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5/11/2004 » Bombay Dreams | 
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The 'Bombay Dreams' reviews train wreck
The ‘Bombay Dreams’ PR team was rolling a couple of weeks ago: a story a week in the NY Times, praise in Playbill.
Then, opening night. And the thrashing began.
Reading the reviews is a journey through critical, bitch-goddess snarkdom, and every lame variation on the word ‘curry’ you can imagine. It’s like reading food critics, the knives are so sharp. On the plus side, clearly there’s one desi thing everyone knows, the nibblers. USA Today: ‘How do you say “mind-numbing bunk” in Hindi?... I use the term “musical” only in the loose sense that applies when a contrived story and generic-sounding tunes are slapped together... a syrupy stew of faintly spiced pop clichés... cliché-ridden, pseudo-populist hooey... It’s tough to say whose lines are lamer... He should have saved himself the trouble — and so should you.’
Washington Post: ‘a torrential downpour of showbiz cliche... makes the Broadway season’s other towering misfires, “Taboo” and “The Boy From Oz,” seem like worthy candidates for literary analysis by Renaissance scholars... traffics in such shallow images of India... Lacking satirical bite, the story exists to be endured, like a bad date... the grating love ballads sound as if they’re from an animated musical that went straight to video... an orb that hangs during a second-act number could have been modeled on a pendant from the Joan Rivers collection, hawked late at night on QVC... an example of London outsourcing of the most mediocre variety.’
NY Journal News: ‘Leading man Narayan ... is a dead ringer for Jai Rodriguez, the “culture” guy on TV’s “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” ... there is nothing smoldering (or dangerous) in his sexuality... generally tacky primary-colored set and splashy costume designs (that definitely don’t take your breath away)...’
Village Voice: ‘The dance numbers, which tend to look a lot like each other, also look like leftovers from the ‘70s TV show Hullabaloo... the best disco musical of the ‘70s—too bad they’re over... drab English lyrics... a curry-flavored TV dinner, evoking ... the early-’30s Hollywood musicals that gave Bollywood the cue in the first place...’
Village Voice, again: ‘for the Jessicas of the world, the folks who think a trip to New Delhi gets you a fresh Reuben sandwich... a tacky, corny Vegas floor show posing as a screed against crass commercialism... It’s Hindi-scribable... It’s utter naan-sense... It curries no favor. It’s a potato ganesh with mustard. It’s untouchable and unwatchable... the show’s producer Andrew Lloyd Webber [is] a complete vindaloo-nie!’
NY Post: ‘less original than it was in London... often monotonous music... hardly felicitous lyrics... He’s added some jokes, one or two of which are even funny... the cast skims neatly above adequacy... ’
NY Post on Tony Awards: ‘was shut out of every major Tony Award category yesterday... “It’s a terrible show,” the nominator said. “It wasn’t even in the running.”... The fourth slot, which could have gone to “Bombay Dreams,” went instead to “The Boy From Oz,” as dopey a musical as you are likely to find on the Great White Way... “I didn’t have any fun at ‘Bombay Dreams.’ ” ’
NY Times: ‘the wide-eyed, helpless stare of something trapped in a listless limbo between tipsy spoof and sober sincerity... The songs ... have seemingly been rearranged ... to please the ears of Americans accustomed to Top 40 fare, sacrificing some of the beguiling intricacy the music had in London... wisecracks that would seem worldly only to preadolescents... an acting style common to performers in children’s shows — broad, jocular and irony-free... never, ever compelling...’
The New Yorker: ‘one of the silliest musicals in recent memory... you find yourself watching the drummers at the side of the stage instead of the exotic nubile hordes giving good cleavage in front of you... it’s the show I can’t swallow.’
NY Daily News: ‘makes no bones about being derivative.... typically banal lyrics... an innocent artlessness that saves it from being mere camp... The sets and costumes have a cartoonish quality that reminds us we are seeing India through Western prisms...’
