Wow, what a difference a cast change and some time makes. When I saw this about a year ago, I found it to be a singularly frustrating theatregoing experience that seemed to actively distrust the material. So much of this production clicked into place for me with this cast- it seems that, without Fracknell's immediate overseeing, there has been a good deal of liberation from her frankly misguided conception.
Orville Peck is delivering a great performance- he goes from seductive and enticing to genuinely chilling. I still don't fully buy into this production's conception of the Emcee, going from Weimar underworld performer to Nazi mouthpiece, but Peck is able to make it work, without any of the empty animatronic performance art affectation of Eddie Redmayne. His vocals and physicality are excellent. He's much closer to Alan Cumming's take on the role- a sleazy, sexy good time who ends up faced with more than he bargained for (but unlike Mendes' irreverent but doomed Emcee, Fracknell's throws his lot in with the Third Reich, perhaps genuinely) . And for those wondering- "If You Could See Her" landed to a silent and perturbed audience, without so much as an audible giggle, and it's hard to imagine anybody laughing at how Peck plays it. Peck makes a terrific Broadway debut here and I hope he returns in the near future.
Eva is wonderful, a desperate and delusional Sally. The production seems to stack the deck against her at every turn, insisting on weird tempos and staging for her numbers, and it is to Eva's credit she is able to somehow carry these out and transcend them.
Ellen Harvey is an excellent Schneider- I preferred her even to Neuwirth. And shoutout to Calvin Leon Smith as Cliff, who is excellent in a role that seems to have been a continuous weakpoint of this production.
I still can't forgive this production its flaws- those flaws remain- but it feels rejuvenated and closer to what it needs to be than it ever did before.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."