The Notebook | 2hrs 20mins. One intermission. | Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre | 236 West 45th Street | (212) 239-6200

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Why are Broadway musicals suddenly so lousy? Many reasons, I can safely assume: geniuses die, leaving a hole in history with no one to replace them; teams of amateur hacks are everywhere, filling gaps once occupied by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Lerner and Loewe, and Comden and Green; considering the garbage they listen to every day, it’s no wonder wanna-be songwriters couldn’t write a memorable melody or an intelligent lyric line with a gun to their heads; clueless producers with no taste plunk down plenty of money to finance projects without a hope in hell of commercial success. Nobody has written a classic musical score with any originality and style since the death of Stephen Sondheim.

After his lovely and haunting Light in the Piazza, I had high hopes for Adam Guettel, but this season’s flop, The Days of Wine and Roses, proves the rumor that he spends every waking moment thinking of ways to avoid any comparison to his illustrious grandfather, the one and only Richard Rodgers. So what........

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