm not a fan of musicals in general, but I thought this might work. On paper it should have, and it takes some talent to turn perhaps the most awesome set of songs ever made in one place into something boring.

They managed. Not only that, they managed to ruin the songs as well.

Start with the structure itself. It's a vanity project from Berry Gordy, who's not known for his lack of ego in the first place. If you can set that aside, the writing of the links between the songs is paper-thin and makes George Lucas ("you can write that sh*t, George, but you can't say it") look like Shakespeare. Still, it's a musical, and most musicals have dialogue and plot which aspires to banality at best, so set that aside too. Then the acting is wooden, but most musicals have acting which aspires to am-dram at best (they can either sing or act, but rarely both), so set that aside too.

I would at least expect them to be able to sing, though. The woman playing Diana Ross had a thin, shrill voice which simply didn't cut it. Another of the supporting actresses was even worse. (The guys were mostly pretty good though.)

The sound engineer and musical director managed to cap that by hiding the vocals, just in case we wanted to hear the singers. As soon as the backing band upped the volume at all, the vocals vanished. The concept of frequency masking has completely passed them by. This isn't something that could be blamed on the sound system in the theatre, which was top notch - it was entirely down to incompetence both in arranging and in the live sound on the night. The difference between the cast performing "Dancing in the street" and the PA playing the original as background music at the end was brutal.

The MD also had no idea of what made the "Motown sound". It's been discussed enough in SoS - the effect of tape on the backing track, with vocals recorded over that. It's not hard to add some compression and EQ to recreate a bit of that kind of sound live. They didn't even try. Instead all we got was "everything louder than everything else". Whoever was on keys also had the cheesiest Casio strings patch instead of something that actually sounded like strings.

Then if we have a musical stitching together Motown songs, let's use those songs well, right? Nope. The first act was a complete yawn-fest, literally - my girlfriend spent much of it asleep. The second act was a massive improvement, but by then they'd lost the audience. The first attempt at audience participation in the second act was frankly embarrassing, because the audience didn't care and the cast knew the audience didn't care.

The one thing which almost saved it? The kid playing Michael Jackson in his Jackson 5 days was awesome and really turned the audience around. You could feel people waking up. The second go at audience participation actually started working. But it was far, far too late.

[grab]

Apparently tickets (which went on sale at £40) are changing hands for up to £100 on resale sites. I thoroughly recommend cashing in.

[ManFromGlass]

They hold the Elvis Festival every year in a small town near me. Part of the fun ( your mileage may vary!) is the free concert where all the impersonators each do a song or two. Not a huge stage but big enough on the blocked off main street of town. So if you are familiar with that music you are probably aware that the kick drum should not be pounding you in the chest hard enough to replace a defibrillator. Granted the people they find every year to mix this show probably weren't born when that music was popular but I'm still scratching my head. There must be some saying about "giving an arsehole high powered bass bins and ........."

[muzines]

Well, isn't the bass drum a lead instrument these days?

[ManFromGlass]

Good point about the bass drum. Maybe as a species we are killing off our high frequencies by listening to our earbuds too loud. In a few generations we won't need tweeters. I remember going to see the Phantom of the Opera many years ago (free tickets and I was curious) Not my cup of tea but standing ovation all around us. It wasn't overbearingly loud the way the movies are these days (bastards) and the sound was very well done even in the back row where we sat. So I assume the more money thrown at a production the greater the chances of a good show. But as the OP suggests - a crap show can be made even worse by many factors.