I finally saw the Vivian Beaumont staging after seeing it at City Center.
Positive:
The cast is uniformly good to great. Their voices are beautiful.
I think Coalhouse and Sarah in particular have never been sung better, for the characters. As someone who was extremely positive on Audra singing GYPSY and defended her performance constantly here, I'm gonna say something that might sound like a hot take: I think Nichelle Lewis is a more natural fit for Sarah. She has grown into the role and her voice has so much character, the right mix of grit and naivety. Nothing can be said about Joshua Henry that hasn't already been said a thousand times. He is a perfect Coalhouse, and makes the shortcomings of how this character is dramatized in such a packed show (particularly in the second act) a bit more frustrating.
It is also, of course, an exciting and sweeping and powerful score and again it is a pleasure to hear it played so fully. The show remains both eternally timely and a bit politically timid (especially compared to Doctorow's novel) by the time we reach its climax. It can certainly feel naive, or frustrating in where it puts its emphasis. But I find myself in a very forgiving mood toward things that might have rankled more even a few years ago. To have something of this size basically on the side of good, on the side of America's possibility and the possibility of connection and the value of diversity, feels like a gift right now. Having a basically classic Broadway musical onstage feels like a gift right now.
I thought Lear deBessonet did a nice job with the blocking in a number of places. The opening number has been widely discussed. I thought this was the most affecting and haunting "Sarah Brown Eyes" I'd seen, and I also liked "New Music" (other than that very silly staircase set piece).
As an aural experience, it's superb although--if anything--I actually thought the actors were mixed a bit low at moments when I wanted to really feel the anthemic force of the songs. A rare thing on Broadway! Generally, I think it doesn't matter where you sit to enjoy what works here because...
The negative:
I outright hated the physical production. I honestly think they would have been better off keeping the orchestra onstage and fleshing out the slatted, suggestive practical set pieces we had at City Center, which would at least make it feel like the space was in use. This is like a local college production swimming in a sea of black, in front of that horrible (and malfunctioning!) screen of Windows 98 graphics. All of the sad little visual elements that do remain feel totally out of sync with each other, it's bewildering.
It just reminded me how dispiriting it's been since the pandemic to work on processes where the design team and their associates are hardly ever in the same room before tech. It shows. It's terrible for the work, and it makes it so much less of a pleasure to be in this business. And worst of all, the lack of time and close collaboration is evident onstage.
So this felt like a very, very sad illustration of where the production side of the American theater is, both in how cheap it feels and how thoughtlessly assembled. The last revival had a unit set and a cyclorama, and it was gorgeous. It was tiny compared to the original, but it sure seems out of reach now. I'm tired of these hideous, unimaginative, vibe-killing, atmosphere-obliterating video walls. I'm so tired of empty stages that don't even reflect a stripped-down concept, just a lack of resources and vision.
Lear is good with actors, and she's an incredible networker and community builder, I admire her, but that lack of larger theatrical vision here is very discouraging as an audience member and theater worker myself. Clearly we're not working with the resources of a pre-pandemic Lincoln Center revival here, but she consistently does not seem capable of deploying available resources to impactful theatrical effect. See: Hercules at the Papermill. For these prices, I'm sorry, you need to transport me in *some* way. That this musical failed to give me that feeling for the first time, even when performed so superbly, was kind of telling.
So in all, I think I was a bit more mixed on this than many! I definitely preferred it at City Center, other than a few performances deepening. But I'm really glad that people can experience this music and this cast.
Updated On: 1/30/26 at 08:17 PM
