I was at the second preview tonight and there are plenty of problems with the piece, but overall I found it pleasantly floptastic. The cast is largely appealing; the music, lyrics and book much less so.
I'm with Queen Alice in that I usually think a little A Cappella goes a long way, and really is having an all-A Cappella musical much more than a marketing gimmick? They're sure pushing it as the selling point, but one could also orchestrate a score to only use kazoos and recorders and be the first all kazoo and recorder musical, but so what? There's got to be more to a show than a gimmick.
A big problem with the A Cappella genre as a theatrical score is due to the general sameness of the beatbox cadence the songs all share a similar tempo and feel. You get a general easy-listening/adult contemporary radio station vibe without too much change up in aural experience.
Another thing with 8 (or I believe they have stated up to 11 part harmony?) is that if the sound design isn't exactly 100% perfect, all those intricate harmonies sound muddled. Now I know sound needs adjustments in early previews at all Broadway shows, but I wonder if it is even humanly possible to amplify the voices to the heights they desire and make it all crystal clear. If they want to go for gimmicks maybe this should have been the A Cappella, amplification-free show too.
The next issue in this now apparent laundry list of issues is that these four(!!) authors never met a cliche they weren't in love with and prepared to unleash on the audience until it was beaten like a dead horse. (I can use cliches too!) The whole show reminded me of "Lost" from Leap of Faith, where Kecia Lewis-Evans sang that never ending list of metaphors about life being dead end streets and not seeing off ramps ahead. (She also later sang a lyric in another song: life is a highway to god's own address/some take it local and some go express.)
The opening number of In Transit is called "Not There Yet." The trains are all delayed and all the characters are running late, but you see it's really a metaphor for not having your life figured out as much as you thought you would. Get it?
The worst offender is "The Moving Song" in which Erin Mackey's life/train is stuck and she needs to "move on" and she keeps singing "time to move on." Unfortunately for this show we already have a song in the canon called "Move On" and drawing attention to this by having her sing Dot's phrase over and over is ill-advised.
What keeps this show in the pleasantly floptastic category and not the embarrassment flop category is the winning cast. Margo Seibert was very good, as were Justin Guarini and Telly Leung. Mackey has an annoying character to play, but she does well with what she's asked to do.
The stories all develop and the characters tangentially are connected, but they rarely intersect and the intersections come almost exclusively in the book scenes rather than the musical moments. Justin and Telly's plot in particular is very isolated from the rest.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
Updated On: 11/11/16 at 11:05 PM
