Review by anonymous
June 11, 2013My overall impression
I know this show has gotten a lot of “loved it” but sadly I did not. It felt like consuming empty calories with not much reward. I sat back with a degree of shame to recall those fruitless hours of watching episodes of the Jeffersons, and Facts of Life. Is this musical brilliant? No. Is it clever? Kinda. Is it cute? Tries way too hard to be.
Is it funny?
Well, every line is a reference to a sitcom, and that’s expected to sustain an hour of entertainment. It kinda got old. I found myself getting bored with the 2 dimensional characters. The “gay best friend” the "out of touch daughter, "the “horney teenage son” – I know they are also supposed to be sitcomy types in their own right but as written they held too few surprises and layers to be genuinely funny to me. Remembering sitcoms, even the characters from most of those old shows had layers – which is what made them classic to begin with. I wish more of that had translated here. To describe the Real Housekeeper experience, I felt like I was watching a 80s sitcom and the laugh track was telling me what I was supposed to be laughing at but in reality just wasn’t that funny – only in this case the laugh track was provided by a live audience of friends and financial supporters of the production. I’m glad this show has their supporters because it’s going to help sell tickets. The woman who made the curtain speech seemed sweet, the performers are dedicated and I’m sure the producers know exactly what sort of audience would enjoy this lite bubblegum fare, but I sadly it’s not for everyone.
The music was canned and would have benefited from a live keyboardist. The overall style was the generic “broadway musical mock-style” which has now been copied by countless musical comedies/parodies all of which clutter in my head and put my teeth on edge. There was some cleverness in the lyrics and structure of some of the songs. The Alice song was touching. The singers voices were fine. A couple performers stood out: Nel Carter’s big booty’d embodiment for one. The choreography worked well to give the songs life but I wanted more of it. No doubt this company has their ducks in a row and I dont doubt this show will be successful as only a lowbrow musical can be, but for all it’s hyper silliness, the material itself failed to lift me beyond being mildly amused and I came away feeling like I’d just eaten too much candy, or watched too much TV.
