I saw this last night and my audience was somewhere in between the two. Plenty of laughter, not much frustration I sensed, and about half immediately stood at curtain call. That said, I did get the sense some of the standees were doing it as sort of a sympathy move because of Brewer's Down's Syndrome, as so many people were "aww"ing at so much of what she did or said throughout – which I'd argue means they missed a major point of the play.... Speaking of Brewer, she dropped a few lines about halfway through the second act, which seemed to set the rest of the performance a bit off kilter.
Anyhow, there is SO MUCH beauty here. Even more beauty and profundity than Heroes, which is my favorite play in years. Unfortunately, that beauty comes in smallish moments, and the rest of the piece does not do those moments too many favors. The second act, in particular, tries to do too much, and some of the "monologues" characters have in conversations with others need cuts – despite being largely interesting and often gorgeous. The direction is also uneven at this point. On the scene level, things are generally working nicely, but there are massive, jarring tonal shifts, and the staging has Sam Gold's signature sparseness and arcane symbolism, which I don't think does the text any favors.
Based on the contrast to other reports, I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing a good amount of edits during previews. I hope they can clarify and simplify in a way that emphasizes the things that are working best right now. On that note: [Vague spoilers] IMO, the simplest, most effective thing they could do is cut O'Connell's sub-plot in Act 2. It felt shoehorned, didn't add much to an already-textured character, and took away from the other characters' journeys, to me.
