ROOMS Reviews

Let us welcome Rooms: a rock romance, a new musical penned by Bright Lights, Big City's Paul Scott Goodman, to th forfront. This one officially opens at Off-Broadway's New World Stages/Stage 2! Break legs, Leslie (and Doug)!. Best to all involved. Please, post the reviews here.

Best,
- Mike

I really hope it gets good reviews, but I think the reviews will be mixed - positive for the performers, but panning the show.

I hope to see this soon...I love Leslie Kritzer. Best of luck to the cast and crew with the reviews!

Wow...that makes me really miss Natascia's "Bring the Future Faster." I want to like Leslie in the part, but I'm not sure I do based on what I've seen/heard. I'd love to be able to see the show in New York, though.

Updated On: 3/16/09 at 01:50 PM

fingers crossed as I love this show. Natascia was good in the role, but, gotta say, I could never understand 3/4 of the words to Bring the Future Faster when she sang them.

Yay, that was a really good review. I'm expecting to read lots of praise for both actors, and big raves for Leslie Kritzer.

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her accent wasn't necessarily on point but it was consistent.

Her accent didn't bother me at all. I just hope Ghostlight picks this up, as I'm sure it will.

I went on the second preview and it was pretty much sold-out. Any word on if it's still selling well? I really hope it gets great reviews and has a healthy run. It's not a perfect show, but I think the design, music, acting, and directing are great - the book is just the weakest part, but whatever, I was still entertained.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/ob/03_16_09.html

"When Rooms first appeared at the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival, with different actors but the same director it has here (Scott Schwartz), it was both saccharine and acrid, anchored by a few attractive heavy rock tunes, weighed down by several others of no discernible distinction, and slathered with triteness. Ian and Monica were so introspectively insignificant that they were all but dwarfed by the bare-bones production and the smallish Off-Off-Broadway theater around it - at its best, the show felt more like a staged concept album than fully realized drama. Even today, very little has changed.

Except Kritzer. Her iron-plated vocal folds are perfect for convincing us of Monica’s exceptional talent. But it’s her slight air of waifishness that explains why suffers bad breaks and the effects of bad choices, her constant pulse of optimism that carries her through debilitating trials, and her knife-in-the-back knack for humor that reveals her tantalizingly individuality. Just by curling and pursing her lips she can bring the house down with laughter - and collapse your heart along with it. "

Talking Broadway is pretty negative. With raves for Leslie.

Backstage is Positive:

"This familiar tale is made plausible, and curiously pleasant, by the performers, who uncover surprising depths in these Scottish youths. Kritzer easily delivers Monica's almost abrasive need for stardom even as the actor exposes the vulnerability that lies just under the character's surface. Though Kreeger overplays some of Ian's neurotic tics initially, his performance becomes increasingly rich as the collaboration and romance deepen.

Though Goodman and Gordon's book relies too heavily on the clichés of a too-rapid rise to stardom (Monica's bulimia alongside Ian's alcoholism), Goodman's songs—delivered powerfully by the performers—are a catchy amalgam of late-1970s rock styles fused with musical theatre tradition. The lyrics are well-crafted, often surprising, and even a little satiric, particularly when the duo are performing in their punk personae."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003952007

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...and yet Kritzer still took up 90% of the review.

The fact that he raved over her to such an intense degree and inevitably used her as a justification for recommending the show puts that review in the Mixed category, especially considering Murray's track record.

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I'm glad to see fairly positive notices so far! I think the show's score is wonderful.

Natascia was good in the role, but, gotta say, I could never understand 3/4 of the words to Bring the Future Faster when she sang them.

Heh, unfortunately, I have to agree. Because she did so much with the accent, which I adored, her version is harder to understand. And since the lyrics are great, that's one strength of Leslie's. But Natascia kind of sounded like the lead singer of the Cranberries (in the best possible way), and was a complete powerhouse during the number to boot.

CurtainUp is Negative, with yet another rave for Kritzer:

"I don't know all that much about Monica, or the Pope, but that Leslie Kritzer can sell just about anything she's handed. She demonstrated that ability in last season's A Catered Affair and, before that, in Legally Blonde. Both the good and bad news about Rooms a rock romance is that Ms. Kritzer once again makes the most out of the hand she's been dealt. She impresses us much trying to make something out of this otherwise uneventful new musical that's been kicking around since the NYMF festival of 2005.

Rooms is a two-hander about Ian (Doug Kreeger), a reclusive musician, and the far more ambitious woman, Monica (Leslie Kritzer), who coaxes him out of his room for a brief trip to the top of punk rock stardom. The book (by Paul Scott Goodman, who also wrote the songs, and his wife, Miriam Gordon) tells us precious little that matters about the pair, and treads a path that many have already gone down to better effect before.

Not surprisingly, a "romance" develops, fades and re-emerges. Much is made of the fact that Monica is Jewish and Ian is not, but not so much to invest the story with meaning as to set up a disappointing song, "Scottish Jewish Princess." It's a pattern — jokes and songs float on their own bottom, rarely bothering to move the plot along. Even when they do, as in Kritzer's barnstorming "Bring the Future Faster," what's remarkable is how little beyond its title the song adds to the story..."

http://curtainup.com/rooms.html

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