Saw this tonight and really enjoyed it! I think it has VERY solid bones (and a good amount of meat on them too), with a delightful mix of camp and horror--I was reminded of both Heathers and Spring Awakening at different points, and it is firmly a dark satirical comedy (which is interesting, because based on the trailer, the movie looks like it's pure horror?). Some really tuneful songs here and I cannot wait to hear them again, though there are many moments where Alyse Alan Louis is expected to belt over the entire ensemble singing together, and while she's an excellent singer, she doesn't quite have the kind of brassy powerhouse voice that would be more suitable for that kind of moment, and I hope they tailor the songs a bit more towards what her voice IS good at.
Went to the post-show talkback as well, and MRJ mentioned they just cut a song within the last two days and that they're still working on the ending, with a new ending being put into place tomorrow(!), which is good because I was pretty on board with the whole show until the ending, which seems to be what other people have felt too, so very curious to hear from anyone that goes! He also mentioned how the unifying theme is mostly about ideology and how that runs our lives, whether it's religion or factions of the internet, or really anything else that people believe strongly in, and after reading the Wikipedia summary of the film, it really did do a fairly large departure in the tone and themes (though the major events stay the same).
I also agree that there's a midway point that's practically screaming for an intermission break, and I think with an additional song to open act 2, it would work as a 2 act piece without stalling momentum. I didn't check exactly on the dot, but it started around 6 minutes past and probably ran around the posted 1:50 running time (definitely under 2 hours). I thought it moved very well though, and I was never bored, with the songs coming fast and often (it felt like there was rarely more than 5 minutes or so between songs). There's a bit of a tone shift late in the show that was just a tiny bit jarring, but I think it flowed well enough towards the end of the piece that it didn't bother me that much. As much as I liked A Strange Loop, I definitely felt the run time and towards the end it really felt like it was dragging on a bit, which I never felt here. If I'm able to, I'd definitely love to come back later in the run and see how they change it.
Some thoughts on the ending (and I'm curious to hear what other people's takes are as well!):
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It sounds like this is the same ending as earlier posters, but we saw Dawn and Brad basically engage in a "final battle" and then essentially morph into deities that kind of represent the Godfather that Brad had been speaking to and Dentata, arguing over who really defeated evil, as represented by the Pastor (at least that's my interpretation), while the rest of the stage is besieged by the four elements, until one of the former Promise Keeper Girls approaches a tree and takes a bite of an apple from it.
While talking with my friend afterwards, I saw that to mean something along the lines of "the cycle starts anew" and that this is essentially a fight that will never be resolved, or maybe the cycle beginning again is another chance to "get it right". Meanwhile, my friend was of the opinion that both Brad and Dawn (or whoever they were representing) should have taken a bite out of the apple together, since there was a lot of discourse about blaming Eve (and subsequent women) for tempting man to sin by eating the apple, and if they both ate it together, that would balance that act.
