Me Tarzan, You Jane
… under this title (OK, it’s German translation “Ich Tarzan, Du Jane”) the Stage Entertainment group is currently casting the male and female lead for its German production of “Disney’s Tarzan - The Musical” on TV. Wary of the bomb the show turned out to be on Broadway the show is now trying to garner enough pre-opening ticket sales on the German market to get it going at least long enough not too loose any money. How?
Easy more than 6 months prior to its opening in October 2008 in the Neue Flora Theater in Hamburg (originally constructed for the German premiere of Andre L. Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera) the show is getting a weekly prime time tv presence: the casting show of the before mentioned title on the German channel Sat.1. The same ploy was already used in the Netherlands, where a re-staged version premiered, that many critics lauded as better than the Broadway original. Unfortunately so far there are no reports which version Germany will get. But back to the TV show…
In the first few episodes viewers get to enjoy the audition performances by various aspiring actors and actresses, some of them professionals with noted experiences in big productions in Germany other amateurs (not that the viewer would get told who has experience in every case). The jury in the auditions consists of Pia Douwes (the sole big female musical star in Germany, originally coming from the Netherlands), Ralf Schaedler (casting director of the producing company of the musical in Germany) and Michael Hildebrandt (”musical-manager”). Once they have reduced the big pool of aspirants to a small number viewers will be able to make the ultimate choices by telephone vote.
The producers hope to cash in in the on-going success of the German version of “Pop Idol” and also get viewers so attached to the show that they order tickets to see “their candidate” perform it on stage later on. Unfortunately for the producers right now chanes look slim for this to happen. The first episode of the show garnered only a total of 1.54 million viewers (or as the website quotenmeter puts it) an inacceptable 5.0% of the market!
I took it on me to watch the show for you and can only say: the other 95% of the market made the better decision. Badly edited snippets from the casting, boring statements from the jury (funnily the two Germans fought with the German grammar more often than Pia Douwes from the Netherlands), even more broing comments from the commentator, neither enough good auditions nor enough really funny bad ones. The whole thing was neither flesh nor fish.
The only hope may be that they re-edit the remaining audition episodes which were already filmed - and hopefully that teh show picks up steam once the audience can get involved by voting … that is if it hasn’t lost any chance by then, especially since “Pop Idol” is getting into the hot phase starting next Saturday.
If you want to judge the show for yourself: the complete episodes can be seen online at this official link - I’D love to read what you think about it. Depending on my mood next Friday I might give the show a second chance, but don’t get your hopes too high (if I watch I’ll be back with another report).
March 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Since you asked for responses I’ll give it a shot, mostly because I’m bored and particularly grateful for a review of the show in English (and disappointed you didn’t rally to review this weeks episode).
On the first episode:
I actually didn’t see anything wrong with the editing, though that might be partially because I understand very, very little German. Because of that, I also can’t say much on the comments of the jury or the Commentator. However, I can say I wasn’t bored by the show. I generally found the auditions they chose to show entertaining (good or bad). I particularly liked their selection of background songs to accompany points between the audition songs. Several times the lyrics and the actual screen action combined hilariously.
…Well actually, I suppose this could be considered an editing flaw: I didn’t like the way they frequently switched to shots of the contestant talking during their audition.
On the second episode:
As a show, I don’t think I enjoyed this one as much as the first, but I think that’s mostly because I had to watch it in the short video segments supplied by sat1 since I couldn’t get the full show to play. However, based off of isolated incidents, I ended up being happier with this episode then the first. Again, I enjoyed the selective use of background songs, particularly the use of “Männer” by Pia Douwes. Also, there was a very entertaining audition by a fellow who jumped both on the piano, and the judges’ table, as well as an audition by a second Pia Douwes fan that ended much in the same was as it had for the first fan. The short clips they showed from the musical, “Elisabeth” was also a nice surprise.
On the editing, I didn’t like they were they crammed a several different auditions together so that the voice that was play didn’t always match the singer… which kinda destroyed the whole point of televising a casting… However, they were trying to cram in the auditions from both Hamburg and Essen into one show so I suppose it’s understandable.
All in all, truth be told, my account of the show is very bias. Honestly, most of my amusement and entertainment is drawn for the fact that Pia Douwes is a member of the jury. If it wasn’t for her I doubt I’d bother to watch the show. But since she’s there, and since I’m hoping they’ll start plugging more advertisement for “Elisabeth,” I’ll probably watch the season through.
I’m hoping next week they’ll have moved on to the academy/workshops. I’m curious to see them learning to swing on the vines… and sing (better).
Anyhow, here’s a long rambling comment for you to chew on. I’D love to read what you think about Episode 2. Consider watching it.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
HI Sinric - thanks for your response. I did watch the second episode last week but wanted to wait a bit with the write-up - non the least because I hoped with a bit of time difference I might be thinking a bit more positive about it. Alas, the “review” of the second episode didn’t get much better. You can find it here: http://blog.mousekingdom.com/2008/03/10/me-tarzan-you-hey-anyone-out-there/
Certainly Pia Douwes is the highlight of the jury - she is just a great actress and even greater person. I still remember the times I met her during my times as journalist very fondly. Alas, the overall set-up of the jury is IMHO missing someone a bit more “entertaining”. Pia DOuwes is to sincere and to human to be that part as it requires a certain amount of cruelity - at least during the audition phase. That is also why I hope for a turn to the better coming Friday. And yes, I’ll try to over a write-up again for the third episode as well