May 11, 2006

'Tarzan' lands on Broadway with Phil Collins score

Disney's latest Broadway musical, "Tarzan," last night opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, inspiring critics and headline writers to roll out all sorts of "fumble in the jungle" and "You Tarzan, me bored" lines in condemning the new show.

Critics hated it pretty much all around, save for USA Today and a few others who said that at least the tourists might like it.

Phil Collins wrote the music and lyrics while Bob Crowley handled the directing as well as the scenic and costume designs. The book was written by David Henry Hwang, based on the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Josh Strickland stars as Tarzan.

"Tarzan" has an open-ended run at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, located at 226 W. 46th St., map.

A sample of the reviews:

Daily News - "'Tarzan': Me, critic; you lame!"

New York Times - "Though much money (a reported $12 million to $15 million) and international research (with special emphasis on what a character in the show calls pendulation) has been lavished on 'Tarzan,' it somehow never acquired the art of focus. Momentous events — from fatal fights with evil animals to Freudian struggles between parents and children of two species — occur regularly in the course of this retelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs's evergreen adventure novel. But any tension or excitement is routinely sabotaged by overkill and diffuseness."

Associated Press - "Josh Strickland, Broadway's Tarzan, is bland, boyish and bulk-free - the Ape Man by way of Abercrombie & Fitch. The biggest thing about him is his voice. It is one of those piercing instruments favoured by contestants on American Idol, where Strickland apparently was once a national finalist."

Post - "Perhaps the most acceptable aspect of this sad, busy and loud evening was Bob Crowley's staging and designs. Together, with Natasha Katz's lighting, he offered images of true beauty."

Variety - "The show may be more sophisticated in terms of its design and physical presentation than in its workmanlike musical craftsmanship, but an insipid score has not stopped other Disney tuners from finding popular acceptance in the marketplace."

USA Today - "From Bob Crowley's lush, fanciful scenic and costume design to its intricate uses of animation and projected images, Tarzan offers plenty of the flash considered catnip for tourists and casual fans. Here, though, it's not empty flash. Not since I saw Elton John's Billy Elliot in London last year have I been as impressed with the uncynical warmth and charm of a kid-friendly musical."

Hollywood Reporter - "This musical version of the animated film is a gorgeous and imaginative production, the impact of which lessens considerably once the story and score kick in. While somewhat lacking compared to the long-running hits 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Lion King,' it should please its target family audiences and seems destined to further increase the company's theatrical presence."

Washington Post - "What it doesn't have much of is drama, and so after you've finished admiring director-designer Bob Crowley's bouncing primates and curtains of green streamers -- it's as if the stage is wrapped in a hula skirt -- you wait for some other appeal to the senses. And then wait some more. Neither a rash of Collins's sound-alike pop ditties nor David Henry Hwang's libretto offers anything like a stirring crescendo. "Tarzan" seems content to mark time with shimmering landscapes and simian calisthenics."

Star Ledger - "Worse than anything, this dumbed-down Disney package of vapid Phil Collins songs with a numbing script is being touted as a new Broadway musical?"

Newsday - "But if the standard is "The Lion King" - and you can bet it is - "Tarzan" disappoints big time. Despite some ravishing spectacle and excellent ape moves, the show never defines itself beyond a sickly sweet, hard-sell Cirque du Soleil-meets-"American Idol" sensibility."

Philadelphia Inquirer - "Plot, shmot - my overall feeling about Tarzan is that it's at its best when the apes are artfully wrecking a campsite, or when Tarzan is bounding across and above the stage, trying to find his way in life, in any one of Phil Collins' playful, generally short songs."

Telegraph - "The opening minutes of Tarzan, the new Disney musical that opened on Broadway on Tuesday, are among the most exciting and inventive I have ever witnessed in the theatre. ... Unfortunately, Crowley seems to have shot his bolt. After the inspirational prologue, there is nothing else in the show that dazzles to the same extent."

Sun - "But with the exception of an eye-catching opening, Disney's latest foray onto Broadway lands on the Richard Rodgers Theatre with all the artistic grace of George of the Jungle, Tarzan's cartoon counterpart, slamming into that tree."

May 11, 2006 08:59 AM in Broadway

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