Years ago John and I walked out in the middle of Les Miz in Boston, which was driving us crazy, and tonight David and I left Celebrating the Music of William Finn at the intermission at Barrington Stage. In both cases we were tired of being assaulted by endless noise and pathetic lyrics. Had I seen Mr. Finn's Romance in Hard Times, which I reviewed last week, before buying the tickets for tonight's show, I would have skipped it. Too late. I bought the tickets before we saw Romance.
Tonight's excerpts from his various shows, two of which earned Tony Awards, was simply more of the same. Mr. Finn seems to like loud, shrill voices, who then are amplified to the point of pain, singing his autobiographical lyrics, which are not that interesting to begin with, or that well set to music.
I'm sorry to have to carp about these points, but suffice it to say this is the last musical of his I plan to suffer through.
To make matters worse, our dinner tonight at Spice Dragon, which is usually quite good, was a mess. It turns out that they are closing tomorrow night while the upstairs of the building is being reconstructed and they were out of various menu items as well as our favorite cocktail ingredients.
This was David's farewell outing before heading to Chicago next week.
Oh well....
I hope Victor Hugo gets royalties from Les Miz. If he stops rolling over in his grave, that is.
