Next to Normal

GRADE: B


Music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Dir. Michael Greif. Musical staging by Sergio Trujillo. Booth Theater.

Critics (except for Talkin' Broadway's Matthew Murray) think that the changes made to Next to Normal since its off-Broadway run and during its out-of-town tryout have improved the musical substantially. The problem many critics had with the show before was a tendency towards comedy and irony. Those scenes, including one featuring a meltdown at Costco, are now gone, and the critics find the show as a whole more focused and powerful. Where the critics are divided is in their opinion of Tom Kitt's music and Brian Yorkey's book and lyrics. Those who never liked it, still don't. Alice Ripley gets mostly raves as do the rest of the cast, though some critics miss Brian d'Arcy James (now in Shrek) in the role now played by J. Robert Spencer.

AMNY A+
(Matt Windman) Simply put, “Next to Normal” is truly one of the most powerful, surprising and invigorating original musicals in recent memory, reminding us how it’s possible for contemporary musical theater to hook an audience entirely through the strength of its storytelling. This dynamic musical should not be missed.

The Daily News A+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) As the unmoored mother, Ripley gives a towering performance that leaves you tongue-tied for superlatives. In "I Miss the Mountains," she explores the show's probing question: What's worse - being pill-free and unpredictable or being drugged and numb? "Next to Normal" covers a challenging subject, no question. That it's hopeful and uplifting, not depressing, is more than a triumph - it's next to wondrous.

Washington Post A+
(Peter Marks) Will Broadway have the smarts and taste to anoint "Next to Normal" the best new musical of the year? Unveiled last year at off-Broadway's Second Stage, and polished in December to a smashing finish at Washington's Arena Stage, the show opened last night at the Booth Theatre as a prime example of the power of rock to tell heart-rending stories -- and of the value of reworking a musical until you get it right.

Lighting & Sound America A+
(David Barbour) Yorkey has trimmed his libretto, cutting the jarringly flamboyant episodes that threatened to wreck the first act, while retaining the powerful second-act twist that suggests Dan may not be entirely immune to Diana's problems. Michael Greif's direction no longer strains for big effects, preferring instead to probe the characters' scar tissue with laserlike precision. The superb cast is led by Alice Ripley's Diana, her apparently normal demeanor offset by a disconcertingly intense stare and an unsettlingly blunt candor. (She's perfectly capable of telling Natalie that she's about to head upstairs to have sex with Dan, or of characterizing Gabe to his face with one of the few four-letter words that still shocks.) On the rare occasions when she slips into rage -- as in the emergency-room aria "Didn't I See This Movie?" -- she is thoroughly commanding. Most of the time, however, she seems to be viewing her loosening grip on sanity with a detachment that is eerie to behold. And when she finally stares down the loss that has haunted her for a quarter of a century, the moment is all the more powerful for the absence of applause-chasing tricks. Ripley has done good work in all sorts of shows, but here she's working on another level altogether; for my money, this is the musical theatre performance of the year.

The New York Times A+
(Ben Brantley) The differences between “Next to Normal” then and now are substantial enough to inspire hope for all imbalanced shows in need of rehabilitation.
The earlier version had the same convictions but had yet to find the courage of them. A self-protective archness kept diluting its intensity, as though the darkness might go down more easily if the show were perceived as social satire, a riff on the nasty shadows cast behind white picket fences... For the retooled version, first seen at the Arena Stage in Washington in November, they made the decision to toughen up and to cast off the last traces of cuteness. This meant never releasing the audience from the captivity of its characters’ minds. That decision has transformed a small, stumbling musical curiosity into a work of muscular grace and power.

Rolling Stone A+
(Peter Travers) Rock is alive and rolling like thunder in Next To Normal. It’s the best musical of the season by a mile (take that Billy Elliot), an emotional powerhouse with a fire in its soul and a wicked wit that burns just as fiercely. Composer Tom Kitt and writer-lyricist Brian Yorkey have broken the shackles of tired Broadway tradition, pushing it in new directions. OK, sometimes push comes to shove. But the effect is never less than mesmerizing.

