{"id":101513,"date":"2023-01-27T17:05:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T15:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=101513"},"modified":"2023-01-21T09:13:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T07:13:18","slug":"27-05-83","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=101513","title":{"rendered":"Everybody Loves Bank Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Everybody Loves Bank Fraud<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

MORTON LANDOWNE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A hit new musical teaches the loathsome lesson that white-collar crime is all fun and games.<\/strong><\/span>
\n.<\/h4>\n

\n\u2018Do we expect the show to transmit the message that crime doesn\u2019t pay?\u2019JOAN MARCUS<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

I love musicals, especially musical comedies, and tend to get enthusiastic about ones that blow me away, recommending them to anyone who will listen.\u00a0Hamilton\u00a0<\/em>needed no help from me, nor did\u00a0The Producers<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0The\u00a0Book of Mormon<\/em>, but ask anyone who knows me how hard I pushed them to see\u00a0Bullets Over Broadway,<\/em>\u00a0Something Rotten<\/em>, or any show featuring Jackie Hoffman!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I\u2019m similarly enthused about the new musical\u00a0Some Like It Hot,<\/em>\u00a0based on the beloved film of the same name. I did not expect to enjoy seeing such a classic movie \u201creimagined,\u201d and wondered how the writers could successfully present a buddy comedy about two guys who go into hiding, in drag, in 2023. I was wrong. But after I recommended it, and said that it was the best new musical I\u2019d seen in years and that I couldn\u2019t imagine it wouldn\u2019t win the Tony for best musical, I was told that it wouldn\u2019t stand a chance against another new show,\u00a0Kimberly Akimbo<\/em>, a comedy about a 17-year-old girl with a fatal aging disorder. Sure enough, as I read\u00a0its<\/em>\u00a0reviews, doubt crept in.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Here\u2019s a small selection:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The New York Times<\/em>: \u201cThe season\u2019s most moving new musical … profoundly funny and heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>: \u201cMeet your new favorite musical.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York Stage Review<\/em>: \u201cThe sweet musical treat we need right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/em>: \u201cThe best musical of the year so far, by far.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entertainment Weekly<\/em>: \u201cleaves you floating high on good vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Variety<\/em>: \u201cAn oddball musical that\u2019s impossible not to love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

So, I decided I needed to see for myself. Not only did I\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>find\u00a0Kimberly Akimbo<\/em>\u00a0\u201cimpossible not to love,\u201d I found it, frankly, loathsome.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I state that opinion without taking anything away from the wonderful star, 63-year-old Victoria Clarke, who portrays Kimberly, a teenager with a disease that causes her to resemble, well, a woman as old as Clarke. I found the show\u2014written by David Lindsay-Abraire and with music by Jeanine Tesori\u2014drab, pedestrian, banal, cliched, and unnecessarily foul-mouthed. And that was just the first act. I toyed with departing at intermission, but remained, motivated by the thought that there must be\u00a0something\u00a0<\/em>in the second act to justify the unanimous critical accolades. (As you can tell from the list above, I truly searched\u2014in vain\u2014for someone who agreed with me.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

But here\u2019s where the show truly lost me: when the curtain rose on the second act, in Kimberly\u2019s basement. Her admittedly evil Aunt Debra (played by Bonnie Milligan and praised by one critic as \u201cthe musical\u2019s raging comedic force\u201d), just out of jail for an unspecified crime, has stolen a full-size USPS mailbox and somehow gotten it into the cellar of the family\u2019s house, along with a large copier machine. Why has she stolen a blue mailbox? What\u2019s with the copier? Well, that\u2019s explained in the first set piece.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The rousing song that opens a second act is usually one of the best numbers in a show (think \u201cDon\u2019t Cry for Me Argentina\u201d in\u00a0Evita<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cMasquerade\u201d in\u00a0The Phantom of the Opera<\/em>). Here, that song is titled, I kid you not, \u201cHow to Wash a Check.\u201d It depicts, in exact detail, how to fish envelopes out of a mailbox, use solvent to erase the payee\u2019s name on any checks in the harvested envelopes, and then Xerox it to create a bogus but realistic check made payable to the criminal. (Perhaps I\u2019m a bit biased because I\u2019ve wasted dozens of hours of my life on the phone, in banks, and in police stations dealing with the aftermath of this crime, one that\u2019s estimated to have defrauded banks and their customers of close to a billion dollars in the U.S. last year.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Anyway, this \u201clesson,\u201d staged as laughable hijinks, is central to the show\u2019s plot and its denouement. The criminal skill must be mastered in order to defraud a few local banks\u2014with Clarke posing as a kindly old grandmother who cashes the fake checks\u2014in order to get the funds for her and her friends\u2019 wish fulfillment: glittery costumes for a musical competition, and a make-a-wish-type road trip to Disneyworld. (Even this is akimbo, since earlier in the play Kimberly qualifies for the actual Make-A-Wish-Foundation\u2019s dream fulfillment and requests … a treehouse.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Do we expect the show to transmit the message that crime doesn\u2019t pay? That people should be punished for committing a federal crime? Not in this fantasia. The show ends with the money successfully stolen, the friends vamping in\u00a0Chorus Line<\/em>-quality spangly outfits, and Kimmy, as the curtain falls, in a dreamy video, enjoying the rides at Disneyworld. The woman seated next to me had tears running down her face, and not because she was expecting the entire cast to be facing jail time for bank fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Am I living in an alternate universe? As I read the\u00a0unanimous<\/em>\u00a0praise for this show\u2014with scarcely a mention of \u201cHow to Wash a Check,\u201d the centrality of theft to the plot, or the fact that the lead character\u2019s disability was used as a gimmick to jerk tears\u2014I thought, \u201cperhaps I am.\u201d I would love to discuss the merits of this production with anyone who has seen it, and urge anyone who hasn\u2019t, not to bother.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Morton Landowne<\/strong> is the executive director of Nextbook Inc.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everybody Loves Bank Fraud MORTON LANDOWNE A hit new musical teaches the loathsome lesson that white-collar crime is all fun and games. . \u2018Do we expect the show to transmit the message that crime doesn\u2019t pay?\u2019JOAN MARCUS I love musicals, especially musical comedies, and tend to get enthusiastic about ones that blow me away, recommending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101513"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101530,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101513\/revisions\/101530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=101513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=101513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}