Saw the 2nd preview last night and thought it was absolutely beautiful. This is Stroman’s best work in years.
It’s not a musical, per se. It has the feel of a musical, but they don’t sing. There are scenes of spoken dialogue, and there are dance sequences. On the poster they call it a “dance play.” Kander has written original incidental music, but it’s far from a background element. It’s played live by an orchestra, and it permeates everything in the show. And the dancing is obviously phenomenal. There are also puppetry elements, which was very beautifully done.
I had mixed feelings about the story. It’s essentially about a man looking back on his one lost chance at love, and how he always screwed it up because of his own fear and insecurities. It’s not groundbreaking or original, but it’s filled with tender emotion. At first I was irritated because the protagonist was so obviously objectifying the women in his life, and his primary conflict seemed to just be his own damn fault. However, by the end I was no longer irritated by that fact - and that’s all I’ll say.
Definitely some tweaking and tightening left to do - particularly in the last 15 minutes of the show, which aren’t bad, but you can tell they are trying some different things out that will probably get trimmed through previews.
The 3 leads (Peter Friedman, Tony Yazbeck and Irina Dvorovenko) are all excellent.
The listed running time was 1h45m, but it ran 2 hours with no intermission last night.
I think this could make a lovely and welcome addition to this coming Broadway season, personally. I don’t know whether it will be considered a play or a musical, but either way I imagine it would be a serious contender.
Updated On: 5/6/18 at 11:35 AM
