CoreyRyan3 said: "Look, this show is not perfect. It’s hokey, it chews the scenery, it wears its little bleeding heart on its sleeve and it loves every damn minute of it. But that’s exactly what makes this show so special. It achieves exactly what it sets out to do, which is to beat us over the head with heart and a message of acceptance and tolerance. And I know some people don’t go to the theatre to “preached” at, but this one finds new ways to make this journey fun, quick, enjoyable, and downright hysterical.
Beth Leavel and Brooks Ashmanskas are giving next level “scenery chewing performances” and should be in the running for their respective Tony Awards regardless of whether this closes before the award season. They bring this show to the next level. If it weren’t for them, I fear that this show would fail to do a lot of what it does best, but they are so exceptional that you can’t help but love them (love to hate them/roll your eyes at them?) from the very beginning.
I totally disagree with the sentiment that Whizzer has stated about this show being “so bad it’s good”. I love Whizzer and his reviews and I wholeheartedly agree with him that you should see this show but I do disagree here. This show is NOT bad. It’s actually very cleverly written and performed, and while it’s sentiment is different from most shows on Broadway, as I’ve said before, it is doing exactly what it’s trying to do. I think saying this show is “so bad it’s good” takes away from what this show was meant to be when it was written. It’s not a Sondheim-ian mental and emotional analysis of a small town in Indiana, it’s not some grand statement on the state of our country, it’s not a nuanced socio-political play about a young lesbian, it’s an old-fashioned (and hokey) musical, meant to make you smile, dance in your seat, and leave with joy and pride in your heart for the story it tells. And for the first time in a long while, I left the theatre with a smile plastered across my face that I wasn’t able to remove for the rest of the night.
See this one. It’s special."
Cory is spot on with this. Everyone here is at the top of their game. Have you forgotten The Drowsy Chaperone, camp is what Bob Martin does... And he does it better than anyone. This is a first rate cast, you will not find a better cast on Broadway now. The roles were actually written for the performers to show their strengths-it makes a difference.
I hope the marketing campaign can somehow catch up to match the quality of what is in the theater.The original Sideshow closed because of bad marketing choices. This may suffer the same fate.
Yes, the plot sounds convoluted on paper but it is how they move theatrically from one ridiculous plot point to the next that keeps you engaged.
If you like the Forbidden Broadway or Something Rotten or Charles Busch you will love this.
