Variety is Mixed-to-Negative:
At the start of "The Woman in White," designer William Dudley zooms in, within a projection of a roomful of Victorian clutter, on a zoetrope, a quaint relic that provides a rudimentary moving image long since superseded by more sophisticated forms of visual storytelling. Similar limitations apply to Andrew Lloyd Webber's first new musical to open on Broadway since "Sunset Boulevard" 11 years ago. The composer's customarily lush, faux-operatic 1980s musical idiom feels like a throwback, while the emotion, mystery and romance of the Wilkie Collins potboiler is consistently dwarfed by the mechanical artificiality of the design concept.
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For all its villainous men, imperiled women, palpitating hearts, murder and madness, however, the melodrama feels sadly hollow.
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It's a challenge to get immersed in any story when the actors are competing for attention with the underlit, low-definition images on Dudley's giant curved screen, its central panel occasionally separating and gliding forward. The flat cartoon realism of scenes in the stately mansion or its surrounding woods alongside gurgling waterfalls resembles "Shrek""Shrek" without the critters.
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Lloyd Webber's music, while it tempers the syrupy romanticism of his melodies by weaving more complex, discordant textures that echo the story's troubled moods, fires off almost its entire arsenal in the first act and then remains stuck in repetitive overdrive. Each character's theme melody resurfaces, strung together with musical wallpaper.
There are no standout numbers, and the ballads "I Believe My Heart" and "Evermore Without You" sound like corresponding songs in "Phantom of the Opera" or "Sunset Boulevard," with efficient but uninspired new lyrics by David Zippel. Lloyd Webber's style has been so thoroughly lampooned over the years -- most recently in "Spamalot" -- it's now hard to take these songs at face value.
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Nunn puts all of the actors through their paces, having them stride across Dudley's constantly spinning turntable. But in this solemn, lumbering show, they keep moving while getting nowhere.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117928892?categoryid=1265&cs=1
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
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"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
