I went last night and, Halloween hype aside, I thought the show was fine, but didn’t really knock my socks off like I was hoping. As I’ve been saying to my friends, much like the leading ladies themselves, the show has some clunky parts that seemed cobbled together by glue and a prayer.
Performances: Uniformly high quality as to be expected from this caliber of talent. Hilty is making a Broadway grand return for the ages. Simard is reliably deadpan. Sieber does very well with a character who is a hapless simp of a man. And notably, Michelle Williams really just swoops in and commands the stage as Viola when she’s on. My only quibble with her is that her line delivery is somewhat stilted at times, but I think it’s something that she will work on over time. Special shoutout to Taurean Everett for making an absolute meal of his role as Viola’s assistant while also being a lithe and sexy and standout in the ensemble.
Book/Score: Definitely stuffed to the gills with some of the quickest zingers I’ve ever heard on a Broadway stage, and I admittedly cackled quite a bit. However, I did miss some of the more iconic lines (particularly the “Flaccid Clown” bit). The score never really fully gelled for me. This is where I feel like the show seemed to strain and feel artificial and cobbled together. At times, it felt like it was going from one song directly into the next with no breathing room, and since the songs mostly have the same generic, Broadway-style quality, it started to blend together after a while. As others have cited, the Rejuvenation Ball scene/song “Live To Serve” can definitely be truncated or cut entirely as it doesn’t contribute anything other than artificial padding.
Sets/Costumes: The set is definitely where a good chunk of money went, between projection design, pillars, and grand staircases - nobody could accuse this show of not looking as glamorous as it can be. Same thing with the costumes and makeup design. That team seemed to really outdo themselves and make everyone look fabulous (aside from Josh Lamon’s unfortunate “Fat B*stard man bun wig”) My only issue is that:
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They need to either pick more fitting ensemblists or add some additional makeup/padding during the fight scene since, from the rear of the orchestra, I could clearly see it was two men who were body doubling for Megan and Jennifer and that cheapened the overall effect.
One very annoying TikTok “influencer” at the stage door kept raving about how this is the show that’s going to be Best Musical and also workshopping catchy lines (“NOW…a BeSt MuSiCaL?!) for his eventual review. I think it definitely will mop the floor with design categories, but there are too many new shows coming in to already call anything (some with far superior books/scores). This would be a show I would wait a bit to see if they tighten up (no pun intended) in previews and have the cast more settled.
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