Very slight spoilers ahead
Saw The Sting, tonight and, if anyone wants to know how to take a great film and turn it into a long, dull mess of a musical, make haste to the Paper Mill Playhouse to see how it’s done.
From the opening number, it was clear, this wasn’t going to go well. The opening number is the setup for the show. It’s sloppy, mostly unintelligible, poorly staged and filled with people randomly tap dancing and moving around for no apparent reason.
Therein lies a major problem with the entire show. There is no apparent reason for much of what happens on stage. From the mysterious men who twirl onto the stage carrying women on chairs (twice), to Harry Connick Jr.’s fart, “booger” & belching jokes, much of this is cringeworthy and head-shaking material. No idea what director, John Rando, is going for.
I expected a better book from Bob Martin, but it made me wonder if The Drowsy Chaperone is a one-hit wonder? I wonder.
The music is forgettable and mostly dull. Most of the songs stop the show cold. They neither advance the plot nor enhance character development.
The aforementioned “superfluous” dancing is just that. Pointless, meandering and often bizarrely out of place. People dance onto the stage, twirl or tap and then just go away. They have nothing to do with the scene and you’re left wondering why they’re even there.
The cast is hard to gauge, given the weakness of the material. Harry Connick is charming, but not charming enough to save this. He sings well, acts ok and who knew he could tap dance? J. Harrison Ghee has presence to spare and given better material, I think he could really be a star. This role doesn’t let him shine as he does in Kinky Boots, but he makes the most of it.
Janet Dacal is wasted. Kate Shindle and Robert Wuhl showed up for work, on time.
I love this movie and really wanted to like this, but the pacing is glacial for a show about con games (and if you reference The Spanish Prisoner multiple times, it might be a good idea to explain it).
The show needs a lot of things---a more frenetic pace, more defined characters, better music, less dancing, better & more focused choreography, some humor, a tighter book and, yes, an hour less running time (now about 2:45). But what it really needs is charm, fun and the knowing wink of mischief that the film had in spades.
What a missed opportunity, but, as is, I doubt this will make it on Broadway.
