As the people on this board who know me in real life can testify, I am a huge Woody Allen fan. I have an immense amount of affection for the film, which has one of my favorite performances in one of his movies by Chazz Palminteri. The scene where Palminteri freaks out on the street to John Cusack about how awful Olive is in his play and how she's ruining it is absolute perfection.
I was nervous going into the show tonight for two reasons: would the cast be able to compete the brilliant performances in the film and would the lack of an original score turn this into Nice Work takes two?
Let's tackle the latter issue first. For the most part I thought the song selection was strong and the placement of the songs made sense. Lots of changes have been made to the lyrics so they better fit the characters and they more organically arise from the book than the usual jukebox hackwork that so often is found. Would I have rather heard an original score? Sure. But these songs (mostly) worked well enough.
The book sticks very closely to the film script, with large chunks lifted verbatim. Almost all of the one-liners are there, even if they're moved around to a different scene. The only time the book deviated from the film was in the last 10 minutes, and I strongly preferred the movie ending to the stage ending.
People didn't seem to be guffawing in their seats, but I think that's because it was all so familiar. I honestly felt like I was watching the movie again, and naturally I'm not going to laugh at the same jokes I've heard before like I was hearing them for the first time.
I agree with WickedRocks about the uneven cast. I actually thought Marin was great and didn't do a carbon copy performance of Dianne Wiest's characterization, although it obviously was influenced by her performance. Helene Yorke was a lot of fun as Jennifer Tilly, and her act one number, "I Want A Hot Dog For My Roll" was the musical highlight for me. I full knockout showstopper. She basically uses Tilly's voice, and if not quite an imitation it certainly was an homage to her film counterpart.
I liked Brooks Ashmanskas as Warren and "Let's Misbehave" with Yorke was my second favorite number. Ziemba has very little to do, but she makes the most of it. This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think Betsy Wolfe had too much to do. She delivers her songs incredibly, but the character takes up too much stage time, and with the overlong run time I would cut down on her stuff first.
Nick Cordero plays my beloved Cheech and I thought he was decent. He has a big number that he pulled off with a lot of help from the male ensemble. He was a little stiff in the part though and I wanted to see him loosen in the second act as Cheech gets more and more desperate to preserve the artistic integrity of the play.
In some ways Braff was a better stand-in for Woody than John Cusack was, but it's tough being the straight man with all these crazy characters around you. His big act two number didn't really work for me.
I liked what Stroman did with the material and I'm sure she'll tighten things up as previews go along.
I think her one big misstep was the ending...and SPOILERS because it is different than the movie
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David confesses to Helen that he didn't write the play, and that it was really Cheech. Ellen shows up to the cast party and tells David that she wants to get back with him. The who things ends with a HUGE production number to "I Have No Bananas." It's a bizarre song choice and way, way too big.
Gone is that wonderful, wonderful scene on the street where Cusack yells to Mary-Louise Parker and the neighbor across the way joins into the conversation. It's a small and sweet ending to this big ensemble film. He finally admits to her that he isn't an artist and is ready to move on to a life with her.
After all of Stroman's big production numbers she needed to pull a Gower Champion and need Bullets with a "Rosie" instead of another "Honestly Sincere." It's much riskier, but I think it's the right move to make, and really is the only appropriate place to give Betsy Wolfe a song. I wanted them to sing "A Tough Act To Follow" from Curtains here or something like that.
END SPOILERS**************************************************
Overall I thought it was fun and pleasant with lots of spectacle, but far from perfect.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Updated On: 3/12/14 at 11:56 PM
