Big Fish the Musical - Alas, a sign of the times on Broadway
Theater Review
by
Drew Kopf
September 29, 2013
If there was even one real song in Big Fish the new musical with Book by John August, Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa and based on the novel Big Fish by Daniel Wallace and the Columbia Pictures film screenplay by John August, and which is in previews at the Neil Simon Theatre, we might be able to recommend it heartily as a Broadway Musical Show worthy of what that term used to mean. Sorrowfully, that is not the case.
Don’t get us wrong. There is a lot of music in Big Fish and a fine cast of terrific singers, dancers and actors directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman and staring Norbert Leo Butz, Kate Baldwin and Bobby Steggert who sing a lot. Big Fish has a great deal of very good Broadway Musical-style dancing, which is of the highest caliber, but all that is not enough to justify recommending the show as something not to miss. The sets are very clever and get changed almost imperceptively; a neat trick indeed. The lighting and special effects in Big Fish work flawlessly to dazzle and impress the audience. There is a very strong and talented orchestra who play their hearts out under the baton of Mary-Mitchell Campbell, who does everything that could be done to keep the music happening. Big Fish is a big show, with a big cast, and big stars with big voices whose acting creates real strong characters. There are no real songs in Big Fish; not one. Songs in a Broadway Musical are everything. At least that is what one would think.
The songs in Big Fish or what are put forth as songs, remind us of the “recitative” in opera (“recitativo” in Italian), which is no more than the spoken dialogue that comes between the arias but which are put to music using the normal rhythms and modulations found in everyday speech. It is a practice that dates back centuries and was considered so unimportant that the creation of the tunes to be used were often allocated to others than the composers of the operas themselves or even just given over to the singers, who would sing the dialogue as the spirit moved them. The “songs” in Big Fish are of the type found in Broadway Musicals of this era, which might more accurately be called “spoken word musicals”, or “non-musical musicals”, which is to say that they are uninspired and worse, uninspiring. Ugh. Where and how did the Broadway Musical as a genre get so derailed as to produce imitation, ersatz, crape paper thin song substitutes instead of giving us the real thing?
Big Fish has no overture either. Of course it doesn’t. To have an overture, you must have songs with recognizable melodies. At least the creators of Big Fish did not try to foist a phony overture on its audiences. Sitting through that would have been ridiculous even if it would have been a true representation of what was yet to come. An overture made up of a series of non-songs with no recognizable melodic phrases would sound like one long pitter-patter of meaningless notes that no one would ever be able listen to and say, “Oh, that’s the song that the father sings to his son when …” or “That’s the song where she tries to comfort him when he’s …”
We do not want to give away the plot here; even though, if we did, it would not be giving away much because there isn’t much of a plot to worry about in Big Fish.
So, why does the audience clap so enthusiastically at the end of Big Fish or after any of the Broadway Musicals of this type? At the performance we attended, there was a man a few rows in front of us who stood up when the lights came up after the finale and kept looking at the people sitting around him. He was not applauding and seemed very tentative as he looked from side-to-side waiting. Was he going to move into the aisle and leave as others in the audience were already doing? Then, when Ms. Baldwin and Messers Steggert and Butz made their appearance, other audience members began to stand. We could not call it a standing ovation even though there were those who stood during the curtain calls. At the prices paid these days for tickets to see Broadway Musical, if there is no standing ovation people feel they did not get their money’s worth. That is what we feel is going on at moments like this.
That said we believe the performers in Big Fish deserve the applause they receive. They work hard and well. They dance and sing and act with fervor and sincerity to help take their audience out of the reality of the world around them to bring them, hopefully, into another reality; the story that they are telling; the story of Big Fish which is of a romantic self motivated man from humble beginnings who looks in all the ways he can for joy and happiness in life for himself and everyone with whom he comes in contact. He is a lover of life who could not hurt someone else if he wanted to; a rare breed indeed.
If you have a few hours to spare, are ready to pay the price for Broadway Musical tickets and will be satisfied with a sweet drippy tale of a guy who is good to others beyond belief and who finds love and joy in life even in the face of certain death and yet never being able to sing even one line of one song (and remember we use that word “song” very loosely here) that will be sung during the show, then Big Fish for you is a go. You will be entertained and there is nothing wrong with that; especially these days.
But, if you want more than a thin little story and demand lyrics that are brilliant and beautiful and witty and memorable and engaging and motivating that come wrapped in melodic musical phrases that capture your imagination; that get into your brain; that stir your emotions; that gnaw at your soul; that will not let you stop thinking about the songs and their messages and meanings for the rest of your life, then you can skip Big Fish because with all its energy and flash, as a Broadway Musical qua Broadway Musical, it misses the mark and misses it big; really big. (30)
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