CurtainUp A+
(Elyse Sommer) I liked Next to Normal at Second Stage very much. An original concept. Excellent performances. Resonant pop rock score. Character and plot supportive lyrics. I was bowled over and deeply moved by its Broadway permutation. The story is as realistically downbeat as before — in fact, more so. However, some astute changes have deepened and enriched this musicalized portrait of a family torn asunder by mental illness. Diana's illness is now more clearly a case of chronic bi-polar disease which grounds its faint nod to an audience pleasing happy ending in reality. Instead of straining to add humor to some of Diana's episodes (shades of her losing her grip on reality during a shopping trip), that humor is now more subtle. And, rather than pumping up her electric shock treatments into a pulsing and somewhat melodramatic production number reminiscent of The Who Tommy, we have a less splashy but more effective and moving rendering of that deeply disturbing episode.

Nytheatre.com A+
(Jo Ann Rosen) Director Michael Greif gives Next to Normal an operatic tone when his characters sing duets, trios, and quartets from different rooms and floors. This story line is no straight walk to the doctor for a painful talk and a cure. Greif puts his characters—and the audience—through a psychological maze, and comes up with a production that feels truthful. Of course, it helps that the material is rich. With very little dialog, Yorkey has filled Next to Normal with lyrics that feel conversational and contemporary. He's given the plot depth with unanticipated turns, and provides the love and tenderness needed to make an unpredictable ending thought-provoking. Kitt's music supplies range, gliding naturally from one song into the next, then adjusting the tempo and mood, always taking his audience to the exact emotional spot he wants.

TONY A
(Adam Feldman) As Diana in the surprising and moving Next to Normal, Alice Ripley has a voice like steel wool: It’s tough and cloudy at once, and it scrubs to the core. There’s something slightly off about Ripley’s singing—the notes sometimes claw their way up from just under pitch—and this raggedness is perfectly attuned to the mental distress of her character, a psychotic suburban mother guiltily aware of the burden her illness brings to her family. There is nothing glamorous or camp about this unlikely musical-theater heroine, and Ripley is riveting.

Theatermania A
(Dan Bacalzo) You may want to bring along some tissues to Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey's deeply felt musical Next to Normal, currently on view at Broadway's Booth Theatre under the surehanded direction of Michael Greif, as the production takes the audience on an amazing emotional journey that plumbs the depths of despair while also offering a vision of hope. What has evolved from three prior incarnations of the show -- the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival version entitled Feeling Electric, the 2008 Off-Broadway production at Second Stage and a more recent revised mounting at Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage -- has resulted in a version of the musical that is simply outstanding.

Entertainment Weekly A
(Melissa Rose Bernardo) While Next to Normal is essentially a rock musical, Kitt's music incorporates classical, folk, metal — even a waltz (the giddy ''My Psychopharmacologist and I,'' which features a hilarious prescription-inspired riff on Rodgers & Hammerstein's ''My Favorite Things''). But the music is no mere mishmash. Notice how deftly the score parallels the characters: Dan's songs are steady and placid, with the occasional burst of forcefulness (''I Am the One''), while Diana's are cacophonous, layered, hard, and completely unpredictable — a confrontational power-chord-driven number one minute (''Do You Know''), a whispery, music-box-style lullaby the next (''I Dreamed a Dance''). The couple's elusive teenage son, Gabe (Aaron Tveit), has insidious and creepy songs, while those of troubled 16-year-old Natalie (Jennifer Damiano) are like Diana's, but on a smaller scale — she's discovering she has a few things in common with her mom, not the least of which is a charming, exceedingly patient love interest (Adam Chanler-Berat, looking far hipper in a ruffled blue tuxedo shirt than anyone has a right to). Broadway audiences have been hungering for original musicals, so it's no surprise that Next to Normal is beginning to garner Tony buzz (Ripley is already a Best Actress favorite). And there's one award we're sure the show would win...if it existed: most tears, wadded-up tissues, and runny mascara produced by a Broadway musical.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) What these performers all have in common are powerhouse voices, able to negotiate a pulsating pop-rock score. Actually, pop-rock doesn't do justice to Kitt's often haunting melodies and Yorkey's intelligent lyrics. Both are infused with a theatricality that helps define who these people are. Under Michael Greif's sharp direction and the kinetic musical staging of Sergio Trujillo, the actors move with ease — and sometimes gymnastically — around designer Mark Wendland's multitiered set. It quickly transforms itself from suburban home to doctor's office and serves as the nesting area for the musical's small band. The stage has been blindingly lighted by Kevin Adams, whose array of powerful, colored lights give off an unnerving sense of dislocation that suggests the fragile state of the lead character's mind.

