Shrek the Musical--OBC album

I am not the target market for this show. I'm not a kid. I don't have a kid. I don't want to be around kids. And I've never seen the movie that is the basis for this show. That said I was actually looking forward to listening to the cast album of Shrek the Musical. I've liked the previous Jeanine Tesori scores I've encountered. I've like the singing voices of both Brian D'Arcy James and Sutton Foster. So how about the latest endeavour from all of them? Uninspiring.

There were many times when I thought "Alright, this song/premise/title seems promising" and an initial musical introduction would perk up my ears, but in every case the song would fizzle for me before it ended. In many cases I felt the lyrics were rather too casual and not poetic enough to inspire a character to sing. Isn't that why a character sings? Because the emotions and message they have to convey is too strong to just put into words? Some songs had poetic titles--like "When Words Fail" or "Who I'd Be" but in each song even the refrain would lack any more poetry than the title.

The performances all seem hampered by something--a heavy costume, having to be on your knees the whole time, a thick speaking accent, actually being off stage while your character is represented by some kind of puppet on stage. I was particularly disappointed in Brian D'Arcy James; granted he has to perform through a put-on accent and a heavy costume, but nothing on this disc led me to feel any compassion for the leading man, um, ogre. Princess Fiona seems rather passive--at least as represented by her songs.

The music is very piece-meal. If you don't like a particular style of music, wait three minutes, it'll change. There will be a couple styles at least in one song alone. I think that is part of the reason the show didn't work for me. The structure of the songs doesn't allow for a build toward a climax. Several songs do involve clever quod-libet sections (where two melodies--or even three--are sung on top of one another), but the initial melodies seem uninspired, so you end up with layers of uninspired.

Never having seen the animated film, I was struck by the similarity in Shrek's plot to The Island of Misfit Toys from the Rankin and Bass television Rudolph special from my youth. I'm all for letting your freak flag wave, but you'd better have something really special to share. None of these freaks did.

Shrek the Musical
Music by Jeanine Tesori
Lyrics and book by David Lindsay-Abaire
Opened December 2008
Cast: Brian D'Arcy James, Sutton Foster, Christopher Sieber, Daniel Breaker

Triumph of Love--OBC album

The title of this show says a lot about it, I think. Could there be a more trite and derivative title than Triumph of Love? Even the library worker when I checked out this cast album commented that this wasn't the experience he had had (poor, lonely man--well, really me in about 25 years). Much of the rest of the listening experience with this show was equal to the title.

Who knew that F. Murray Abraham could sing? Well, he can't. He does a sort of Rex Harrison, Richard Burton (pick your Lerner and Loewe sing-speak role) thing. And it wouldn't be awful, except that the role is not written to be done that way, and Mr. Abraham is often teamed up in duets with real singers.

I also took issue with the style of music and style of singing of this show. Both music and voices are very modern sounding and American to me, yet the story is historical and European, or maybe even Classically Greek--I couldn't quite tell, which should point out a problem with this show as presented on disc. In the photos, the costumes are European 18th Century, but the libretto mentions places like Sparta. If I've missed something from the liner notes, I'm sure you'll point it out.

The music by Jeffrey Stock is rather bland and all sounded the same to me after a while, some songs a little faster, some a little slower. The two exceptions to that may be "Mr. Right", which I thought was funny and could have a life outside the show, and "Henchman are Forgotten" which is a sort of "Brush up your Shakespeare"-like song.

Part of the problem for me with the music maybe that Susan Egan and Betty Buckley are very similar in styles of singing. While they sound different, both have strong chest voices and little or no head voices. Couldn't one of the women in the show be a soprano? I need to check out Susan Egan's history; in her singing voice she sounds like any number of Disney heroines (Belle, Ariel, pick your animated story).

Triumph of Love
Music by Jeffrey Stock
Lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
Book by James Magruder

Opened in 1997
Cast: Susan Egan, F Murray Abraham, Betty Buckey, Roger Bart, Kevin Chamberlin, Nancy Opel, Christopher Sieber