IF/THEN Musical WITH SPOILERS — Page 5

I saw If/Then in DC on the 16th. It's a tour-de-force for Idina Menzel but I thought (initally) many parts of it were disjointed and hard to follow- and it wasn't until the end (walking out of the theatre) I realized it was evidently written to BE disjointed. In discussing things with the friends with whom I saw the show we all agreed that we had to look at things in a much more "simplistic" way and not try to "make sense" of what we saw but simply enjoy the songs, the interesting scenic design and Idina. I enjoyed it, my one friend cried and a good time was had by all.

Except for the negatives and positives seem to be the ones always applied to women (family vs. career) and not men. Plus it sounds like it'd be pretty easy for the show to veer into slut-shaming with the "Beth" storyline. If it doesn't, though, good for them.

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Honestly, without spoiling the WHOLE thing, it seems to me that in the end, things work out better for Beth, the one who puts career first.

I have seen the show twice, once at the end of its first week, and then again this past weekend. It's good with tremendous potential, but not yet great. However, it's amazing the amount of work that they've already done in the week between the shows I saw to fix some of the issues and try to make the story lines clearer. Some of the choreography has been cut along with the fact that Liz worked for the MTA(I think that was it) - now she's just a professor in the Liz story rather than her making that confusing switch from one to the next. They still have more to do and Act II is stronger than Act I, but they are clearly listening to feedback and making changes. The cast is amazing,the story definitely makes you think, and some of the music stays with you. With the work they are doing, I think the show is going to end up being great by the time it opens in March.

Updated On: 11/18/13 at 07:44 PM

it seemed to me that both beth and liz sort of ended in the same place of hope and optimism, which is why the ending works so well and why it doesnt feel like love or career are favored higher than the other. Learn to Live Without directly juxtaposes the feeling of loneliness and sorrow both choices can cause, and in the end Liz is thrilled to jump into a new beginning of a career just as Beth is excited to put her work down and be open to new things i.e. love. Its a very delicate balance, which they have done well because its true with any missteps it could come off offensive.

Matt Rogers, you caught me, for one, haha! i am guilty of creating a new acct in the last few days but i actually forgot my password of my old one. i haven't posted in a while, and I no longer have access to the email account it was associated with to retrieve it, so i figured it was easiest to start fresh, forgive me :)

Matt Rogers - are you the BWW police? Who cares? The show is nearly sold out every night; as time passes, more and more people have seen the it, thereby increasing the probability that reviews will be posted here; and as the show is edited and improved, more positive reviews should naturally show up.

Aaaaaanyway - I love reading the detailed reviews over time here, to learn how they're changing the show "on the fly." It's very interesting!

Updated On: 11/18/13 at 08:19 PM

I whole-heartedly agree that shameless promotion is done all the time which was simply why I gave an explanation since you pointed out my, and others indiscretion Matt Rogers. My old user was CandiceElyse and i joined sometime in 2010. my old user picture was an old picture of Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. feel free to verify if you so choose!

Sorry to disappoint - I'm no one's shill or toad or covert press operative. :) I'm just a regular DC theatre-goer - season ticket holder at the Kennedy Center (Row S - Center Orchestra), who catches most of the musicals and NSO Broadway shows in the area. My father was a Dean of Fine Arts so I grew up watching college kids work on their acting, singing, dancing, costumes and set design. I usually use this message board to help inform what we're going to see on our annual trip to New York.

My first post on this board was in this thread because I came away from If/Then appreciating a unique experience for us in DC -- the chance to see a really good show in development and that if they fix a few things, could be a really great show. We liked it so much we're getting tickets today for closing weekend.

^She was a professor in Phoenix too. Just because we don't see scenes about her applying for jobs and having interviews and providing references doesn't make it unrealistic. I mean, she's more qualified and experienced for her position than J. Pierrepont Finch or Millie Dillmount.

Except for the negatives and positives seem to be the ones always applied to women (family vs. career) and not men.

I hadn't thought about the other characters until I read this, but most of the characters have a family vs. career dilemma.

Stephen puts his career first, spends long hours at the office with Beth and his wife ends up leaving him. In both stories, he has a heart (?) problem and has to cut back on work. In Liz, he cuts back and moves to the suburbs to spend more time with his family.

In Liz, Lucas is in a relationship with Jason Tam. He kind of gives up on his activism and keeps claiming he's "working on" a book that he never gets to in 5 years. In Beth, he finishes the book and gets recognized by a fan.

Josh, Liz's husband, he delays his deployment Iraq for another year to have another baby. When he does go back, he's killed. In a final scene, Liz comments that if he had gone the first time he was called, this would have been the day he came back, but because he chose to stay with her, he was in a different place and got killed. (The final scene in Beth is the day that Josh comes back- having never met her and delayed his second deployment- and meets her.)

After the plane crash, Beth's assistant (Tamika Lawrence) has a baby and decides to leave the city because she realizes life is precious and wants to spend it with the people she loves and not at work.

Obviously Idina is the focus, but most of them seem to be struggling with finding the balance of "having it all".

