The DAMN YANKEES revival with Bebe Neuwirth and Victor Garber was actually the first show I ever saw on a Broadway stage, and needless to say, I have fond memories of it. So perhaps it's unfair to compare, but this production felt incredibly flat and outright lazy to me. It felt like they were doing it just for the sake of it, and no one seemed particularly passionate (Jane, Sean and Cheyenne's eye-rolling during the curtain call singing of "Heart" for the third time was especially noticeable).
Yes, Krakowski's playing the vamp AGAIN, but I still thought she made it work-- she can't not be awesome. Cheyenne did the absolute best he could, but Joe Hardy's always been an awfully boring character and not much can be done about that. As for Sean Hayes, well... he was fairly funny at moments, but completely wrong for Applegate in almost every way. During "Those Were the Day," his little added flourishes (the piano, the violin, the interludes) were amusing, but they completely RUIN the song. It almost seemed like he was rushing through the song itself and mumbling the lyrics to hurry along to his "funny" bits.
And I don't know if it's just poor memory of the show, or this production's utilization of it, but is it just me, or is "Who's Got the Pain" one of the most completely superfluous (and unnecessarily lengthy) songs/numbers in a show ever?
Overall, very very disappointed here. Nothing awful, but it seemed significantly more unnecessary and joyless than I would have hoped for.
Updated On: 7/6/08 at 01:35 AM