LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!!
I will try to contribute a little bit more to your worthy pan. In its current state, the show is such a huge misfire. Where you righty lay the blame is on the director. What a monumental disaster of direction. Every wrong choice from set design to lighting to casting that could be made to sabotage a new work has been made. How this man (the artistic director) was approved to direct this, after Craig Lucas has worked with such greats, is the real mystery here.
Can the source material work as a musical? When the jaunty Drink Up song turns into the wedding and then Julius finally appears (we are about 40 minutes into the show at this point) finally a hint of what could be appears. Daniel Messe who wrote so beautifully for Amelie (listen to the original London recording) seems a very good match for this whimsical and wild musical premise. In the wedding scene, things seem to really land.
In Act Two, a character we have never met, Julius' daughter, is given an absolute showstopper called "The Man He Used to Be." This is another moment when I found myself believing this premise could work as a musical.
But then everything else...wow...from the sheer ineptitude of what is chosen to be musicalized (i.e.. Entropy at the top of Act Two Rita's Mom- who doesn't even have a name- poor Karen Ziemba). The extraordinarily awful "Beautiful" in Act One when we are supposed to believe Rita has become Julius. "A Map of Us" when a barely secondary character (the lesbian who is supposed to be Rita's best friend) seems to take over the plot with Peter lamenting what happened to the Rita they knew. On and on and on, the wrong people are given the wrong things to do.
What would Stephen Sondheim do?
In Act One, a Dutch phrase is introduced. This is very important to the plot. In addition, a couple of clever things are pointed out that will prove important when they are called back in Act Two during Peter's discovery phase. These things are where the musical lies. Not the angst ridden subtext that the writing team keep mining for musical justification. It's clear right from the opening number, "A Little Light," that nobody involved in the show believes this is a fun and fantastical fairy tale set in New York City. By the way, this is supposed to be a fun and fantastical fairy tale set in New York City. So, if the authors have decided that isn't what the show is, well, congratulations. You have made it clear this isn't about that. But by making this choice, and it can certainly be assumed this was decided by Craig Lucas himself since he adapted his own play, then someone needs to pull him aside and tell him that he wrote a fun and fantastical fairy tale set in New York City. Tell us that in the opening number. Tell us where we are and what the rules are. Otherwise, we are lost for at least 30 minutes while we're trying to understand why we are being asked to care about two very unlikable people in some city we know nothing about.
I won't say anything about the cast except to say I suspect we will never see any of them ever again associated with this musical. They are all so poorly cast and when a better, more talented and intelligent director comes along, it is likely they will bring more appropriate casting choices to the piece. Even the actor playing Julius is confused what he's doing up there and how he's supposed to do it. Why is he asked to sit down in the middle of "The Man He Used to Be" unable to continue to listen to his daughter? The entire story pivots on this moment!
Finally, when we get to the penultimate scene with Julius and Rita, I was reminded what a great play Prelude to a Kiss is...was...and perhaps there is a musical in it. But this is not it. What I recall from the original play is that it is a fun and fantastical fairy tale set in New York City. I look forward to seeing that musical.
