I Hate Musical Plays

[kanaia]

Was given free tickets to a show three years ago bought season tickets ever since. Just saw 42nd Street last week great show.. Oldie but goodie. I dare any of you all that don't like musicals to see Million Dollar Quartet, it will change your mind. It's about Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins at Sun Records.

 

[shutterbugg]

I never got musicals. In the middle of some serious dramatic dialogue, out of nowhere the character starts singing. I mean really, if someone did that in real life they'd be hauled off in a straightjacket. I like songs, I like plays. I like chocolate milk, I like beer. Just not mixed together.

 

[ophiuchus]

I like film musicals. I've liked them since I was a very young kid. That eventually got me interested in junior high/high school musical productions. I played in the pit orchestra a couple years (violin and cello), played on stage a couple times. I liked stage musicals when friends and fellow students and I were doing them.
After college ... well, I still like the movies, but I couldn't sit through a stage performance of a musical if I wanted to, even to be polite. I get fidgety and impatient, I want to get up and read something. I need a smoke. And if some poor musician or stage performer makes a mistake that strikes me in just the right way, the only thing that can stop my laughter from being outright disruptive is my departure.
It's a great experience for young people, though. ::

 

[shutterbugg]

What really pisses me off is when they take an iconic non-musical movie and make it into a musical play. I sat through the broadway musical versions of The Producers and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I have huge respect for the stars like Nathan Lane and John Lithgow and am not comparing them unfavorably to Zero Mostel (himself a musical actor) and Michael Caine. But musicalizing the stories just totally ruined the genius of the originals.

 

[jazz]

I truly hate musicals. I simply will not sit through one of any kind for any reason or for anyone, ever. No exceptions. I despise every single thing about them. They strike me as utterly absurd, dull in the extreme, contradictory and they make me cringe for every single second. Mind numbingly, stultifyingly, irrepressibly drab and awful pap the bloody lot of them. They are what I call entertainment atrocities :D
In 2008, I flew from the UK to Cuba. I had left my book in the terminal and the in-flight entertainment system had some issues and as a result, there were only a handful of tv shows and one film to watch. That film was Mamma Mia. After I had watched the tv shows, read the in-flight magazine and despite being so very bored I thought it more entertaining to stare out of the window for the remaining 6 hours of my flight like a simpleton rather than suffer the pain and misery of an ABBA musical. I stared out of the window thankful that my screen folded into the arm of my seat and the days of being forced to watch the in-flight movie were over. Thankful that everyone had earphones and I had a choice. Rather wonderfully the gentleman next to me who completely understood my plight took pity on me and lent me a book. Top chap indeed.
Every musical is a crime against humanity. I hated them even as a child. Fast forwarding through every contrived tune of Mary Poppins and all the strained songs in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Just thinking about the song "Cheer Up Charlie" makes me feel something akin to rage :D The names Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers send chills down my spine.
The next person who thinks it is "fun" to burst into song around me with the likes of Grease or some such drivel will require smelling salts. As long as this stuff pollutes the audio and visual environment then nobody will tell me my smoke is poisonous :D

 

[indianafrank]

UPDATE:
My wife told me last night.
"I am never going to ask you to go see another musical again."
AMEN to that.
So now I am never going to be asked to go on another cruise...and no more musicals. :worship: Now if I can just get her to say. "Honey. I am never going to ask you to go see my mother and sisters, or nieces again." :worship:

 

[phil67]

What really pisses me off is when they take an iconic non-musical movie and make it into a musical play.

I couldn't agree more. I don't care for musicals as I personally find them somewhat idiotic, but I'm amazed at the lack of originality anymore. The movie 'Warhorse' was quickly made into a freaking musical and now there is something called 'Sponge Bob' the musical. Whats next, 'Silence of the Lambs' - the musical, or perhaps 'The Godfather' - the musical.

 

[mso489]

Incongruous musicals, let me see: Pulp Fiction, The Musical; Hang 'Em High, The Musical; The Chain Saw Massacre, The Musical; Edward Scissorhands, The Musical. I'd better shut up or I'll give some producers somewhere ideas. Poltergeist, The Musical.

 

[tuold]

"Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is an American classic, especially the Broadway performance with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. The Tim Burton movie version was visually interesting but the singing by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter was beyond awful.

 

[deathmetal]

The Chain Saw Massacre, The Musical

Wait... I'd go see this

 

[cosmicfolklore]

My daughters are always doing these local plays and musicals, so I have to go set through them to support them. I don't hate them, but there are so many other things I'd rather see. It's just not natural for people to break into song and dance like that, ha ha. But, watching your daughters do it is kinda fun. My oldest just did the Cat in the Hat last month, and both of them are about to do Footloose. Please kill me, Footloose? That sucked as a movie, why would someone make a play out of it? But, I'm sure my girls will make it much better. ::

I would never chose to go see these on my own, for sure. I'd much rather be in bed early, so that I could go fishing the next day instead.

 

[prairiedruid]

The Chain Saw Massacre, The Musical
Wait... I'd go see this []

Jackyl performing with chainsaws???

 

[erichbaumer]

With some exceptions (The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, Sweeny Todd, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) I agree. And I was a musician/actor in Grease. Which I hate with a burning passion to this day.

That said, a lot of one's enjoyment has to do with the perfect combination of good acting and good singing. Which, to be fair, is exceedingly scarce.

 

[newbroom]

I could never 'get' Ethel Merman. She was on a few variety shows and touted as one of Broadway's greatest.

She had volume, I'll give her that.

ethel

 

[gtrhtr]

I generally don't like musicals, but I have to admit that with some careful selection and veto power on selection, I've been to some that I've enjoyed. My parents took me to see Fidler on the Roof in London when I was a boy, 6 or 7 and I really enjoyed that. More recently I've seen a few in the past decade that were entertaining, which for me is about all I can hope for. It helps if there are some catchy songs even if the songs are not what you usually listen to. A couple of years ago we were in London and my wife insisted we see something. I talked her into seeing the rock based one that they made into a movie with Tom Cruise a few years ago. I cannot remember the name except that it was named after a Def Lepard song, but didn't have any Def Lepard songs in it. Anyway we left at the first intermission it was so bad even with the songs being better than average.

 

[aristokles]

Assuming opera is also in this class of show, I agree. They are not my taste, only exceeded by BALLET in boredom for me.

 

[voorhees]

are about to do Footloose. Please kill me, Footloose? That sucked as a movie,

8O
and I thought I knew you better..... :nana:

 

[jpmcwjr]

I grew up with older sisters playing Oklahoma, South Pacific and other musicals of the era on the old turntable. Love the music from those, and wouldn't say no to a locally shown but nationally produced stage version of those. Maybe also West Side Story. And the Rocky Horror Picture Show, at least on TV.