2003-04-28
New York Magazine
John Simon
Although Urban Cowboy: The Musical is not quite an unqualified disaster, it has that patchwork quality better in quilts than in shows. Its 33 composers and lyricists are part of the explanation, as is the unusual number of Broadway debuts in performing, choreography, and design. The prevailing ambitiousness must have read better than it plays; the source?a movie based on a magazine story by Aaron Latham, who co-wrote the book with the late Philip Oesterman?is muddier than potable.
This is the one about the rural Texas cowboy, Bud, who tries to strike gold in Houston, and weds the tough but nice Sissy. The initially idyllic trailer marriage soon goes sour, leading to Bud’s dalliance with the spoiled rich girl Pam, and Sissy’s with the outlaw Wes. Bud first lodges with his uncle Bob and aunt Corene, an earthy couple, and works by day in the oil refinery where Bob is foreman and Sissy is a fellow employee. By night, they hit Gilley’s, a joint run by the worldly-wise Jesse. A hard-to-ride mechanical bull is featured there; a contest for staying on it is the story’s climax.
An attempt to turn the chorus boys and girls into recognizable individuals miscarries; the rendering of Bob’s coaching Bud on another mechanical bull, suggested solely by dancers, likewise fails to ignite. Forced, too, is the telling of parallel marital infidelities on a split stage in simultaneous action and song. The cast generally satisfies. I would single out Leo Burmester, Sally Mayes, and the newcomer Jenn Colella. James Noone’s decor almost accomplishes more with less, as does Natasha Katz’s lighting. But Melinda Roy’s choreography disappoints; Lonny Price’s staging and Jason Robert Brown’s musical direction, though valiant, are up against too much mechanical bull.
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