It’s not quite there yet, but overall I enjoyed it and feel that, after some trimming (will that actually happen? Idk), there’s a really strong show somewhere in there. The night I was there, the audience also ate it up, and I didn’t mind the overt feel-good feel of the final number because the show spends a long time tracking you there, with stories of underdog after underdog after underdog. There’s no way they’re not going to try to lift you out of your seat at the end, and you realize that very early on.
We could certainly use less (or at least a more streamlined version) of the books scenes involving the dealership management. And TonyVincent is absolutely right that, structurally, the show very closely resembles SPELLING BEE, with its story/song-in-turn contestants, its exploitative authority figures, and even its own version of Mitch Mahoney. Now, SPELLING BEE does more with less, but HARDBODY also has twice as many characters and is more human drama than goofy comedy (though at times it is very funny).
Perhaps this is my personal bias, but by and large I enjoyed the twangy pop-country score. And while, as Whizzer pointed out earlier, not all the songs are equally memorable, they’re varied enough that the score never gets a same-ish feel, even in the yearning character ballads, of which we get several. But when the score gets peppy, it’s super-peppy, by turns sweet, angry, and exuberant.
Hunter Foster is the de facto lead, and he does admirably, but the role never catches fire. For me, the three standouts – and I mean significant, Tony-nominee-worthy standouts – were Keala Settle (old news at this point, it seems), Keith Carradine (his cumulative impact surprised me), and (especially) Dale Soules, whose character felt so authentic, she could have been wrangled up right out of Texas and shipped overnight to perform as herself.
The choreography was usually inventive, though occasionally repetitious by virtue of its own limitations (the truck can only be pushed upstage and downstage and side to side and in circles so many times), but, again, I was never bored by it. There are a few laggy sequences, mostly in the first act (the opening number, for instance, is far too long and gives us little information), but the second act moves like gangbusters (until the very end, where one particular character-tied-to-another-character moment too many threatens to capsize the momentum going into the finale).
My date described the show as “uneven.” I think he was speaking musically, but it’s a good assessment of the show on the whole. It’s uneven, but what’s there is still enjoyable and could be much stronger with discerning trims. And if they can carve that terrific show out of the current good show, I could see it becoming a surprise hit. It’s got verve, characters to root for, a lot of good, old-fashioned sentiment, and leaves you feeling fuzzy and wanting to believe in people, naïve as that may be. Now, if they can just get their marketing on track…
CHURCH DOOR TOUCAN GAY MARKETING PUPPIES MUSICAL THEATER STAPLES PERIOD OIL BITCHY SNARK HOLES
