I saw this last night and despite Jim Parsons' winning personality, I found it merely mildly amusing at its best and insipid and lame at its worst.
The jokes are all over the place: some received laughter and a hand; others a groan or silence.
Some sample jokes:
How about Bruce Jenner? You know he's the only Kardashian woman I can stand.
I wish artists would stop thanking me in their award acceptance speeches. The next time Kanye wins a Grammy and thanks me for his "God-Given Talent" it's going to become his "God-TAKEN Talent."
When Jesus went up on the cross I told him to hang in there!
Oh, the Virgin Mary? I don't want to get into her. No, literally, I didn't want to get into her.
The serpent was the most deeply closeted animal in the garden. He would slink around with that lisp and couldn't have looked more phallic if he had two balls for rattlers.
He was hung like a fig tree before the harvest and a TOTAL power bottom too!
The only truly tasteless joke that needs to be cut ASAP is in a section about why God allows bad things to happen to good people. Why would you let the Holocaust happen? Well, at least we got Cabaret out of it! I mean it was horrible what happened to those people, but Kander & Ebb really nailed it! (Even Parsons knew this was rough and tried to move past it quickly after a slightly negative audience response.)
I didn't go in expect a profound evening of theater, but there was nothing original, nothing witty, no insightful commentary through humor on religion.
As for Parsons' performance, he's a trooper and very amiable, but I thought he was better in both Harvey and The Normal Heart. I hope he keeps coming back Broadway, but next time let's pray he sets his sights a little higher than this.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!