Village Voice A-
(Michael Feingold) And with the new serious tone comes an expanded horizon of a kind unusual for Broadway: Instead of lavish arrays of conspicuous waste to show the ticket buyers where their dollars went, we get dreams, visions, delusions, myths, ghosts. And even, heaven help us, ideas. It's as if, after sleeping through years of the right wing's unremitting efforts to reduce religion to issue-based materialism, our theater suddenly woke up and remembered that philosophy, spirituality, and an acceptance of the invisible as an integral part of our lives have always belonged to the theatrical essence. Next to Normal (Booth Theatre), an ambitious, challenging, and often moving small-scale musical, toys with delusion and vision through a device that makes it tricky to summarize; I'll just say that author Brian Yorkey and composer Tom Kitt use the device honorably and meaningfully, and that director Michael Greif draws graceful effects from it.

The Bergen Record A-
(Robert Feldberg) Like “Rent" and “Spring Awakening,” this is a musical driven by a dynamic pop-rock score, which allows the characters to give full-throated expression to their feelings. Fitted perfectly to Tom Kitt’s music are lyrics by Brian Yorkey – the show is almost entirely sung – that probe the characters’ minds and motivation with great psychological understanding. Director Michael Greif, who also staged “Rent,” has given the show a fast pace and a stark, visceral feeling, along with several stunning theatrical moments. They include the revelation of a past tragedy that has shadowed the family over the years, and lets us see Diana and Dan from a completely different angle. Most pivotally, perhaps, the show has the devastatingly effective Ripley. Rather than present Diana as half-crazy, the actress portrays her, heartbreakingly, as a woman desperately pursuing sanity, trying to find the person she once was.

Variety B+
(David Rooney) Onstage almost throughout, Ripley never loses sight of Diana's warmth and self-deprecating humor, on the one hand, or of her despair and scared confusion, on the other, no matter where her wild mood swings land. There's tremendous poignancy in her lost state, and in the complicated layers of feeling that bind her to Dan. Spencer is equally strong. Something of a Dean Jones look-alike, his Everyman-nice-guy appearance and solicitous behavior toward his wife play beautifully against his suggestions of impatience and defeat or his outbursts of righteous anger, making his journey no less moving than Diana's. Similarly, Damiano's hostile vulnerability is well paired with Chandler-Berat's sweet stoner vibe. Tveit's character has gained in texture since Second Stage, adding shades of ambiguity that rescue Gabe from angelic blandness or cookie-cutter youthful recklessness. Often lurking in the shadows, he's a bewitching, almost destructive force, a benevolent pusher who keeps Diana hooked on dangerous memories while conspiring in her most questionable decisions.

NY1 B
(Roma Torre) Much of the material is set to music, some of it really quite exceptional. And it's performed by a dazzling ensemble of actors and musicians with stunning intensity. These are incredible talents who find subtlety and depth in what could easily be stock characters... Not to go bi-polar here, but there are some problems with the show. The music tends to be overly repetitive and there are unnecessary contrivances in both characterizations and direction. Still, "Next to Normal" is an extraordinary work for the most part and it would be "insane" to dwell on any flaws.

New Yorker B-
(Unsigned) After the antidepressants and the ECT, you do yearn for a smiling face, a lifted heart, and just a smidgen of frivolity. It used to be that the musical was meant to be an escape from care; now it’s meant to be an escape from escape: all singing, all dancing despair.

Chicago Tribune B-
(Chris Jones) There are times when "Next to Normal" seems to inhabit such a pharmacologically savvy universe that the non-Zoloft popping folks in the room might wonder on what neurotic planet they've landed. Everyone—doctors, patients, family members, authors—seems to be into some kind of drug here, and the show doesn't always contextualize that gestalt as it might. I also think the scrambled dramaturgy of Yorkey's book—structured to maintain a certain level of suspense over the fate of the family's son and its effect on everyone's mental health—needlessly convolutes some scenes. It sometimes gets in the way of our empathetic involvement. In Yorkey's poetic lyrics, simple truths about marriage, life, parenting, fear are often exquisitely expressed. But sometimes a more strained dramatic fog has to lift. Still, on Broadway this season, this provocative little show is like a fearless indie movie surrounded by a sea of mostly enjoyable but largely predictable blockbusters.

