So, you may remember the review I posted earlier which was filled with crazy praise for my performance in Father of the Bride.

When I showed it to my mentor, she told me that in order to accept that praise, I would have to accept any bad praise that also came my way, and by the way, take any reviews on TheaterReview.com with a grain of salt, because it's an amateur review site, and alot of the reviewers are biased in one way or another, if not straight up hacks. And so, I told myself that if any bad reviews came my way, I would take them for what they're worth, but remember that the reviewer might, just might, be an idiot.

Cue this review:

"Now, how were the performances you may ask? There were several stand-outs in this show. Most notably, Nicholas Morett as "Barrett" really blew me away vocally. He had by far the best singing voice of any of the cast and knew how to deliver a song without being "too much." Believe me, there was A LOT of "amateurish musical theatre mugging" by many in the cast throughout the show. It often, but not always, came from the younger cast members, so I was also able to look past this element and enjoy the show. It was really unfortunate that Morett had to sing his duet of "The Proposal/The Night was Alive" with such a terrible singer. Michael Cuellar as "Harold Bride" was wretched. He sang off pitch throughout the entire song. His acting was also below expectations for such a considerable part. He delivered his lines SO fast I couldn't understand a word of what he said."

I'm amused by this, mostly for three reasons, each one corresponding to one of the points he or she brought up about me.

~I was not off pitch through the entire song. I missed a single note at the very end (and you can ask anyone in the cast- I beat the heck out of myself every night for it). There may be some other parts where I was a little wavery, but if so, it was hardly noticeable. The rest of the time, I'm on key.

~Bride, while one of the larger roles, is not as considerable as he makes it sound. Bride appears in two and a half scenes, each one about five minutes- that's a total of 13 minutes in a 2 1/4 hour show. It's an ensemble show. Everyone gets as much stage time as everyone else.

~I'll give him that I say my lines quickly. That's always been a problem with me, but I'm never unintelligible. I'm a good enough actor to enunciate and overarticulate my lines. Especially when i'm doing a British accent, like I am in this show, which almost requires you to speak quickly, because that's what the accent does. Also, in one scene, and the half a scene, I speak quickly on purpose because Bride, being a radio operator is
1, not that comfortable talking to real people
and
2, extra nervous about talking to people in authority, like Captain Edward Smith, who he spends time talking to in those scene. Therefore, he's very nervous. So he's just trying to get in and out, and back to his radio. It's a choice dude. And if you can't understand what I'm saying, turn up your hearing aid.

So anyway, I'm amused by that review. It irritates me, because I was singled out, but I'm going to take it with a grain of salt. TheaterReview is, in the words of several people I've known and trust, a crap site, for the reasons stated above.

So, I thought that was amusing, and that I'd share.

-Rifty