Jody Rosen of Slate has the word on Twyla Tharp’s stage musical inspired by the music of Bob Dylan. It ain’t pretty. It’s hilarious, in fact:
Sure, Dylan composed “Mr. Tambourine Man.” But to turn that modest folk-rock reverie into a three-dimensional dream-vision, with a singer seated on a neon-lighted sickle moon suspended 20 feet above a stage where dancers dart, Mummenschanz-style, in and out of billowing curtains—to pull that off, you need to be a demented genius of a whole other order.
What on earth has come over Broadway? This morning I saw a commercial for the new “Tarzan” musical and could not believe my eyes or ears. “I wanna knooooowwwwww,” croons a Jesus-like man-ape, over and over. I wanna know too: Who feels good about unloading $100 for this merde? Rosen again on Tharp:
The Times They Are A-Changin’ is just the latest example of the “jukebox musical,” a phenomenon that involves baby boomers paying exorbitant prices to hear the pop songs of their younger years mauled, karaoke-style, amid elaborate stage scenery.
And to clean up Dylan with pretty-voiced actors is indeed to maul him.
There’s this lingering misconception that Dylan is a poet, maybe, but not a real singer. Rosen gets it right: “Dylan is not only a masterful songwriter, he’s also one of the best pop singers of all time; his phrasing is right up there with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday.” Indeed, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan of 1963 is the work of a great singer — original, instantly recognizable, able to summon vocal shadings and personalities at will.
My colleague Kurt Gottschalk from All About Jazz-New York, in a review of Jamie Saft’s new Tzadik disc Trouble: Jamie Saft Trio Plays Dylan, pokes fun at the “popular wisdom” that Dylan can’t sing. Gottschalk really knows his avant-garde, and it’s those criteria that we must apply to Dylan. After all, there are plenty who argue that Anthony Braxton can’t play saxophone. It’s a common mistake, made by fans and critics alike, to judge one type of music by the standards of another. You don’t understand Dylan by comparing him to Julie Andrews, or The Clash to Charlie Parker. Different rules, different expectations.
I’ll have to hear the Jamie Saft disc. Something tells me it’s better than the Tharp musical, and a lot less expensive.
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