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"Its biggest problem is that the characters just aren't very likable. Beth/Liz lands in Manhattan, and 5 minutes later, she has friends, lovers, and great jobs thrown at her."

I have to say I had much the same feeling. I remember turning to the person next to me and saying, "That is SO not the dating scene when you're 38 years old!" Guys lining up to be with you? Only in a musical!

I also agree, having grown up in a military family, that Liz's reaction to Josh's deployment was totally out of whack. On no account does a military wife scream, "I HATE YOU, YOU A-HOLE!" when the news comes. That would be about as likely to happen as, let's say, an actor's spouse trying to sabotage the actor's first entrance on opening night. The military wife does the brave smiling wife act for her husband, and vents to herself and everyone else. But I don't suppose anyone but actual military families will care about that.

Updated On: 11/20/13 at 10:27 AM

So then Liz is being HONEST about her feelings when her husband goes off to war. Instead of putting on a brave face. That's what I love about theatre. The brutal honesty and emotion that society doesn't deem acceptable. I'm just weirdly attached to that song. I thought it was one of the best ones in the musical!

I saw If/Then last night and I’m kind of mixed about the whole evening.

The opening number was my favorite and I really thought just from that I would enjoy the piece. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have never been a real fan of Idina’s, but I have to admit that she was quite good in this. I have to say I really liked the premise of having parallel story lines. How many times in my own life have I reflected on where would I be if I had taken a different path (and who would I know as a result). The parallel story lines didn’t confuse me in the least, but my main problem with them is that they weren’t very compelling, and therein lies my biggest problem with If/Then. I think it was a combination of the writing and certain actors portrayals. Unfortunately I found James Snyder rather bland and Anthony Rapp just plain annoying. These are two guys playing opposite Idina and in my eyes there wasn’t any chemistry there whatsoever.

There were some beautiful songs, but since there wasn’t a song list in the Playbill, it’s hard for me to go back and be more specific. In addition to the opening number, there’s a number at the beginning of the 2nd act that was quite beautiful and I really enjoyed listening to Idina sing it.

The one aspect of Act 2 that really got my attention was the airplane sequence. I thought, “now we’re going somewhere.” It was riveting and I was curious to see where it went, but all of a sudden that part of the story was dropped.

The pros: Idina, LaChanze, and Jason Tam were quite likeable and very good in their respective roles. I liked the set design. The ensemble is given a lot of extraneous movement/choreography that became a bit annoying at times. I don’t have my Playbill in front of me, so I’m not sure who is credited with the choreography (if that’s what you want to call it). Some of the music.

The cons: (a) Some of the songs just don’t work and are kind of bland. I enjoyed the score from Next to Normal much more. James Snyder is given a song in Act 2 that just brings the show to a screeching halt. The number seemed to go on for quite a while, and I kept thinking it should be cut. (b) Parts of the book. There are three sets of characters that have a story going on, and that’s part of the problem. Whereas, Ragtime was able to weave 3 storylines seamlessly, the storylines here take away from the other storylines. It’s kind of choppy and uninteresting. (c) Roles. If I were to recast two roles, it would be Anthony Rapp’s and James Snyder’s. I cringed every time Anthony Rapp came on stage. I didn’t mind him in Rent, but If/Then is another story.

Overall it will be interesting to see what they do with this after the run in DC concludes. The audience last night was quite enthusiastic. Me on the other hand have no desire to see this again.

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Had to come back to DC for work yesterday, so went to see this again (first time was during veteran's day weekend). They have made lots of good changes. "The Story of Jane" song has been re-worked in its second half and is now much better. I previously loved the first half and hated the second half of that song, but now the whole thing works much better, both in terms of lyrics and staging. They also made some great lyric changes in "Learn to Live Without" that are heart-wrenching in its second part (though the first part still seems odd - e.g. drinking whiskey neat doesn't really save time, nor drinking coffee black, and it is heavily focused on drinking stuff (pinot, coffee, whiskey) as her examples of living without, so doesn't work as well as it could emotionally if it focused even more on her personal life.

They also made a lot of changes to the Beth/Liz/Elizabeth name discussion and other dialogue and staging in the beginning to make it more clear from the start that there would be two alternate storylines and the color schemes associated with them. They added the flash of light during the bathroom scene, which i heard people next to me whispering must mean they were jumping timelines, so it had its intended purpose, since the bathroom scene transition was previously very unclear.

They still don't explain what an honor guard is - i'll have to go and google it now.

I am liking this show even more now than during the first weekend.

Have to say that i thought all of the leads were fantastic, but didn't all necessarily have a ton to do, which could be part of why some of them feel underused. They all sounded great, with Idina Menzel, LaChanze, James Snyder, Jason Tam, Jerry Dixon, and Ryann Redmond being particular standouts (the latter didn't have solo songs but stood out for her hilarious ensemble roles). I'd love to see more songs for each of the
leads mentioned above, but since it is very much an ensemble show no one gets lots of songs except for Idina, which is understandable.

Overall, the show is looking and sounding great.

Updated On: 11/22/13 at 01:44 PM