Okay, here it is

My obligatory Iowa City theater "Phantom of the Opera" musical critique post.



All I really wanted to say has been done in the Onion:



Psychiatrists in select cities nationwide have reported a surge in Post-Melodramatic Stress Disorder cases following the Dec. 22 release of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera.



The book is melodramatic, the movie will be okay so long as viewed in the same vein. Cats was a nightmare, one of those things that you sit through because you should like it, because after all it's live theater and you liked most of the poems and . . . why is there no plot? I didn't like Moulin Rouge much, either, despite the hilarious can can scene. Into the Woods was cute, but not much there.



As far as the rest goes, I'm sorely undereducated in musicals, being (as you all know) fairly unqualified to be in one, but here are my favorites, in no particular order, which coincidentally largely overlaps with the list of musicals I've actually seen:



1) My Fair Lady

2) Fiddler on the Roof

3) Little Shop of Horrors

4) Sweeney Todd

5) Les Miz (though recent productions have gone way downhill).

6) Does the movie version of Wizard of Oz count?

7) Chicago

8) West Side Story

9) How about the Blues Brothers?

10) Man of La Mancha



I've not seen The Producers, Rent, 42nd Street, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and many others, so I think my list will change as I take in more shows.