Broadway.com is Mostly Negative:
"John Lennon is not crucified in Lennon. That would be too bold, too dramatic a choice for a musical as rudderless as this one. Instead, he meets a sadder fate. He is simplified, defanged. He is turned into Everyrebel, a hunky martyr in granny glasses. Don Scardino and Yoko Ono Lennon now know it ain't easy to develop a compelling or even coherent piece of theater out of his music. And Christ, so do we.
It doesn't help when you decide to ignore the material that makes a show like Lennon financially conceivable in the first place. According to director/conceiver Scardino's hopelessly muddled script, Lennon spent several years in a band that started small and eventually attracted mobs of screaming fans. This band underutilized his songwriting gifts, and he was really only able to blossom as an artist after he took leave of his bandmates.
That's fine if you're making Timberlake, a musical about Justin's courageous split from 'N Sync. However, we're talking about the Beatles. We're talking about "Across the Universe," "Revolution," "All You Need Is Love" and dozens of other slices of pop-music perfection. (Lennon and Paul McCartney shared songwriting credit on all of their Beatles songs, but there's little question about who wrote what.)
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In their place, we get one post-Beatles ballad after another, nearly a dozen of which feature the nine performers wailing away to Harold Wheeler's overstuffed orchestrations in either a straight line or a staggered line, usually in boy-girl-boy-girl formation. (Only John Arnone's projections, which range from the charming to the cluttered, break up the visual monotony.) This static staging is actually preferable to the up-tempo songs, which spotlight choreography by Joseph Malone that is as inept as any seen on a Broadway stage in years.
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All nine performers take a crack at trying on his Liverpudlian accent--with very mixed results--and trademark glasses. And using the four women to play the Fab Four, for example, is an attention-getting (if underdeveloped) choice.
Still, some Lennons are more equal than others, and primary duties go to Will Chase, with Chad Kimball and Terrence Mann also doing more than their share. Only Chase, who looks and sounds the part, has any real success replicating Lennon's galvanizing charisma. Julie Danao-Salkin is OK as Yoko, and Marcy Harriell knocks down the theater with a ferocious rendition of "Woman Is the n* of the World." Beyond that, talents like Mann, Chuck Cooper and Julia Murney (making a long-awaited Broadway debut) are completely wasted.
Ono has been blamed, often unfairly, for everything from the Beatles breakup to Lennon's sometimes ill-considered politics; she will likely be blamed for much of the sorry spectacle that is Lennon, which may not be entirely fair. Giving Danao-Salkin the final bow is certainly curious, as is obliterating any references to May Pang, the woman for whom John left Yoko for 18 months. But these are the least of the show's problems. It is a reductive, repetitive mess, a show without a glimmer of the mischievous, gentle wit that made Lennon's countercultural message so appealing to such a wide cross-section of listeners. The collaborators' love for John Lennon's words, music and aura is palpable throughout Lennon. Love is not all you need.
http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=516417
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
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And the facial expressions...oh, my...
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