Posted: 4/23/15 at 8:10pm
Oh, I wasn't doubting his credibility or astuteness, hockeynut2. I think he's a legend in the business. I'm glad he liked the show so much. I did, too.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 8:33pm
Posted: 4/23/15 at 8:49pm
Terry Teachout in the WSJ is positive, with reservations regarding the book and Roger Rees. Loves the score, though.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-visit-review-as-long-as-the-lady-is-paying-1429835402
Updated On: 4/23/15 at 08:49 PM
Posted: 4/23/15 at 8:54pm
I never agree with Teachout, but that's an awfully smart, thoughtful review of the pluses and negatives.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:32pm
Newsday is very positive:
THE VISIT is a haunting, haunted knot of Expressionist storytelling, a masterly 100-minute powerhouse with liltingly gruesome songs that create their own macabre world unlike anything onstage in recent memory.
Under John Doyle's taut, unflinching and strangely enchanting direction ... characters move around on a black rolling casket, while beautiful dancers Michelle Veintimilla and John Riddle mingle in Graciela Danielle's choreography as memories of betrayed young love.
THE VISIT review: Chita Rivera in a stunning show, by Linda Winer
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:33pm
Newsday - The Visit - Review + RAVE
"The Visit" is a haunting, haunted knot of Expressionist storytelling, a masterly 100-minute powerhouse with liltingly gruesome songs that create their own macabre world unlike anything onstage in recent memory."
"Then there is Rivera, with her steely, gravelly voice and the resolve of a character who says, "I am unkillable." We dare you to take your eyes off her."
Updated On: 4/23/15 at 09:33 PM
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:38pm
Matthew Murray is mixed with some detailed observations about what he sees as working/not working.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:41pm
More good news
Talkin Broadway says the cast album is being recorded 4/27 & will be released by Broadway Records & price is $12.99
Release date is 6/26
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:43pm
Hollywood Reporter is positive:
It's an arresting vehicle for the indomitable Chita Rivera, who has stuck with the project throughout its troubled history, and she remains a uniquely steely stage presence at 82 — graceful, dignified and commanding.
Rivera still puts a spring in Claire's shuffle, sauntering around with her silver-handled cane in the ghoulishly vaudevillian "I Would Never Leave You," as her trio of bizarre henchmen pledge their loyalty, with the countertenor eunuchs making that promise sound like a shriek.
THE VISIT: Theater Review, by David Rooney
Posted: 4/23/15 at 9:43pm
New York Daily News (I don't think anyone else posted this):
The Visit
by Joe Dziemianowicz
*** (out of 5)
Revenge is a dish served tepid in "The Visit."
The warmth hobbles this stark musical fable by John Kander, Fred Ebb and
Terrence McNally. With this team, the show is certainly worthwhile. But it
could really send shivers - and doesn't. "The Visit" pulls its punches.
A star vehicle for the indomitable Chita Rivera, the show arrives on
Broadway after 15 years of development. John Doyle ("Sweeney Todd") directs
this version from the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Graciela Daniele
choreographs.
The basic plot of Friedrich Durrenmatt's 1956 tragicomedy remains. Elderly
billionaire Claire Zachanassian (Rivera) returns to her bankrupt hometown
after decades to even the scales with Anton Schell (the fine Roger Rees),
her ex-lover. Before things went wrong, Claire was his wildcat. Anton was
her panther. Then he married another, more acceptable girl. Claire was
roadkill.
Claire is trailed by a judge-turned-puppet (Tom Nelis), two blind eunuchs
(Matthew Deming and Chris Newcomer) and, in McNally's vision, ghosts of her
and Anton in their young, sexy prime (Michelle Veintimilla and John Riddle).
The specters often sit and twirl on a casket, which is part of the plan.
Claire tells residents of the town that she will pad their purses and the
community's coffers if they kill Anton.
Kander and Ebb (the latter died in 2004) wrote in "Cabaret" that money makes
the world go round. In Claire's case, money tempts townspeople to sell their
souls. Once Anton's dead, Claire's planning to take him home with her to the
Mediterranean. The heart wants what the heart wants.
The score echoes earlier rhythms and melodies of Kander and Ebb and provides
an evocative backdrop. Rivera's husky voice and high-watt charisma go a long
way here. And it would have worked even better if director John Doyle's
staging was less polite. Scott Pask's skeletal set and Ann Hould-Ward's
raggedy clothes scream decay. But the performances don't go there.
The show tells us that Claire has been made a monster by life. When the
townspeople, played by Broadway vets including David Garrison, Jason
Danieley and Mary Beth Peil, tell her they won't buy into her deadly
bargain, she replies, "I'll wait."
