Kad said: "Finally saw this last night. It's probably the only Sondheim show for which I feel the book outshines the score, which I found to largely sound like motifs from Road Show with glimmers of Sunday. However, the lyrics are easily Sondheim's funniest- actually laugh out loud funny, which is something I know he himself would say was never his strength. Ives' book is probably one of his best pieces of writing.
Rachel Bay Jones is giving a brilliant turn and David Hyde Pierce is perfect casting for the Bishop. Everybody is very strong- with my main caveat being Denis O'Hare, who is over the top in a different way than everyone else, particularly in act 2.
The piece is clearly unfinished regardless of what Ives and Mantello say and what we have is best efforts to make the show work without Sondheim. I don't know that anybody can fairly assess the show right now because Sondheim's death and what we know about the show's development loom so large over the piece. I'll be very curious to see what people say years in the future. Right now it seems to me the show represents what we lost and what we could've had more than anything else."
That’s fair. There’s a ‘Sondheim’s Last Musical’ factor that I was mostly able to put out of my mind while watching the show, but it certainly affected how I approached it - even with the knowledge that the songs would stop early in the second act. I realize not everyone could (that seemed to be one of Ben Brantley’s issues with it) - and others like you weren’t going to be able to get past the feeling that it wasn’t really finished. The show wasn’t cast when Sondheim signed off on it. It’s hard to imagine that he wouldn’t have wanted to take a stab at writing a song or two for some of the distinctive and talented actors in the cast.
Because the contributions of Mantello, Ives, the set designers and the cast are so strong, I have a feeling that many people who revisit the show later may find those elements difficult to match. It’s also less a ‘Sondheim show’ than his others, although his lyrics are quite funny. (That was my wife’s main reaction to the first act.) It’s certainly one reason I hope the show is professionally filmed.
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