> > I'm not arguing that Andrew Lloyd Webber isn't sometimes fun. But he's like candy. Tastes sweet at the time, but it's useless for sustenance, and you might have a tummy ache afterward.
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> I go to plays for the same reason I go to the movies. I like fun and entertainment. Music and comedy fill the bill. I don't go to the movies or to plays for an education, to be shocked, or to cry or feel terrible.

I really really hate the idea that if someone demands more than disposable fun, it must be something grand and great and inaccessible like art, the meaning of life, and so on.

I really don't go to movies or plays for any other reason than you, Howard: movies and musicals are all basically about entertainment. I like it when they edify me somehow, but I don't demand it. And rare is it when I accept a movie or play that is artful without also being entertaining.

None of that is what I'm talking about when I say that I find Andrew Lloyd Webber's plays to be like disposable candy. There's some middle ground! If a narrative work has some authenticity about its characters -- if they are developed with intelligence and care about people as individuals, how they interact, vs. if they are hacked together insincerely and given artificial dialogue to speak -- then that ADDS to the entertainment value.

Even in the case of viewers who aren't consciously looking for it. True, there are instances when critical viewers seem at odds with casual viewers, and this might be for any number of reasons. But I think such people are in agreement more often than it seems.

In another post, you mentioned you enjoy such things as South Pacific, Singing In the Rain, The Music Man, Oklahoma, Carousel, The King and I, and the movie Royal Wedding. Great! So do I! Every last one of those titles are works I consider to be both admirable and entertaining. And of those, only The Music Man and Royal Wedding do not have some kind of insight into human nature and/or social significance, and those two make up for it by being masterfully crafted from a musical standpoint and masterfully performed by unique artists at the top of their game on the stage and on the screen. I submit that all these musicals are as enduring as they and as entertaining to you personally in part *because* there is real truth, insight, beauty, and art to them. In our appreciation of these classics, the only difference between you and me is that I'm taking the step to analyze why these works have so much impact.

Back to Lloyd Webber. Yeah, his songs are fun. But are they really *as* fun as some of the other things we've mentioned? Do they have lasting power? To call them fun on the same order as Irving Berlin (as you implied in an earlier post) is definitely not something I'm willing to do.