I went tonight and absolutely loved this. Yazbeck and Della Penna's score is unquestionably one of my favorites of the season and I genuinely cannot wait to hear it again. Rollicking really is the best way to describe it, and that tone fit the tall tale-esque story perfectly. I'm sure the band will sound great on the recording, but hearing them play live was a treat. I was tapping my foot for a lot of the show, and I equally enjoyed the quieter and more wistful songs. Yeah, my one quibble is that Trent Saunders' number felt diversionary. While I get that it touches on themes of fame, they could have made its purpose clearer. But it's rousingly performed and enjoyable. This show, post-Elmer putting the "dead" in "Dead Outlaw," could have very easily gotten unfocused and scattered, but (my quibble with that one number aside), I didn't feel like it strayed into that territory. I was thinking during Thom Sensa's number that it could have felt out-of-place or extraneous in a lesser show, yet it felt like it had its place and a point being in this one. The narration kept the show on track and clipping along, and I appreciated that they stayed consistent with the narration/storytelling framing.
Andrew Durand's fantastic, alive or dead. It's quite a feat that he's that compelling and worth watching when playing a corpse. Frankly, the whole cast and band shines and has their moments. I liked that the show kept surprising me. Not just with the wild-yet-true turns of events, but the staging too. I was initially skeptical of the set, but then they used it in clever ways that got me on board with it. I expected macabre humor and general weirdness, but I didn't expect the show to be as moving, haunting, and sad as it was. Leave it to The Band's Visit team to spin such a rich show out of an offbeat premise.