Bloomberg News C+
(Jeremy Gerard) Superbly cast and staged by Michael Greif, “Next to Normal” is a distinctly modern musical. Lights frequently glare into the eyes of audience members. Mark Wendland’s skeletal, multitiered set features the black-and-white image of a house that resembles a newspaper photograph blown up so all the dots of ink turn it into a kind of Rorschach test. That’s an apt description of the show itself. How you respond will depend a great deal on your tolerance for a musical in which love is fearlessly twisted beyond recognition.

American Theater Web C+
(Andy Propst) Diana's return to "normalcy" or at least a state "next to normal" is made all the more difficult by not only the severe memory loss caused by the ECT, but by one of the other factors in her illness. She's not only bipolar and depressive, she also suffers from delusions, and one in particular regarding the loss of a child early in her marriage to Dan. And it's in the depiction of this aspect of Diana's journey to health that the musical truly stumbles. The manifestation of Diana's illusions seems almost too gimmicky and manipulative. Further, the logic behind the phantoms that plague Diana don't always add up; if they're of her own creation, it stands to reason they have no psychology of their own or the ability to act independently, yet, in "Normal," such anomalies exist. Initially, theatergoers may be willing to set such thoughts aside, but as the piece progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to do so. One reason may be that musically, the show does have something of a wearying effect. Although Kitt's score is diverse – there are moments when the range of musical idioms that the characters have is a direct result of their own unique tastes in music – it relies almost exclusively on thundering rock anthems for the moments in which characters express their anger. The result is that many of the most emotionally intense sequences become repetitive in sound and tone, if not in thought.

USA Today C+
(Elysa Gardner) Yorkey's open-hearted concern for all these characters is endearing, but in his zeal to fully relay their challenges, he can wax precious. It doesn't help that Tom Kitt's rock-flavored score and the orchestrations by Kitt and Michael Starobin seem more bombastic than they did when Normal was staged in a cozier venue off-Broadway last year. Still, you can't help but admire the compassion that Normal's creators afford their subjects, or be moved by the performances... These assets don't make Normal as daring or profound as some critics have suggested. But there's no denying it has the heart and humanity that make musicals meaningful.

New York Post C-
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) The bar is set high early on with "Who's Crazy/My Psychopharmacologist and I," in which lyricist/book writer Brian Yorkey and composer Tom Kitt quickly list a litany of side effects ("Headaches and tremors/And nightmares and seizures . . . ") while the melody quotes "My Favorite Things." It's a common reference, but it's used very effectively as the playful tweaking of the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic echoes John Coltrane's variation, just like Natalie's preference for the scripted rigor of classical music contrasts with her boyfriend Henry's (Adam Chanler-Berat) taste for jazz improvisation. Alas, the pop-rock score never offers so many interpretative layers again, though it's still an improvement on Kitt's last Broadway effort, 2006's disastrous "High Fidelity."

Newsday D+
(Linda Winer) The problem, unfortunately, is still the score by relative newcomers Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt. The playful songs still hook us in with wit and charm, including a waltz that asks, "Who's crazy," and happily chirps, "These are a few of my favorite pills." As emotions get drastic, however, the songs just aren't up to it. The music has unpredictable transitions with lovely overlapping harmonies, but composer Kitt falls back on monotonous singsong melodies for the real drama. Yorkey's lyrics keep trying to express profundities with banalities about light and right and night, but nursery rhymes are more inspiring.

