Huzzah at the Old Globe San Diego

[bruzson]

Posted: 9/26/25 at 9:59am

Pretty lavish production with a stellar cast of a very entertaining show. It’s sort about family dysfunction but told in a pretty light hearted manner. Just a fun evening , which is getting rarer these days

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 9/26/25 at 10:37am

Sounds fun.

This has the very prolific NO GUARANTEES (Christine Schwartzman & Darren Johnston) behind it as the commercial producer. That company has a lot of shows in development and big ambitions but a relatively unproven track record as a lead producer (Bad Cinderella) -- so it remains to be seen if this or GODDESS or SCHMIGADOON moves to Broadway first.

[FightTheDragons]

Posted: 9/29/25 at 12:23pm

I unfortunately found this to be not just poorly written, but grossly and shockingly misogynistic, outdated, and blatantly offensive.

From a writing perspective, it's basic and formulaic, following two sisters engaged in a battle over the Renaissance Faire; one completely bone-headed and making terrible decisions through the entire show (Cailen Fu's character, who gets mostly pushed to the sidelines; she has one solo song that serves as the useless act 2 opener -- Fu is extremely talented and deserves more and better material), and one that's supposed to be business minded and intelligent (Liisi LaFontaine's character; she was out of the show sick, and her understudy Beth Stafford Laid was wonderful) but instead just spends the show flip-flopping about what she actually wants. There's a "twist" right at the end that:

 

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The father of the two sisters, who runs the Faire, has dementia, and the bone-headed sister has actually been covering for all of the terrible decisions he's making since he just loves the Faire so so much and she couldn't possibly bear to, you know, communicate to her sister what was happening and instead decided to run the business into the ground because of it.

This would be an interesting dynamic to explore except for the fact that it's never hinted at once in the entire show, comes up in the last ten minutes, is resolved in one song, and then is never brought up again. This makes the entire damn thing moot. I was practically steaming in my seat at this reveal because it retroactively makes the characters' actions even worse and more unjustifiable, along with being rather gross towards the delicate topic of aging parents and dementia.

With the plot not being entertaining, one would hope that the composing team behind Heathers, Mean Girls, and Legally Blonde, shows with at least catchy and interesting scores despite their varying quality, would be able to make their mark. This is, unfortunately, not the case; the score is bland, uninspired, and unmemorable. There are what I would consider to be two good songs, both of which are assigned to Liisi's character (The Stowaway Song and The World We Live In) and come in act 2. However, it's an 18-song score, and I couldn't tell you a single other song in that show. About 8 of the songs end with the characters just yelling "HUZZAH!" as a button, as if Laurence O'Keefe had no idea as to how to end them otherwise.

None of these problems, though, come to bring the show down as much as the fact that it is blatantly and deeply misogynistic. Examples of this include an entire song (titled something like "She Will Never Be Yours") where the side characters tell a man how lucky he is that he's pining for a taken women, because it means that all other women will begin to absolutely throw themselves at him, along with a plot point wrapping up with:

 

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Cailen Fu's character's fiancée slapping her on the face, with her sister immediately deciding that not only will they keep him around the Faire, they will not press charges and in fact will have him keep his job so that they can "watch over him," a pitfall that I did not imagine would ever make it into a show in 2025.

All of this combined to be one of the most disappointing nights I've had at the theater for a long time. I was so very looking forward to watching this show, and the technical elements and cast were absolutely fantastic, but the writing of the show pulled it down to be very poor. I don't think this show can be saved; it's bad from the core and the writers seem to have no ability to address its blatant issues.