Now, I think the casting may have had something to do with it.
I'm also positive that if Chenoweth had ended up playing Elizabeth like she did in the reading, Brantley would not have had enough room to rave about her performance.
I imagine Cloris Leachman was probably insanely fantastic too.
So maybe it did have something to do with the casting.
Maybe critics were just ready to dislike the show and there is no difference between the reading and the Broadway production.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"