High Fidelity - The Musical
Wasn't expecting much, but I had a lot of fun.
The thing with musicals is that they tend to be so cheesy that we cringe and feel bad for the people acting, live, right in front of us, on stage. I swear there were only a few cringe-worthy moments during High Fidelity, most noticeably with the pentultimate song, a love song. The vast majoirty of the songs were wonderfully apathetic, self-aware, and as expected they drop record Fagens like a mo-fo; ie they show Rob receiving a Beatles' "Butcher Album" from the postman without even talking about it.
I saw the film twice in 2 days when it first came out (Both times by myself. Yep, I loved it.) so that may make me rate the film over the stage production, but there were a couple moments that surpassed the film, including the fantasy fight sequence when Ian (Tim Robbins) visits Championship Vinyl, Rob's (John Cusak) record store, where Rob's 20 second fantasies get more and more violent. In the musical, the fantasies start with a Guns and Roses style song and a mild fight, then a death metal-ish kung fu segment, and finishing with a gansta rap tune that concludes with a "I'll be pissin' on your grave" chorus and three girls dressed in white lycra doing the booty shake over Ian's shot dead body. Very funny and there was wild applause.
I understand "High Fidelity" is doing a 3 week tune up here at the Colonel Theater on Boylston Street before they take it to Broadway (New York that is) the first week of November.
Better than 'Cats'... B-