Posted: 4/22/19 at 4:44pm
Let's get the news out of the way at the top: this production is hands down the one we'll remember for years and years as the worst thing we've seen in a Broadway house in this century.
That said, I'll pay good money to see Damon Daunno in anything. That man is a rare talent who galvanizes every scene he's in, no matter how idiotic the staging that surrounds him. Magnificent voice, magnetic eyes, great guitar-wrangling, the whole package. I'll also single out Ali Stroker for great work that actually felt very Rogers and Hammerstein in its dopey purity. And all glory to Daniel Kluger whose orchestrations were spectacular in all the right ways. The music-making was glorious, even if my seat (B105) was directly behind the damn double bass for most of the show.
A short list of things I hated: the lights that were either on, off or green. (My husband wore sunglasses to minimize the glare.) The set that held zero surprises and littered the floor with giant pits which prevented any sort of full out dancing. The book staging that consisted of 8 actors sitting in chairs like a first table read, shouting their lines across the room at each other. Aunt Eller, a vanity-free salt-of-the-earth gal rocking a fringed denim smock and peroxided permed curls on a work day. Huh?? Jud deserved better than to have his 2 best scenes plunged into darkness, like his own story line didn't merit keeping the lights on for. (Patrick Vaill was out, and Chris Bannow did fine as Jud, though his pure Broadway voice tone seemed a little at odds with the rest of the show.) And don't get us started on the ballet...
I could have shortened this list to say I hated everything about Daniel Fish's direction, period. Community theater doesn't begin to describe the ill-informed hubris at work here. I lost count of the number of times actors upstaged themselves singing full songs with their backs to the majority of the seats. My only fear is that Tony voters drink the KoolAid and award him a best director nod for this dreck -- God help the next classic of the golden age he decides to get his hands on.
