Encores! 2023: LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA with Ruthie Ann Miles, DEAR WORLD with Donna Murphy, and OLIVER! — Page 10

I was there tonight and Benjamin Pajak, as Oliver's rendition of Where Is Love? stopped the show  with the biggest ovation. I've heard since Lea Michele's Don't Rain on My Parade in Funny Girl.

Lilli and Raul were also outstanding.  Aside from the sort of odd opening, the audience seemed to be loving the show tremendously.

Enjoyed myself very much. Cast is fine with  Cooper a standout and Benjamin Pasak ia revelation.  

Jesse Green's gone all Gollum over Oliver! His review reads like one long argument with himself: "It's good. But it shouldn't be good. But it is good. But it shouldn't be good. But it is good. But ..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/theater/oliver-review-encores-city-center.html

Your response is so douchey and typical of commenters on this board. The point is Benjamin Pajak is the lead of the show, NOT the actor who played Fagin 

David Gordon at Theatremania is mixed.

And not that it necessarily means something, but between this and Zachary Stewart's God of Carnage review, this is the second off-Broadway revival review from Theatremania in two weeks where the underlying thesis seems to be "this well-liked property wasn't any good in the first place".

Have tickets for this afternoon and apparently there's a talk back afterwards. Has anyone been to one with Encores and is it worth staying for? We were going to go for a leisurely dinner afterwards before an 8PM show but aren't sure.

KevinKlawitter said: "David Gordon at Theatremania is mixed.

And not that it necessarily means something, but between this andZachary Stewart's God of Carnage review, this is the second off-Broadway revival review from Theatremania in two weeks where the underlying thesis seems to be "this well-liked property wasn't any good in the first place"."

To be fair, many of my friends who've seen this production- and myself included- walked away thinking, "Wow, Oliver! is surprisingly not a great show."

The production is wonderful, but it lays bare the show's weaknesses.

Oliver was the first Broadway show I saw in the 1960s as a kid, so it was a sentimental must to catch this Encores version and I have to say that I really loved it. Pasak stops the show with Where Is Love? and it was great to see Esparza again. Sure, it's dated, but the score and actors are wonderful and for me, it was hands-down better than New York, New York and Some Like it Hot, though it'd be hard to choose between Oliver and Parade.

I get that it's dated and the book has some issues, but I really hope this one transfers,

This musical sucks. It’s the same thing over and over again singing about how poor they are. They could easily make this a one act musical if they just cut the fat and string together all the scenes that actually have action and move the plot forward. 

This was a miss for me. Yes, Benjamin Pajak was adorable and talented and so were the other boys, but the show is dated and it felt like they knew that. Esparza definitely mumbled and was hard to understand in many moments (maybe on purpose as a drunk, but still&hellip, Lilli Cooper has the voice for Nancy, but I’m never a fan of her acting and the others were all just kind of there without purpose. Even the Artful Dodger didn’t do much, and that’s such a fun role. Don’t know if that was the actor’s fault, the director’s fault or more likely, the combination of both. Fagin sends Dodger to look after Oliver, so where is he when everything goes down? No explanation.

The whole show just felt random. Of course songs like “Consider Yourself” are great, but that’s not enough to make the whole show great. It was an okay afternoon, but I wouldn’t recommend this and I hope it doesn’t transfer. Sorry to those involved.

Kad said: "KevinKlawitter said: "David Gordon at Theatremania is mixed.

And not that it necessarily means something, but between this andZachary Stewart's God of Carnage review, this is the second off-Broadway revival review from Theatremania in two weeks where the underlying thesis seems to be "this well-liked property wasn't any good in the first place"."

To be fair, many of my friends who've seen this production- and myself included- walked away thinking, "Wow, Oliver! is surprisingly not a great show."

The production is wonderful, but it lays bare the show's weaknesses."

I saw today's matinee with a friend, neither of us familiar with the piece. Both of us came out of the show commenting how weak the book is and how poorly the musical has aged. 

All the actors seemed to put their all into what is clearly an imperfect piece. Raul's performance was especially lived in, though his lack of strong diction -- a previous poster used the word "mumbled" -- particularly as the show went on, made it very difficult to hear what he was saying/singing half the time (at least from the balcony). Lilli Cooper was beautiful in voice. Benjamin Pajak was pitch perfect and brought all the earnestness required of him. And the orchestra, elevated onstage, sounded fantastic. 

Glad I got to see this, but I'm not sure I really need to revisit Oliver! again anytime soon...

Updated On: 5/8/23 at 10:50 PM

I'd agree with most on here that this is a fairly wonderful production of a terribly flawed musical.  I actually like the tunes a lot (though As Long as He Needs Me feels terribly dated in terms of content) and the cast is pretty winning at performing them.  I was saying to my friends how Lorin Latarro really didn't scale down the choreography for the 10 year olds to perform it--some massive talent on stage there outside of Benjamin Pajak himself who is every bit the revelation that people have mentioned him to be.  Raul Esparza is charming as always on stage (though I agree with his diction, not sure I understood any of Reviewing the Situation) and Brad Oscar/Mary Testa and Thom Sesma/Rashidra Scott are great in roles that feel like they're struggling for relevance (what even is the point of I Shall Scream?).

The book is a bit of a mess, and I'm not sure how drastic the changes made for this production were as I haven't seen any other version of the show.  But the beginning plods until we hit Consider Yourself, I still don't understand what Bill Sikes does or why everyone's afraid of him (is it just because he's violent?), and the second act speeds by without really any moment for us to understand why Mr. Brownlow cares so much for Oliver (or even Nancy or Fagin for that matter.  Oliver was with them for what, a day?)

But like Dear World, I think this is the kind of production that works particularly well at Encores: a very flawed/dated musical but one cast with fantastic performers to really make as much of it as they can.  I'm dubious that we'd get a transfer out of this (apparently rights are tied up with Cameron Mackintosh though, so who knows what he might try to do), but I would love to have a cast album just for Benjamin Pajak alone.

Dear world was a million times better than Oliver.