I LOVE YOU BECAUSE…the reviews are in
The reviews are rolling in for I LOVE YOU BECAUSE, a new off-Broadway musical loosely based on Pride and Prejudice. The reviews are mixed but tend toward the positive.
Alert Janeite Sarah sent us a link to the review in the New York Times, which she thought had some snarkworthy content.
The authors, both out of the New York University graduate program in musical theater writing, bill this as “a modern-day telling of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ with the genders reversed,” but don’t let that scare you away; no CliffsNotes needed.
Because we couldn’t expect people to go to a production that might make them have to, you know, think. Horrors!
We found the AP review a trifle confusing.
Austin, our uptight Republican, coat-and-tie-wearing hero, writes verse for greeting cards. On the rebound, he meets Marcy, a distant relative perhaps of Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy.
She’s a free-spirited would-be photographer, who tries to teach Austin, among other things, not to always order his coffee black. Experiment with cream and sugar. Maybe even a latte.
Um. The genders are reversed how? Darcy the free spirit? The mind boggles. Tho’ we suppose that while genders are being switched, personality traits might be switched back for further fun and games.
The Broadway.com review discusses the songs in more detail, and we think they sound like fun.
Diana is an actuary, so she sings the amusing “Actuary Song,” in which she does the math of breakups and rebound time. It’s followed by a fun duet for Austin and Marcy, “But I Don’t Want to Talk About Her.” A few first-act songs–like “Coffee” and “The Perfect Romance”–are rather drab, but “We’re Just Friends” is endearingly nutty (”I didn’t have to pay for my Szechuan tofu/And it’s all because of you”).
The commenters on the NYT review are all clamoring for the original cast recording, so maybe they’re on to something.
February 16th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Wow! The reviews I read weren’t nearly so generous! They were pretty harsh. Sounds like maybe it would have been a better show without the attempted P&P adaptation angle…