I saw this last night and have to say, I was not at all as taken as many here. Despite a powerhouse cast that sings the hell out of the score, I found the show overall to almost disappear as I was watching it. The plot is full of contrivances and conveniences, low-stakes conflicts that start and resolve on their own, and moments that we are told hold weight but don't demonstrate it. The primary conflict of Lily's mother's past with August could be- and is- resolved in one brief conversation that both characters put off having for no clear reason. Saycon Sengbloh's Rosaleen, meanwhile, seems like she will have an awakening to her own intellectual and civic potential and worth, but is merely given a very brief solo at the top of act 2 and then more or less is sidelined for the rest of the show before resolving to go out and do what she was going to do at the beginning anyway. Lily and Rosaleen are ostensibly the protagonists of the piece and should hold the thing together; the former has an uncompelling and thin conflict and the latter is shoved aside.
When it comes to the three sisters, LaChanze's August is as saintly as the honey-slathered black Virgin Mary that the characters constantly invoke and worship in a nearly cult-like fashion, while June and May see their thin conflicts resolved on their own (with May simply resolving to... not be sad anymore? Very unclear).
The burgeoning conflict for civil rights, although bringing harm to two characters over the course of the show, is mostly backdrop and played for easy sentiment, despite the fact that none of the central characters participate or do anything meaningful other than lament the state of things. Zach's imprisonment is resolved in just 10 minutes with no major struggle and entirely offstage, wrapping up with a neat optimistic anthem.
Sheik's score is often lovely but, like most of Sheik's scores, seems to go nowhere. Songs don't give much insight into character, playing instead like individual pop songs. Susan Birkenhead's lyrics are often pedestrian or entirely meaningless (what, exactly, does the title song say about August, or bees, or anything?). Fortunately the cast is stacked with huge voices and performers who bring emotion and gravitas to everything, even when they're creating it from whole cloth.
Gold's direction is fine but this seems like he is creating something as anodyne and inoffensive as possible as penance for his disastrous King Lear.
I can't say it's a bad or unwatachable show. But it's just a remarkably weightless one, one that plays out like a summary of a plot rather than the real thing.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
