Sometimes the war on culture comes from the inside
By 
When someone says “I like Bob Dylan’s songs but I prefer it when other people sing them” and the finger on the monkey’s paw curls:
Happy anniversary to The Times They Are a-Changin', the truly cursed Bob Dylan Broadway musical that opened on this date in 2006 (and closed a couple weeks later). For "Like a Rolling Stone," they had the whole cast—wait for it—roll around on stones. pic.twitter.com/QkWC3l6pWr— Ray Padgett (@rayfp) October 26, 2023
Before seeing this I had completely forgot this thing ever existed, even though I was actually living in New York City at the time — there were so many godawful jukebox musicals it was hard to keep track. Apparently this clip was representative of the whole:
If you happen to be among the masochists who make a habit of attending the entertainments called jukebox musicals, in which pop hits are beaten up by singing robots, you may think you’ve seen it all: the neutering of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in “Good Vibrations,” the canonizing (and shrinking) of John Lennon as a misunderstood angel-child in “Lennon,” and the forcible transformation of Johnny Cash from Man in Black to Sunshine Cowboy in “Ring of Fire.”
But even these spectacles of torture with a smile, frightening though they may be, are but bagatelles compared with the systematic steamrolling of Bob Dylan that occurs in “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which opened last night at the Brooks Atkinson Theater.
Mr. Dylan’s songs have been entrusted to the great choreographer Twyla Tharp, the woman who gloriously redeemed the jukebox genre with “Movin’ Out,” a narrative ballet set to songs by Billy Joel. Ms. Tharp is one of the bona fide, boundary-stretching geniuses of modern dance. And when a genius goes down in flames, everybody feels the burn.
[…]
In contrast, Coyote wonders “how many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man,” and Cleo senses a kindred spirit in the lad. Coyote is soon shyly proposing to Cleo that she “lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed.” (That I stifled a groan at this point should be honored as an act of heroic restraint.) In the meantime, the clowns are growing restless and rebel against their cruel master, who is destined to find himself “knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door.”
Are you still with me, brave reader? Ms. Tharp turns lyrics’ metaphors not only into flesh but also into flashlights, jump-ropes, stuffed animals and new brooms that sweep clean.
Jesus, Twyla Tharp being behind this Simpsons parody come to life is hackwork on a level that makes Down in the Groove look like Blonde on Blonde. Help me Dr. Zaius.