GENTLEMEN'S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER -- Previews — Page 2

Sorry to also ad a negative voice here, but I found this show just ok. It seems strange to bring something that is so similar to Drood in nature, style, and aesthetics, a year after Drood was not a commercial success. I was reminded of Drood many times, but kept being disappointed to how this paled in comparison.

Jefferson Mays had the strongest amount of buzz that I had heard going in from the previous runs and while he certainly is good, just doesn't have the tour de force performance I was expecting from playing all of these multiple roles. None of these characters that he plays stay long enough to make much an impression, and he all but dissappears in the second act. I actually thoroughly enjoyed Bryce Pinkam though and thought he held the considerable stage time he has (he is pretty much onstage the entire time) very well. He was in good voice as well.

For me the biggest let down was the score. It felt as if the Chaplin music team wrote this. Nothing uptempo, and very little variety. I started to have a hard time distinguishing one song from another. Everything sounded very pleasant, but you forget it instantly.

The show takes a very long time to get going, and when it does it seems to be fractured in tone. Bryce Pinkam's character is so serious. Where I needed broader humor, and the show seemed to take things deathly seriously. Sometimes he is a take no prisoners revenge character and other times he seems to be doing it for the money or to impress his girl?

Overall I can't say that this is a bad show, it is perfectly competent, but it is not particularly exciting either. The staging has a few nice tricks (the skiing scene was fun and the pictures coming alive was too), but then a few frustrating choices (why does Bryce Pinkham have to climb to the top of the stage for no reason? He looked uncomfortable with it and so was I). The costumes were lovely though, the dresses in act II were particularly stunning.

EDIT: I should be remiss that there were two moments I truly loved. The staging of the two women's scene in the opening of Act II was wonderful and the closest the show got to being farcical. The big dinner scene that followed was also a lot of fun. But the fact that it took getting to act II to get to these moments is still an issue.

Updated On: 10/23/13 at 12:13 AM

Sayitsomehow, I agree that the first 20 minutes are slow, but I chalked it up to necessary exposition before the murders began. He has to find out he's a D'Ysquith (that song went on too long), introduce the girl and then sing an "I Want" song. It's all necessary, but I kept thinking, they better be building to an amazing star entrance for Mays with an knockout song to boot. I believe he entered a few quick times before anyone realized it was him.

Mays' first number is the sixth song in, and it's probably too long for us to wait. The number is a bizarre one too: I Don't Understand the Poor. The audience is given no context about the heir singing it, and he seems to be singing it to the audience rather than interacting with Pinkham. I don't know why he's telling us/Pinkham what he thinks about the poor; it feels like a random topic. The song ends. The mini curtain goes down and that's that until he shows up near the end of act one.

dave brings up a good question about Pinkham's motivation. Why is he killing all the heirs? His beloved is concerned with social status and wealth, and it initially seems like he's going to be killing to gain her favor, but a different love interest is introduced and the motivation seems to shift to an Emily Thorne revenge plot to avenge his wronged mother; she was disinherited when she married outside her social group.

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The show is amazing. The cast is working their butts off for a very fun night on Broadway. Run and get your tickets to this witty amazing show.

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There also really isnt any kind of villain or foil standing in Monty's way as he knocks off the members of the family one by one. An investigator from Scotland Yard shows up in the last ten minutes of the play but wouldn't it be more exciting if there were someone on to him and his scheme much earlier? Where's Bud Frump when you need him?

And I agree about the narration. It really gets in the way of making the central role a show stopper because half of his dialogue is on a tape as tinny voice over. Why can't he just speak those lines to the audience? Surely there is a more witty solution...

Updated On: 10/23/13 at 05:03 AM

Oh no, sorry to hear this, I too have high expectations. I was hoping for a cross between Drood and One Man, Two Guvnors, which was a joy to watch and had me laughing more than I thought I would. Not seeing GGTL&M until next month, going to be interesting to read all the feedback.

themysteriousgrowl, I am not familiar with the book or any of those movies. I will try to watch one of those movies before I see the show. I am curious to hear how it compares after you see it.

The original film is an elegant witty satire- a comedy of manners that could have lent itself to a smart, wry, dark musical comedy but that's not the tone the writers chose for the musical which is more low brow, music hall farce-- the comparisons to Drood are warranted. But in the same breath, they want the tone of the second act to be something else- a kind of breezy Oscar Wilde romantic comedy- but it doesn't have the structural tone in the 1st act to make that direction work.

The opening of the second act called "why are all the d'ysquiths dying" came closest to the kind of witty macabre dry humour that I think would have served the tone of the overall piece more than the sort of lowball camp that involves most of Jefferson Mays' material.

Updated On: 10/23/13 at 08:59 AM

It probably should be noted that there are apparently contractual issues that prevent this from being a straight forward adaptation of the film and so no doubt some of the changes made were done so to prevent liability, but I think they should in turn have just used the original source material as inspiration and taken more liberties with the story and structure.

The musical is based on the novel not the film :

a rights dispute with the copyright holders of the film. After that, the musical’s creators went back to the original source, the Horniman novel.
Love, Murder and a Couple of Mensches

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Thanks PJ. It makes sense now why everything is so distanced from the film!

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I've read the novel ISRAEL RANK and enjoyed it a good deal. There are significant differences, of course, between the novel and the film, largely in tone. The novel is a good deal more sinister than the film -- Rank is not even remotely appealing, he's a slimy little social-climbing egomaniac, without any of Louis Mazzini's charm.

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I was at the show last night and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I was wiping away tears from laughing so hard. I didn't think it started too slow, I would agree with Whizzer that there is necessary exposition. I think overall the show is definitely worth seeing and from what I could tell from the people around me, they all seemed to enjoy it as well.

Bstrumwasser, I can't help but notice that you joined on 6/6/06.

If I believe you that it was amazing, I wouldn't be taking advice from the devil, would I?



Cruel Logic, you joined today to post your rave review, so don't be surprised if some of us find this a bit suspect. Every time a show opens, a few new people join to shill for the producers. I'm not saying you are a shill. I'm just saying you sound like one.