Back Stage D+
(Erik Haagensen) The estimable Alice Ripley makes Diana more compelling than she's written and sings with power and precision. As Natalie, Jennifer Damiano ingeniously finds as many different ways to be damaged as she can, and Adam Chanler-Berat is charming if a bit one-note as her insistent suitor. Aaron Tveit as Gabe provides a riveting stage presence and an impressive voice but is still stuck playing a melodramatic symbol. J. Robert Spencer is a more boyish and brittle Dan than Brian d'Arcy James, who played the role at Second Stage, lacking the latter's emotional richness and quiet authority. Louis Hobson manages to register in the bland roles of two doctors. Greif stages the show smartly on Mark Wendland's triple-tiered metal set that, as evocatively lit by Kevin Adams, imaginatively represents the family home, Diana's mind, and other locations. Greif does, however, allow some of the ballads to dilute the show's swift pacing. As Broadway becomes increasingly hostile to the presence of serious musicals, one roots even harder for those that make it there to succeed. Next to Normal, alas, still misses the mark.

Wall Street Journal F+
(Terry Teachout) The members of the cast all act better than they sing, especially Ms. Ripley, who sang flat throughout the preview that I attended. I liked Michael Greif's slick, fast-moving staging, Mark Wendland's pop-art set and the orchestrations, by Mr. Kitt and Michael Starobin, which make colorful use of the six-piece onstage ensemble. I wish I had something else nice to say about a show whose palpably good intentions fail to keep it from being an earnest bore.

Talkin' Broadway F+
(Matthew Murray) So this resolutely well-intentioned musical at the Booth, which was written by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) and directed by Michael Greif, becomes that saddest of theatrical entities: the show you want to love but can't, filled with characters you want to love but can't, and who desperately want to love each other but can't. There's so much natural affection, spoken, screamed, and sung, that this should be the most affecting musical to hit Broadway in a decade. But like Diana, the overdrugged Goodman matriarch, you're left feeling nothing. Unless, that is, you saw Next to Normal when it premiered at Second Stage early last year. In that case, you'll probably be feeling exasperation, frustration, and despair at how Kitt, Yorkey, and Greif could change their promise-packed show in so many little ways over the course of a year and an extra out-of-town tryout (last fall at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.), and wind up with something even farther away from where it needs to be. Just as the Goodmans' inability to understand how to repair what's broken in their lives doesn't stop them from trying, the creators' uncertainty hasn't stopped them. In both cases, the results are the same.

AMNY A+ 14; The Daily News A+ 14; Washington Post A+ 14; Lighting & Sound America A+ 14; The New York Times A+ 14; Rolling Stone A+ 14; CurtainUp A+ 14; Nytheatre.com A+ 14; TONY A 13; Theatermania A 13; Entertainment Weekly A 13; Associated Press A 13; Village Voice A- 12; The Bergen Record A- 12; Variety B+ 11; NY1 B 10; New Yorker B- 9; Chicago Tribune B- 9; Bloomberg News C+ 8; American Theater Web C+ 8; USA Today C+ 8; New York Post C- 6; Newsday D+ 5; Back Stage D+ 5; WSJ F+ 2; Talkin' Broadway F+ 2; TOTAL: 271/26 = 10.42 (B)

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Guys and Dolls

GRADE: D+

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, book by Jo Swerling. Dir. Des McAnuff. Chor. Sergio Trujillo. Nederlander Theatre. (CLOSED)

Early reviews for Des McAnuff's new production of Guys and Dolls were harsh. Even including some later positive reviews, it is still one of the worst reviewed shows still running on Broadway, by our grading system. Most critics are wondering how McAnuff could go so wrong with a musical so right. They don't understand most of his decisions, namely to move the time period from the '50s to the Great Depression era and incorporate Damon Runyon, author of the stories on which the characters are based, as a silent character. With a few exceptions, most critics think Dustin O'Neill's projections are too busy. Of the four leads, all but two critics dislike Oliver Platt, finding him miscast and uncomfortable on the stage (Roger B. Harris of Theater News Online raves about his performance). Lauren Graham fares better, with some critics singling her out as the best in the production. The biggest complaint about Craig Bierko and Kate Jennings Grant, who most agree are the strongest in terms of singing ability, is their lack of chemistry. The critics are most divided on the success of Mary Testa's seven-minute role as General Cartwright--many find her to be one of the highlights in an altogether weak production and others find her too over-the-top and vulgar.

