I'm getting home from the show tonight and it's a mixed bag, but the good far outweighs the bad; most of what I took issue was fairly minor except for one performance.
Unfortunately the show starts out with a complaint- they have cut the overture! Reinstate the overture! Do it now! Instead they open the show with a stupid newsreel telling us about the depression and explaining the historical political and social landscape. Cut the damn newsreel and play the overture!
Lilla Crawford is nothing short of brilliant as Annie. She is funny, tough, delightful and very, very winning. Many people focus on stunt-casting Hannigan, but the show sinks or floats by the titular character, and as long as Crawford is manning the ship it will stay afloat. Her belt gave me chills in "Maybe" and "Tomorrow." She has remarkable chemistry with Anthony Warlow, and the two of them together are giving the best performances in musicals (so far) this season.
The one gripe I had with Annie and all the orphans is they have been directed to talk like the Newsies. At any moment I was worried one of them would start trying to sell "papes." I appreciate that these orphans are ragtag street kids, but the accents are SO thick that it's a bit overkill. Maybe give Pepper the worst accent and have the others pull back a bit.
The group of orphans though are fantastic. "It's a Hard Knock Life" is cute and "Never Fully Dressed" was a highlight. They should start shopping that number around on the morning talk shows.
Like I mentioned above Warlow is awesome. I mean what has taken this guy so long to come to Broadway?! Complete love for this actor, and "I Don't Need Anything But You" had me grinning from ear to ear.
Brynn O'Malley sounds good, but her hair is weird and wears goofy glasses. I thought she looked like Mia Farrow in Zelig ha. She wasn't exactly nebbish, but a little nerdy?
The set is sometimes sparse, especially during "NYC." The stage needs up looking a little empty and the choreography isn't big enough to fill the space. "NYC" just needed to be a bigger show stopper.
Warbucks' mansion has a cute idea in which the rooms open up like a storybook as Annie walks through the walls that servants keep pushing past her. The problem is the "pages" look a tad cheap and ready to fall apart! It's bad to have the rich character have a house that's crumbling. The place does spruce up nicely for Christmas though.
Now for the bad: Katie Finneran. Sometimes a really good actor can give a really bad performance, or at least appear to be at sea with what performance to give. This one was all over the place. Right now it's half Marge MacDougall, half Varla Jean Merman. "Little Girls" was all over the map vocally. Sometimes whispered, sometimes shrieked- it was probably the low point of the evening for me. "Easy Street" landed with a thud, and was oddly undercut with the orphans dressed up as french maids in Hannigan's easy street fantasy. The three of them didn't even seem to be doing synchronized choreography at that point.
Look, I know it's the first preview, and Finneran is a pro and will find ways to start making this work, but tonight was a bumpy start.
Act Two was much better than Act One, and really whenever Hannigan wasn't on stage it was in great shape. Something should be said about how well-crafted Annie is. The book is zippy and funny and the score is well-integrated with the plot.
To illustrate the strength of this show, my favorite scene of the night was the Cabinet meeting. If this was a scene in say, Chaplin, it would be campy and a point of derision. Here watching politicians sing about optimism is poignant and down right heartwarming.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Updated On: 10/3/12 at 11:36 PM
