STEREOPHONIC Opening Night Critics’ Reviews — Page 6

"Just home from my fifth time seeing the show. If you were there tonight you got a TREAT - the cast was firing on all cylinders and gave the best performances I’ve ever seen them collectively give. It was amazing. "

Saw this show a few weeks ago and really liked it, posted my thoughts on the show in this thread. Glad the cast was on top of their game. As much as I liked this show, it IMO does not have wide appeal. I think you have to be like how I described myself in my post about the show. I was a complete "geek" in regards to the Beatle doc (Get Back) and loved the process of recording an album. Being a big Fleetwood Mac fan (especially Lindsey Buckingham), I enjoyed the obvious similarity to the Nicks-Buckingham relationship in this show. I hope it does well this Sunday and takes home a couple of awards.

The Freakonomics podcast did a two episode series featuring Stereophonic (the first one is more about the background of the play and the second is more about the economics). Interesting items of note: they mention they're going to have a London production as well as a first class national tour and "a lot of interest in the film" (though they don't mention what kind--the host Stephen Dubner brings up the film as if it's a done deal but based on the wording from producer John Johnson I'm not sure it's completely set yet).

(Also I used to listen to Freakonomics a lot more but I had no clue Dubner was a Tony voter at some point)

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-make-the-coolest-show-on-broadway/

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/you-can-make-a-killing-but-not-a-living/

'Stereophonic' Tonys Winner Will Brill on Award Win & Learning Bass

https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/will-brill-stereophonic-tonys-speech-bass-1235720210/

Looks like the cast is finally taking some well-earned time off. Tom Pecinka and Juliana Canfield have also had understudies on in the last week. Would love to see other actors’ interpretations.

yyys said: "I saw Juliana Canfield's understudy on 6/29 and sad to say that she was as unintelligible as Juliana. Not sure why three of them had to be British."

The short answer is that despite the playwright's denials, this is straight-up 100% inspired by Fleetwood Mac, period. And that needs to be the breakdown in the band. "Christine" has to have been an original British member along with "Mick" and "John."

And before everybody gets all mad at me, I'm not calling the show a rip-off or anything else. I saw it on Tuesday and really enjoyed it! Been listening to the cast album since.

Yeah. I think it might depend on your level of knowledge about FM. I have read a couple of books on the band/making of Rumours. If you have that level of knowledge going in, then it is very possible to both enjoy it very much AND wonder if it was a little overhyped. That's sort of where I landed.

This hasn't been done on Broadway before, but has been done in other media. For instance, the book "Daisy Jones and the Six" (which I also very much enjoyed) was in large part this play in book form. Though they made the detail more different -- whereas I'm still wondering how the band has not sued here, lol.

As a public service to those who are curious (I've seen posts about it on Reddit), I was going to list all the similarities to Fleetwood Mac. But honestly, it would be easier to list things that aren't the same!

Lindsey Buckingham's brother was even an Olympic swimmer! Which is a truly *insane* detail to include if you do not want to end up cutting a check to the Mac, lol.

TaffyDavenport said: "According to understudies.org, Will Brill will be out tonight, and Cornelius McMoyer will be making his debut as Reg."

FYI, understudies.org says that he'll be covering Will for both shows on Saturday, July 20, as well.

dwwst12 said: "As a public service to those who are curious (I've seen posts about it on Reddit), I was going to list all the similarities to Fleetwood Mac. But honestly, it would be easier to list things that aren't the same!

Lindsey Buckingham's brother was even an Olympic swimmer! Which is a truly *insane* detail to include if you do not want to end up cutting a check to the Mac, lol."

Even towards the end when they were discussing what to title their next album and Reg (I could be wrong) talked about a dream he had about a prehistoric animal on the album cover- and I immediately through “yes-Tusk”.- which was a double album (remember when they were trying to figure out what to cut and said Columbia didn’t want a double album?)

I finally got around to this last night, and I really hate to say this... but I absolutely abhorred this. I thought it was slow, tedious, and extremely repetitive. The characters felt ambiguous, very thinly drawn, and unrelatable. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I left absolutely baffled by the heaps of praise and awards this has received.

This clearly was not for me by a long shot, and I definitely realize that I am in the extreme vast minority with my opinion, but this was a really snoozer in my opinion.

I saw the new cast last night, October 10th. So, I understand lightning can only strike once usually in a production, but I was unfortunately pretty disappointed with the newbies.

Rebecca Naomi Jones is terribly miscast as Holly. You can take the girl out of musical theatre, but you can't take the musical theatre out of the girl. Since that has been her training ground for the last several years, it comes as no surprise that her performance is shallow and surface level. She doesn't appear she has done any work on the depth to Holly's relationship with Reg, and her comedy doesn't land because she's still stuck in this hokey musical theatre trap.

Amy Forsyth has some good moments, but there is a whininess and difficulty in having any sympathy for her Diana that her predecessor didn't have (although I know Pidgeon set the bar very high). She does a very good job at conveying her insecurities when it comes to writing and playing instruments. Poor thing fell down the stairs too during Act IV, but recovered super well. I do think her performance will continue to improve in time. Jones isn't giving her any favors in helping us believe they are as close as the script requires them to be in order to buy the shock and disappointment that comes with Diana's Act V "announcement".

Benjamin Anthony Anderson hits a home run with his take on Peter. Truly, no notes. What he really does really well is convey just how truly difficult and impossible Peter is to work with.

Eli Gelb continues to be a standout and I'm still incredibly surprised he lost the Tony to Brill. Also, Cornelius McMoyler was on for Reg last night and did a fine job. I still just don't understand how that's a Tony Award winning role.

We were at the same performance and, having not seen the complete original cast, largely agree with these comments. We left the theatre thinking that the play’s writing is solid but the actors working together didn’t do enough with their performances to earn what was clearly set up to be a powerful denouement. I was excited to see this show and disappointed that half the OG cast moving on left the show seemingly sloppy and rudderless. Or perhaps I wouldn’t have loved it either way.

Perfectly plausible that Jones is miscast in this role, that all the chemistry is off, etc.

but the idea that shes too "musical theater" for a straight play is yikes. Significant Other, Fire in Dreamland, Marie and Rosetta, Describe the Night- those are just off the top of my head some of the straight plays shes done (and received acclaim for). Silly.