I’m back from spending the past week at the bottom of a well, and am trying to catch up with all the 24-hour news cycles I missed. First on the agenda must be the Tharp / Dylan musical, The Times They Are A-Changin’, which opened officially last Thursday. It didn’t take long to find out that it did not bowl over the Broadway critics (or at least not in a good way). Since I haven’t seen the show myself yet, there’s not too much I can say about the reviews. I plan on seeing it late next week, assuming it’s still running. According to the New York Post yesterday, it oughta be.

The day after her new musical “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” opened to the worst reviews of any show this season, Tharp gathered her cast together onstage and said (according to someone who was there): “Look, we didn’t get what we were hoping for but f – - k this! We’re staying here and we’re going to fight!”

Tharp did feel “battered” by the reivews, but she’s not one to crawl under the covers feeling sorry for herself. She told the cast she was going to be at the theater every night, prompting Michael Arden, one of the show’s stars, to jokingly break down in tears.

The cast adores Tharp, but she’s a taskmaster who routinely hits performers with reams of notes.

Jokes an insider: “These kids are sweating their guts out every night, and she’ll go backstage and say: ‘You should do those splits five seconds faster.’ ”

Tharp’s producers are joining the fight. They’ve slashed their weekly overhead, rolled out a television commercial and are vowing to keep the struggling show on the boards at least until the end of the year.

“We’ll see what happens,” says a production source. “But right now, nobody’s talking about closing.”

Although the major New York reviewers all said in one way or another that the show was a failure, they all had positive things to say about various elements of the artistry. So, it was not too hard for the show’s PR people to cherry-pick compliments and string them together to make it seem like the show got solid raves, and that’s just what they’ve done.

Something that’s got me wondering is the fact that — from the beginning — critics said the show needed to tighten its plot. The critics in San Diego early this year were considerably more positive, overall, than those in New York, but all seemed to believe that Tharp would make certain changes to have a better chance of success on Broadway, and in particular that she would make changes to the plot. It was reported repeatedly that the plot was indeed being “clarified.” Yet, the reviews in New York all singled that out as a major flaw yet again. Is there something inherent in the show that makes it impossible to convey a clear plot? Well, again, until I actually see it, this is just throwing dust into the wind.

Reader Richard emailed to say that he’s “seen it twice in San Diego (always standing O’s) and it is FABULOUS. Be sure to take a non-Dylan fan(s) who hates his voice or doesn’t ‘get it’. The songs come alive with great vocals and presentations leaving doubters convinced: Bob and his work is ‘for the ages’.”

I think they should add that to their blurbs.

I’m no theater critic, although I’ve enjoyed a few shows on Broadway; largely revivals like “Show Boat” and “Guys And Dolls.” I’ll go to the show hoping to enjoy it and maybe to see something the theater critics are missing.

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• Changing Times
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