The line should send a chill. Here, it just tickles.
Wildcat? No. Claire and "The Visit" are too domesticated for their own good.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:06pm
NY Times (Brantley) is mixed, but with praise for Chita:
"It would be a pleasure to say that the problems of tone and pacing that have plagued “The Visit” from its inception have been resolved under the direction of Mr. Doyle, a whiz at musical makeovers. (His streamlined interpretation of the bulky “The Color Purple,” seen in London in 2013, is Broadway-bound.)
But despite a score that at its best has the flavor of darkest chocolate from the fabled team of John Kander and Fred Ebb (“Cabaret,” “Chicago&rdquo
, “The Visit” only rarely shakes off a stasis that suggests a carefully carved mausoleum frieze. Nor does the show ever quite make peace between its uneasily twinned strands of merciless cynicism and a softer sentimentality."
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/theater/review-chita-rivera-stars-in-kander-and-ebbs-the-visit.html?_r=0
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:11pm
Chicago Tribune is Positive:
Can THE VISIT find a Broadway audience? Hard to know, although the incomparable Rivera will draw people in, not all of whom will know where she leads them. But this show most assuredly deserves to be here, if feeling, music and craft are the perennial guideposts. Sometimes they just take you to strange, difficult places, as they should.
THE VISIT: Chita Rivera stars in Broadway musical about revenge, by Chris Jones
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:12pm
Vulture is mixed:
"But our connection to the beloved star gets a bit out of hand. Sometimes it feels as if we’re not watching The Visit so much as Rivera’s cabaret act. (The original play focuses much more on Anton, here played by Roger Rees.) She’s given such a tremendous showbiz buildup to her first entrance, in blazing hot light, that when she sings “I Walk Away,” a remarkably nasty number about her multiple widowhoods, you begin to recoil as if it were Rivera, not Claire, offering the stone-hearted comments about her six husbands, especially the racist descriptions of her “very small Chinese” second. It works the other way, too. When she reveals that several of her body parts are fake, saying “I’m unkillable,” the line solicits and gets a huge laugh because many of us know that Rivera is unkillable too. (A 1986 taxi accident left her with 18 screws in her left leg, but she kept on dancing.) Still, she seems torn. If she’s convincingly imperious, she’s too much of an old-school star to let the audience out of her grasp."
http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/theater-reviews-the-visit.html
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:14pm
on the fence ~ Brantley ~ Rave for Chita
http://www.didhelikeit.com/shows/the-visit-review.html
Updated On: 4/23/15 at 10:14 PM
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:22pm
Very strong rave for Chita from Brantley. Rest of his review is not surprising as he's never been a huge fan of the material. Still many positives there.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:26pm
ljay How was opening night?
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:32pm
Reviews were like the reaction in this thread: Mixed with glowing notices for Chita.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:34pm
Actually, not all of the notices have been glowing for Chita. The good ones have been VERY good, but there have been some mixed ones for her too.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:39pm
If I recall, a couple of critics were also mixed on Chenoweth. So Chenoweth, O'Hara, and Rivera all get a big rave from Brantley. His should and will win Tony prediction will be fascinating.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:46pm
"If I recall, a couple of critics were also mixed on Chenoweth. So Chenoweth, O'Hara, and Rivera all get a big rave from Brantley. His should and will win Tony prediction will be fascinating."
I agree that it will be fascinating. To be honest, though, I don't remember too many critics being mixed on Cheno or Kelli. I personally didn't care for Kristin at all, but I don't remember her getting any mixed reviews. I'll have to go back and look.
Posted: 4/23/15 at 10:59pm
Variety is very positive (especially for Chita):
The show is more literary piece than conventional musical. But it has a dark, sinister beauty -- and who could resist a visit from Chita?
If ever a star deserved her moment of triumph, it's this 82-year-old belle dame, who was hell-bent on bringing this offbeat Kander and Ebb musical to Gotham.
Chita is breathtaking in "Love and Love Alone," the gorgeous ballad for the pas de deux in which she dances with her own younger self.
And what a commanding figure she strikes, dressed by Ann Hould-Ward in full-length white furs and dripping with jewels, and attended by a bizarre entourage in sunglasses, wearing bright yellow shoes and gloves with formalwear, and carrying canes.
Broadway Review: THE VISIT Starring Chita Rivera, by Marilyn Stasio
Posted: 4/23/15 at 11:00pm
I think there was at least one mixed on Chenoweth. Don't remember who though!
