definitely <\/em>ignore to focus on what, the melodies? then sure let’s talk about that. It is garbage. True, it has created a standard in musical theatre, the opening song “Love Changes Everything”, and it is indeed a catchy, hummable tune that is inoffensive and extraordinarily ordinary. So that’s say five points in their favor. But an easy way to lose those points is, instead of writing other decent melodies and improving the rest of the score, simply repeating “Love Changes Everything” ad infinitum in seemingly endless reprises. If we say minus 1 point for every reprise or repetition of the main LCE theme, they end the show with a total of negative eleventy billion points. And the rest of the score is cringeworthy. I honestly have never cringed so much at a score. It doesn’t help that virtually all of it is sung-through, with what should be dialogue in book scenes replaced with opera-style recitative. It is very hard to make that stylistic choice work in musicals. It does not work here. The melodies chosen for these scenes are the equivalent of when Buddy the Elf in ‘Elf’ tries to explain to Zooey Deschanel that singing is just like talking but you move your voice up and down and then to demonstrate he just sing-shouts “I’M SINGING! I’M IN A STORE AND I’M SIIIINGIIIING” to no real tune, just random tones. That’s what this score is. And the lyrics, good god. When the uncle finds out that his (minor) nephew is affairing it up at his country house with an actress, he sing-shouts “How handy! My bed, my brandy!” I literally HEARD the sound my husband’s face made as he tried to contain his shudder of abhorrence. It hurts in my tumnus to think about that line and the hundreds like it. I honestly don’t believe that someone okayed this revival of this production like it’s a classic that doesn’t need modern social commentary or new direction to show that none of this is okay. It is clear that those involved don’t see any problem with these storylines and are okay with saying that ‘that’s love.’ And none of the (old men) reviewing this for the big publications seem to find any problem with it because men are disgusting. I can’t believe this is a real show. Also it’s 2 hours and 40 minutes, which is just adding insult to injury. Unless this show was redone as a primer on What Not to Do in the #MeToo Era, it needs to be put away for good. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about the new revival of Aspects of Love at London’s Southwark Playhouse, on until February 9. Run, don’t walk, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"yoast_head":"\n
Aspects of Love at the Southwark Playhouse: A.L. DUBS YOU GOT SOME SPLAININ TO DO!!!! - Laughfrodisiac<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n