There is likely to be a lot on this as time goes on, so I think I’ll divert these posts off the home page.

At the time of writing, I haven’t seen any authoritative reviews of the musical which had its first show last night and is having its second show tonight. All I’ve seen are some unsubstantiated and offhand remarks at the Dylan Pool messageboard. A rumor is mentioned that Dylan was there the day before to see a dress rehearsal; certainly makes sense. As for a review of the play itself:

Odd play. Lots of trampolines, people on stilts, contortionists, a tight-rope walker (during Desolation Row of course). It was moderately entertaining, but I thougt they sucked the soul right out of most of the songs. Dramatically enunciating every word really kills the phrasing. It almost (almost) made me miss upsinging.

Alright. One person’s opinion of the very first public performance. Nothing to bite into there. It doesn’t tell me anything about how I might feel about the thing. (The play’s the thing.)

The same poster provides what he says is a list of songs included in the show, taken from the program:

Blowin’ in the Wind
Country Pie
Desolation Row
Dignity
Don’t Think Twice
Everything is Broken
Forever Young
Gotta Serve Somebody
Highway 61 Revisited
Hurricane
I Believe in You
If Not For You
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
Just Like a Woman
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Lay Lady Lay
Like a Rolling Stone
Maggie’s Farm
Man Gave Names to all the Animals
Masters of War
Mr. Tambourine Man
Not Dark Yet
On a Night Like This
Please, Mrs. Henry
Rainy Day Women
Simple Twist of Fate
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Summer Days
The Times They Are a Changin’

That’s a lot of songs. The rest of the Dylan Pool thread consists of people jumping in and saying that the whole thing must be garbage, because how can you have a good musical that uses all those songs; they must be forced in etc etc. Several people go on the record dismissing the entire venture out-of-hand, the day after the very first performance, based soley on that song list. Well, that’s Dylan fans for you.

Me, I’m intrigued. How do you fit those songs into a narrative? Are only parts of the songs sung? What kinds of contexts can exist in a show about a traveling circus, that can make Hurricane, Masters of War and Subterranean Homesick Blues part of the same story? I’ve been assuming from the start that Dylan himself is responsible for writing the “book” for this musical (since no one else is credited), and I’m dying to see how he has envisioned all this flowing together.

People may be suspecting it’s going to be another Masked and Anonymous; something so idiosyncratic that no one is going to get it. Maybe. But I’ll go out on a limb and say that I think not. Dylan and Larry Charles (Dylan’s director and collaborator on Masked) had no illusions about the commerciality of the film they were making. Overall, it probably did better than expected (I recall being shocked that it seemed to run for a more than a month in New York City – at one theater, of-course). It didn’t need to do that well – it was made on a relative shoestring and the important thing to Dylan and Charles was that it get made at all. Then it could have a new life on DVD.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ is a different proposition, and even if Dylan somehow didn’t know that (though I think he does) Twyla Tharp knows it in spades. There’s a lot at stake with a Broadway musical, and the reviewers and audiences are unforgiving. A musical with no commercial potential is a musical with no potential at all. You’re not going to succeed by having audiences leaving the theater scratching their heads, going “that Bob Dylan fella sure is one weird son-of-a-gun.” Of-course, Dylan’s not in the play. And yet he obviously is.

So they (Dylan and especially Tharp) must see a future in this – a musical that can actually please a general audience.

As to whether it will actually come off, it’s way too soon to tell, notwithstanding the obituaries being written by some of the dedicated know-nothings of the messageboards. The kind of process the play is set to go through in San Diego could see major changes being effected from the first night to the final one. I know that’s not unusual, even though I know next to nothing about Broadway shows.

So, don’t speak too soon, ’cause the wheel’s still in spin. And don’t touch that dial!

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