I was fortunate enough to be in Chicago last weekend and saw the Saturday night performance, and it really is something special - a truly moving piece of theater that earns every one of the many tears shed and is also surprisingly funny. The score is lovely, and while the songs do sometimes sound repetitive (with a few notable exceptions), they flow organically from the material and are in service of the story and character development, unlike many musicals where a song is dropped in just because it's a good place for a song. And I need to give a shoutout to Ingrid Michaelson's lyrics, which are deep, insightful, and expertly crafted. Shoutout too to all the performers, particularly Jerome Harmann Hardeman (who was on again for John Beasley) as Older Noah and Maryann Plunkett (who I remember so well from "Me and My Girl" ) as Older Allie. I strongly disagree with the previous poster who opined that triple-casting the main characters at different ages was a mistake; I think it worked beautifully and made the music and the storytelling so much richer and more resonant.
On the negative side, I will say that the second act needs some work; I cried more in the first act than the second, largely because Older Noah and Older Allie (who are the emotional heart of the piece) are absent for large stretches of the second act. Although that is somewhat dictated by plot developments, it would be great if they could be incorporated more throughout Act Two, as the performances are so beautiful and the audience has forged such a strong connection with them by that point. (Also, given that the first act establishes that their story is being played out in flashback by the younger performers as Noah reads it to Allie, it makes little sense to have that flashback continue during a time when there is no storytelling going on.) The final scene is a bit abrupt (with a brief but crucial exchange between two supporting characters that was difficult to hear), and as others have commented, the final number is pretty weak; it's interesting that someone said they were thinking of "Light" from "Next to Normal," because that's the kind of musical emotional wallop I was craving as a finale. Also:
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I think it's a mistake to have the backdrop raise to reveal the orchestra during the last number, as the audience erupted in (justifiable) applause that drowned out the ensemble for the last minute of the song. Basically the audience treated it as the curtain call even though the final number wasn't over yet. Definitely detracted from the emotional impact of the finale.
And I wasn't crazy about how the show treated Allie's eventual recovery of her memories, which happened not while Noah (or even the physical therapist) was reading to her, but when she was alone on stage and at the very beginning of a scene with no real lead-up. So when Noah then entered, she already knew who he was. It would be far more powerful if we could see the moment when she recognizes him while he is reading to her, and see him react to that recognition. I felt a bit cheated of what could have been the most emotional moment in the show.
This show has a definite future on Broadway and I encourage everyone who can see it in the intimate Yard space to see it during this run.
Updated On: 10/11/22 at 06:18 PM