Backstage.com: ‘an unsatisfying dish of currie [sic]... a national product of India that relishes kitsch... goes way beyond silly into the stupid... absurd story points. The take on them is not arch or sardonic but accepting...’
Philadelphia Inquirer: ‘The score ... is by A.R. Rahman ... whose fans have dubbed him the “Mozart of Madras.” This strikes me as unfair [to Mozart]... The Abba-level, pounding inanity of this song will persuade you that you have strayed into Mamma Mia!... bland leads. Their singing is not memorable, but then neither are Rahman’s songs... South Asian Confusion.’
Entertainment Weekly: ‘dosa-thin plot... The love story is implausible and the characters are caricatures...’
American Theater Web roundup
It’s perversely fascinating reading, because they go out of their way to be gratuitously cruel. It’s like rubbernecking at an accident, I’m repulsed but simultaneously transfixed. The script is not the most original, but it’s good fun. I’m feeling the same way as when critics roast an easy-to-use product in favor of a mind-numbingly complex one: ‘Are you guys on crack? Nerds should never review mass-market goods.’
Mistake #1: Dumbing down the book. Here’s the miscalculation the American script docs made: they made the script more conventional, less interesting than the Brit one on the theory that the cultural setting was so exotic, they had to give people something to relate to. That something was a totally standard, by-the-numbers plot that you’ve seen in every love story ever.
BD is basically the same as old-time Broadway, albeit with tricked-out costumes and sets. It’s the Broadway equivalent of the big, dumb summer flick pre-Terminator: Grease, perhaps; or, since it’s slick and modern, The Fast and the Furious. And it’s a take-off on Bollywood, which is a whole lot like Broadway used to be. When I watch lame Broadway shows, it’s just like watching lame Bollyflicks: the cliches, the songs, the suspension of disbelief.
But modern critics don’t take kindly to old-school Broadway, irony- and satire-free shows. Like all of us, they’re looking for originality and novelty in the script and lyrics. That’s not there in great amounts in the American production.
So the script simplification backfired in a big way. Critics weren’t turned off by the culture, which is heavily North Indian anyway; the actors are light-skinned, and bhangra translates easily into hip-hop. They were turned off precisely by the lack of originality.
The question is whether audiences will ignore the critics and see the show anyway. They do so for big, stupid action flicks, knowing they’re going to like it despite the critics. It’s not clear whether that will happen here, because BD is set in a different culture.
Mistake #2: Pitching exoticism. Their second big mistake is that they’ve got the positioning wrong. They’re attracting cutting-edge reviewers for a very high-budget, mainstream show. Cutting-edge reviewers want to see tabla fused with drum ’n bass: a Brit underground, art film sensibility. They’re looking for little mental explosions, originality, not The Fast and the Furious.
Because of the size of the show’s capitalization, the producers need to attract a mass audience. But they’re playing up the cultural angle in the tagline: ‘Go someplace you’ve never been before.’ Instead of A.R. Rahman and exoticism, they should be touting Andrew Lloyd Webber and ‘big, fun musical.’
What would also get the show going is word of mouth: ‘I can see the critics’ point, but I really loved it, go see it.’ It’s not clear whether that’s going to happen enough to repay a $14M investment, which is a free-spending show by Broadway standards.
Mistake #3: Not courting the critics well. It’s the same problem every mass-market product has: how to get past the reviewer elite. Critics are a dramatically different audience from your target market, but they influence your audience just the same. You deal with it by throwing in some things that will please the reviewers. You can write in layers of sly humor that may or may not be picked up by the target audience, like Monsters, Inc. And you reframe their expectations (‘this is our market, this is what they want, this is how the product makes them happy’).
You may still only get lukewarm, begrudging reviews (‘I can see how this would be really good for my mom, although I wouldn’t buy it myself’), but at least it heads off the train wreck. This is the kind of review the show should’ve gotten, from the NY Post: “Bombay Dreams” is going to be at the mercy of the critics... What they’re hoping for are the kinds of reviews “Mamma Mia!” got: This is pretty mindless stuff, but it’s colorful and fun, so go and have a good time.
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