ALL IN: COMEDY ABOUT LOVE Reviews — Page 2

I’m also surprised how the critics mention pricing especially when the show is able to sell tickets at tho prices.

Had they sold this at a cheaper price, scalpers would have bought those tix and resell them for $500-$800, keeping the profits.

Tom5 said: "I'm also surprised that there are no women involved in readings about love. On Broadway, yet."

Several women are in the different casts. To what are you referring?

Saw this last night. I had a fine time and was entertained- I certainly laughed and it's always a delight to see Mulaney and Kind. But this is easily one of the slightest shows I have ever seen on Broadway and... if this is a showcase of Simon Rich's talents as a writer, it's not much of one. The stories are all kind of essentially the same- a clever concept involving some kind of unexpected juxtaposition (pirates as parents! a talent agent buying more time on earth by signing death! toddlers in a film noir!) and then ending on a very saccharine note (these people love each other). They all should've been New Yorker cartoons. Rich certainly can pull out a funny one-liner from these concepts, but for a show built around love, there's very little connective tissue and basically no insights or clever observations about such a well-worn concept. The stories feature love in varying forms and degrees, sure, but what they're really about is Rich's cleverness.

I was surprised by how wildly unequally the performing duties are divvied up. Mulaney is far and away the most featured- I would even call that track the lead with the other 3 as featured and disregard this being billed as an ensemble play. Kind is second with a couple of featured stories, and then Chloe Fineman in a series of thankless wife roles and then the finale story, with Armisen having extremely little to do and really only showcased in 2 stories as a supporting character.

Any of the show's success as a piece of entertainment is really due to Mulaney here. He's so great at storytelling and holding an audience in the palm of his hand- you never know what off-kilter emphasis or tone he'll bring, finding laughs in nothing and heightening weak jokes. He also brings a needed cynical edge to a show that is often sweet to the point of cloying. I really cannot imagine this working without him and particularly not with the earnest theatre kid energy of folks like Lin-Manuel Miranda or Jimmy Fallon.

But overall, Jordan was right- this is the sort of show you'd see and have a nice time at Joe's Pub back in the day. It's a $40 dollar experience being upsold wildly and just comes across as a money printer. And it apparently is succeeding in that.

Saw the final performance of ALL IN last night on 1/12/25 with John Mulaney, Richard Kind, Fred Armisen and Chloe Fineman. I didn't know what to expect. My husband and I are big Mulaney fans so we got tickets when they went on sale last December thinking it was a comedic play. We didn't know it would be the actors sitting in chairs the entire time. We went in with open minds. Well. This show was HYSTERICAL. It was absolutely perfect and I don't think these 7 stories could have worked as a typical play where the actors are walking in sets with props. They have performed it enough that they didn't even read from the book, they were basically acting and playing off each other while seated or moving around in the chairs. Perhaps because we were seeing this casts final performance they knew the material really well, so they could perform it from memory, but we both LOVED it and it had many, many laughs. We were sitting in the balcony but had a great view. Absolutely worth the $200 a ticket. We did the stage door afterwards and Mulaney took the time to sign, talk and do photos with everyone.

Updated On: 1/13/25 at 08:27 AM

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/When-Is-a-Performance-Not-One-The-ALL-IN-Debate-20250113

When Is a Performance Not One? The ALL IN Debate

... The issue is the folks who bought tickets before performances began on December 11 or even before opening on December 22. Would a reasonably diligent person in their position have been able to make an educated purchasing decision based on the words “read live”? How about the people who relied on the wording before it changed? And if a reasonably diligent person wouldn’t have been able to make an educated purchasing decision, is that a reason for a refund? Or do producers not have to inform consumers about the type of theatrical offering they are purchasing tickets to because buying tickets is always a risk? The answers to these questions will determine how you feel about this issue. But, one thing is for certain, no one wants unhappy ticket buyers. Even if the impact of their bitterness is not felt financially on an individual show, it damages the industry.

Who got the opening 12 inch pianist story?

Sutton Ross said: "Even as a cash grab, I'm stumped as to why anyone would consider putting this on stage.

Because they know the average theater-goer won't come here or think too much of the wording "read live". It's pretty gross honestly.



"

I agree it's sketchy. Whether they say "read live" or not, without explicitly and clearly calling it a (barely) staged reading, it's flase advertising, IMO. It just simply would never occur to someone paying full price for Broadway tickets that actors would be on script. It feels like one of the most fundamental and basic terms of the unwritten contract of handing over the exorbitant amount of money tickets cost--that you will get actors who know their material well enough to not be reading to you (barring understudies saving the day before put-ins, etc).

But for me, that isn't even the big problem here. If they were on stage sitting down reading--I don't know--a selection of the best SNL sketches or an actual play with any level of cohesiveness, I'd still be aghast at the choice to have scripts but at least I'd feel I was watching something the called for a staging and was entertaining.

This is literally just short stories. And frankly, I think I would have found them more amusing if I just read them on my own time on the subway to see something else.

Nothing against the actors. And honestly--not even sure it's anything against Simon Rich. I just think presenting the material like this props it up to be something more than it is, which makes it look worse than it is for its original intent (to be read silently to oneself).

Updated On: 1/15/25 at 12:44 PM

Supposedly, there is already a sequel to this in the works for next season called All Out. I’m not even kidding. My source is a trusted NY theatre professional.

Kad said: "Who got the opening 12 inch pianist story?"

Are you saying you didn't get the humor in the opening story about the 12 inch pianist? I thought it was very funny when John Mulaney delivered it. The audience did too, so this isn't just my opinion. I loved the show with Mulaney, Armisen, Kind and Fineman.

OK, thank you for explaining his comment.

Jimmy Fallon makes his Broadway debut tonight, taking over for Rannells.