I saw this at The Kennedy Center this week and do not smell Tonys. I wanted to like this show so much. It has a lot of potential, but some pretty significant shortcomings at this point. The score is sweet and folksy, but you can only listen to it for so long before you start to snooze. You crave big notes and don't get them until the eleven o'clock number.
The greatest issue I took with the show was that the book is very dry in some spots, and the score does not always work to support the book (the traumatic scene where Alice's baby is taken from her is set to jaunty, folk music—it was all very strange and uncomfortable). The show could benefit from lyrical edits as well. Maybe I'm spoiled after listening to Hamilton for months now, but listening to the lyric “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do when a man’s gotta do what he’s got to" for the 40th time made me want to blow my brains out.
Carmen Cusack was good, but it took me a while to get accustomed to her voice in this score. She obviously has a great voice, but with much of the score, she sounds quite tinny. Emily Padgett was great, and her second-act dance number in the bar was the highlight for me. I'm away from my playbill, so I can't find his name at the moment, but the actor who played Jimmy Ray Dobbs gave by far the most standout performance. Really wonderful work.
The second act is worlds better than the first, I will say.
I loved having the musicians in the wood house on stage for the show, and think that production-wise, it will fit into the Cort wonderfully. It felt very similar to The Bridges of Madison County in many spots, which is why I worry about how well it will fare with audiences (though it seemed it was a packed house at the KenCen). I'm interested in seeing how they continue to develop the show (I'm told there was a sister plotline from its San Diego run that was completely cut from the show). I have no desire to see it again when it hits Broadway, though, and wish 'em luck.
Updated On: 12/5/15 at 01:25 PM
