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Tonight I got free tickets to see A Year With Frog and Toad. It covered a year. In the life of Frog and Toad. Based on the books that I love.
My friend I saw it with said, "I've never been so happy that there's only 4 seasons! Can you imagine if there were 5 seasons? There'd be more songs!!!"
You know those little theater groups that would sometimes come to your elementary school and do a play for an assembly? They were kind of cute and had names like "The Paperbag Players" and their play wasn't great but it was something different in a school day so just for that it was cool? If they had puppets maybe it was even better?
Well, this was like one of those, only people were paying $80.00 for it. This is Broadway, and I'm listening to songs where the characters just sing about what they are doing as they do it: "We are sledding down a hill, we are sledding down a hill, sledding sledding sledding down a hill..." or "Eating cookies, eating cookies, eating cookies, eating cookies..." SHUT UP!!! I perked up a it when the snail started singing about how in the past he'd stayed hidden because maybe he was "ashamed of what he was..." because I swear to God I thought he was singing about being gay. Turns out he was just a mailman but I can't be alone in thinking a song called "I'm Coming Out (of My Shell!) is supposed to have a double meaning. The only slighty-catchy song in the play I recognized as a complete rip-off of "Stumbling All Around," that song Felix Unger used to do on The Odd Couple. The lyricist also deserved to be smacked: "I have a dialogue with my friend called frog???" WTF? Why would Toad ever use the word dialogue--and its rhyming with Frog is not a reason that counts!!! Honestly, if I can do 6 revisions on a rhyming Halloween picture book you can at least make Toad make a little sense.
Meanwhile, Frog and Toad were completely wrong. They're animals in beginning-to-read books, which means that they both basically are children, but they are adult animals. They live on their own and cook their own food, but their problems are kid problems: the give and take of friendship, not wanting to get up, learning how sometimes people need some time alone but they'll come back again. The problem with the play is that they're played by adult men who are acting childishly--not to mention wearing, like, obnoxious kids' clothes in adult sizes. (Book Frog and Toad usually went for a sort of a Ralph Lauren catalog country-look with well-fitting pants and blazers in fall colors.) The play characters were also always needing reassurance of love and Toad was constantly bitching. They also added some obnoxious other animals to snark at them--as if Frog and Toad needed a bunch of wise guys to give the show an edge. In general the humor was just totally off--the books have a really light touch, showing funny everyday incidents. This was in your face about everything. And how could they completely miss the point of the infamous "Toad Makes Cookies" story?? Arrrgh!
With nothing else to do, I naturally started to think about Frog/Toad slash, which I'd never considered before. They're not Bert and Ernie, if you know what I mean. Book Frog and Toad seem more like old old friends who know each other so well all their big fights are in the past. If they ever had a relationship, they've retained the affection and lost most of the passion. But then, they have no genitalia so that's to be expected.
Since the show really didn't have that much to keep the kids interested, they dumped tons of fake snow over the front/side aisles, which is of course where I was sitting because that's where the house seats often are. Couldn't begin to get most of it off before home. If anybody on the subway bothered to look up at me they would have seen what looked like the worst case of dandruff ever. It was kind of like confetti made of cellophane-type stuff and it's sticky so you can't just brush it off. One good thing though, is I'm always happy to see Mark Linn-Baker and Danielle Ferland working. MLB is married to Adrienne Lobel, daughter of Arnold Lobel who wrote Frog and Toad. This whole thing appears to be sort of a vanity project for her, which is weird because it's just so not Frog and Toad.
My friend I saw it with said, "I've never been so happy that there's only 4 seasons! Can you imagine if there were 5 seasons? There'd be more songs!!!"
You know those little theater groups that would sometimes come to your elementary school and do a play for an assembly? They were kind of cute and had names like "The Paperbag Players" and their play wasn't great but it was something different in a school day so just for that it was cool? If they had puppets maybe it was even better?
Well, this was like one of those, only people were paying $80.00 for it. This is Broadway, and I'm listening to songs where the characters just sing about what they are doing as they do it: "We are sledding down a hill, we are sledding down a hill, sledding sledding sledding down a hill..." or "Eating cookies, eating cookies, eating cookies, eating cookies..." SHUT UP!!! I perked up a it when the snail started singing about how in the past he'd stayed hidden because maybe he was "ashamed of what he was..." because I swear to God I thought he was singing about being gay. Turns out he was just a mailman but I can't be alone in thinking a song called "I'm Coming Out (of My Shell!) is supposed to have a double meaning. The only slighty-catchy song in the play I recognized as a complete rip-off of "Stumbling All Around," that song Felix Unger used to do on The Odd Couple. The lyricist also deserved to be smacked: "I have a dialogue with my friend called frog???" WTF? Why would Toad ever use the word dialogue--and its rhyming with Frog is not a reason that counts!!! Honestly, if I can do 6 revisions on a rhyming Halloween picture book you can at least make Toad make a little sense.
Meanwhile, Frog and Toad were completely wrong. They're animals in beginning-to-read books, which means that they both basically are children, but they are adult animals. They live on their own and cook their own food, but their problems are kid problems: the give and take of friendship, not wanting to get up, learning how sometimes people need some time alone but they'll come back again. The problem with the play is that they're played by adult men who are acting childishly--not to mention wearing, like, obnoxious kids' clothes in adult sizes. (Book Frog and Toad usually went for a sort of a Ralph Lauren catalog country-look with well-fitting pants and blazers in fall colors.) The play characters were also always needing reassurance of love and Toad was constantly bitching. They also added some obnoxious other animals to snark at them--as if Frog and Toad needed a bunch of wise guys to give the show an edge. In general the humor was just totally off--the books have a really light touch, showing funny everyday incidents. This was in your face about everything. And how could they completely miss the point of the infamous "Toad Makes Cookies" story?? Arrrgh!
With nothing else to do, I naturally started to think about Frog/Toad slash, which I'd never considered before. They're not Bert and Ernie, if you know what I mean. Book Frog and Toad seem more like old old friends who know each other so well all their big fights are in the past. If they ever had a relationship, they've retained the affection and lost most of the passion. But then, they have no genitalia so that's to be expected.
Since the show really didn't have that much to keep the kids interested, they dumped tons of fake snow over the front/side aisles, which is of course where I was sitting because that's where the house seats often are. Couldn't begin to get most of it off before home. If anybody on the subway bothered to look up at me they would have seen what looked like the worst case of dandruff ever. It was kind of like confetti made of cellophane-type stuff and it's sticky so you can't just brush it off. One good thing though, is I'm always happy to see Mark Linn-Baker and Danielle Ferland working. MLB is married to Adrienne Lobel, daughter of Arnold Lobel who wrote Frog and Toad. This whole thing appears to be sort of a vanity project for her, which is weird because it's just so not Frog and Toad.
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From:
Too. Funny.
I spit coffee on my keyboard when I read this.
You know, I love Frog and Toad, too. But some things should be left alone. Frog and Toad should not be a Broadway-type musical. That's just wrong.
From:
Re: Too. Funny.