Excerpts from reviews of Suzanne Somers' one-woman show "The Blonde in the
Thunderbird," currently in a limited engagement at New York's Brooks
Atkinson
Theater:
Charles Isherwood, New York Times:
"Some of Ms. Somers's recollections are, regrettably, set to music. A
performance
of Frank Loesser's "Take Back Your Mink" is spliced into a recitation of a
particularly violent encounter with her father. I'm not sure why. The show's
writer-directors, Mitzie and Ken Welch, have also provided dreadful new
lyrics
for some old standards. Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern's "Pick Yourself Up"
is
now a song about bouncing checks and seeking solace in shopping.
Unfortunately,
Ms. Somers's singing voice is thin and often toneless, and the clanging
piano
chords underscoring the more anguished moments in her history, usually
accented
by a dramatic clutch at expensively highlighted hair, are giggle-inducing."
David Rooney, Variety:
"Self-absorption masquerading as self-exploration and self-irony, this
so-called
"one-woman musical joyride" chronicles Somers' evolution from zero
self-esteem
to a level that's surely off the chart, which might serve as a useful
cushion
when reading the reviews. . . And then there are the songs. These include
standards with jaw-dropping reworked lyrics, such as "If You Knew Suzie"
("She
loves to giggle / And wag and wiggle / Wo, wo / Holy Moses, she can
jiggle"😉; a
kiddie-voiced "If I Only Had a Brain" that aims for pathos and fails; a
bizarrely vulgar modeling ditty ("Sling forward / Shoulders back / Think
little
walnuts in my little butt crack"😉; and the entirely unearned emotional
crescendo
of an 11 o'clock number lifted from another show: "Fifty Percent," from
"Ballroom." Somers can more or less carry a tune but musical producers will
hardly be beating down her agent's door."
Howard Kissel, New York Daily News:
"Her voice is heavily amplified, which also dilutes the sense that she's
sharing
things with us. In effect, she's broadcasting. She breaks up the
confessional
monologue with musical numbers, also done in a hard-driving way. She sings
"50
Percent," from the musical "Ballroom," by Alan and Marilyn Bergman and Billy
Goldenberg, which can be heartbreaking -- but not when it is blared."
Full reviews:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/theater/reviews/18blon.html?pagewanted=print
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117927695?categoryid=1265&cs=1
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/329096p-281291c.html