I was there this afternoon, and my take mirrors Ripped Man's in particular, and several others in general.
SPOILERS
I wanted to fall into this piece, to feel what I felt at "Normal..." or "Spring Awakening..." But it's a busy, overly didactic amalgam of so much familiar contemporary B'way storytelling, it's almost a parody. The big shock is the mostly generic Diablo Cody book, because her screenplays ("Tully" is underappreciated) are characterized by quirky specificity. Not here. When a workaholic finally takes up the guitar to become more human, it's the last hoary cllche. These are character constructs, not real people, defined by the tropes of archetypes, i.e. adopted daughter, a forced-to-assimilate person of color, a by-the-numbers date rape victim (we never get to know, a stunning lapse in a show by women), in a subplot that becomes the plot proper, though not in a persuasive way. The central family centers around a mother with Two Big Secrets, both of which are known in minutes, and we must wait for the consequences. Elizabeth Stanley, in a heroic performance, makes the most of this hodgepodge of intersectional issues, reminding me, poignantly, of Marin Mazzie at her best, vocally and (with the wig) physically, especially in profile. It's a hard-working actor-singer bringing her A game to a part that is not dimensional enough to warrant the investment. In a show that sets her up as the root-for protagonist, only to abandon her in order to shoehorn in issue-driven digressions. (Tossing an LGBTQ+/ non-binary lover for a straight heternormative romance line feels like another show, and doesn't even get any development here, beyond being billboarded enough to set up songs. Including The Big Song, saved for act 2.)
The other disappointment is Paulus, who seems to think that slamming the peripatetic projection-dependent set into itself and sprinkling a twerking grunge chorus into literally every single number is fresh. We yearn for the show to just ... stop, to dare stop moving, to allow a song to simply work via interpretation and singing. Instead, it's all presentational fist or finger-pumping gesticulation to make sure we get the Big Idea. Why this ensemble? An aggrieved group of people living in a culture that pisses them off. It's bizarre, because it's a Connecticut 'burb with almost all straight white leads, surrounded by a diverse company of hangers-on who angrily insert themselves to make the white space-defined audience feel guilty for ... what .. buying $169 a pop tickets? Why is the show so hellbent on schooling an audience likely to be sympathetic to its underlying POV, indeed, its causes? Why can't they let the story make the thematic sociopolitical points? By the time we get to an anti-sexual violence demonstration, complete with baldly printed placards shoved at the audience, the show feels like an R-rated afterschool special. Albeit one for kids who don't go to school.
To say that the messaging is heavy-handed is an understatement.
Paulus doesn't trust that the topicality plays to a B'way audience already empathetic. We don't need to be shamed for not being more upset about gender violence. And why is that issue shoved into a show that is built on a mother's addiction to Oxycodin? The idea that pain creates a need for painkillers, therefore everything is about the cycle of trauma and self-medication, is just so without nuance, so sledge-hammered. Really, team, we're not so uninformed or uncool that we are clueless. But the creators address us as if we've never been exposed to these ideas, that we'd better be woke soon.
It's an insulting way to preach to the choir.
As for the music, it's loud and the lyrics are impossible to hear clearly. Whole numbers explode without any particular point articulated. If the script preaches, the songs depend on melody and amplification to excite. Sometimes, they do. (I' especially liked "Smiling," the backwards song early that focuses on Stanley's character's drug-fueled entrapment in quotidian tasks.) I wanted the music to carry the show, but it cannot. I say this as a fairly indifferent fan. Did anyone else feel the music begins to sound like a loud, indeciipherable wall of mushy sound? The inattention to lyrics is shocking. And the roof-taker-offer, "You Oughta Know" is no exception. Someone sitting near me said, "What the hell was she so worked up about?" It's not an unearned response, even if we stand for the actor, spilling guts atop a story that hasn't earned her spilled guts.
Is it a mess? Too close for a show so developed by such gifted theater artists.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 11/6/19 at 08:02 PM
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