Theater News Online A
(Roger B. Harris) Don't expect me to explain why McAnuff et. al. chose Oliver Platt to play the esteemed entrepreneur of the oldest, reliable , floating crap game in New York, one Nathan Detroit, in this top-notch revival that just opened at the Nederlander Theatre. Just be glad they did. For Mr. Platt is wonderful in what can only be considered a stirring example of untraditional casting. Does he have the crumpled, born to play the part look that Sam Levene, the original Nathan in the 1950 Broadway production had? Does he have, whatever it was, Frank Sinatra had when he assayed the role in the 1955 movie version? Does he exude the pitch perfect comedic timing that Nathan Lane conveyed in the 1992 Broadway revival? A generous no must be rendered unto the questions. But Platt, he of the large frame and rubbery face, pulls it off. His Nathan is funny he's thoughtful and is a surprisingly competent singer. You get the feeling that this is one Nathan who really cares for his cupcake, Miss Adelaide. For this guy, the fourteen or four hundred times he's postponed their nuptials is just a question of business getting in the way of pleasure. You just know he'll see the error of his ways. ( And he does!)

Hartford Courant A-
(Malcolm Johnson) Not all of McAnuff's bright ideas are good ones. Putting Damon, a little man at a typewriter, on stage to represent the chronicler of Runyonland is a distraction. Overall though, this "Guys and Dolls" delivers a cascade of delights, including the arrival of that Broadway belter, Mary Testa, as Gen. Matilida B. Cartwright of the Salvation Army... Trujillo makes vivid, kinetic contributions to Act II. The big moments come in "The Crapshooter's Dance," in which the male dancers tumble and spin with superb athleticism. Bierko caps the number with a muscular "Luck Be a Lady." The second act also features "More I Cannot Wish You," touchingly rendered by Jim Ortlieb as Arvide Abernathy, Sarah's grandfather," and a lively duet for Platt and Graham on "Sue Me." But the big number is "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," lustily belted by Tituss Burgess, backed by a chorus of sinners, with Testa pitching her powerhouse soprano to the rafters. The lighting by Howell Binkley helps to create a striking picture of Broadway in the days when Runyon was a curious newspaperman. The chiaroscuro on Bierko's poetic treatment of "My Time of Day" gives a tangible sense of the city at night, and comes on the heels of the adventure in Havana, when Grant reels through "If I Were a Bell."

Talk Entertainment A-
(Oscar E Moore) The three tiered, on stage orchestra - much like a nightclub band of the thirties (the new time period for the show – which makes for some fun costumes by Paul Tazewell) remains hidden behind a screen where the controversial video projections (Dustin O’Neill) which are an integral part of the amazingly creative set (Robert Brill) are viewed. Some have reported they cause motion sickness. I thought they were terrific. So, good score and good production values. Now we come to the cast. The delightful surprise is Lauren Graham – of “Gilmore Girls”. Who would have ever imagined that she would make such a memorable Adelaide – the long suffering fiancée, engaged to Nathan Detroit for fourteen years, who works at singing and stripping while waiting for the ring to be placed on her lonely finger. She is sensational and lights up the stage whenever she is on with her comic timing and clear as a bell voice. One of the best numbers is “Take Back Your Mink” (choreographed by Sergio Trujillo – whose other dances are pulsating with sex and athleticism). She alone is reason to see Guys and Dolls.

New Yorker B+
(John Lahr) Once McAnuff stops competing with the musical's ingeniousness and settles down to serve the story, all is pretty much well. He nails "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," the show's eleven-o'clock number by making Nicely Nicely (Tituss Burgess) strut his gospel stuff on a row of empty chairs. Gleeful, rousing, and eye-popping, the staging is McAnuff at his inventive best... Platt's understated ambivalence is a good match for Graham's emotional full-court press. As the blond and frazzled Adelaide, who suffers from psychosomatic sneezing for lack of a marriage license, Graham makes a terrific Broadway debut; she is a potent combination of sweetness and sexuality.

Financial Times B-
(Brendan Lemon) The conventional wisdom: "Guys and Dolls" is so sure-fire that a producer could shove trained canaries into this 1950 show about two-bit gamblers by Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows and come up lucky. Songbirds could probably sing with more consistent freshness than some of the warblers in Des McAnuff’s new Broadway staging. But we go to "Guys and Dolls" less for purveyors of pristine pitch than for a sense of raffish joy, and by this criterion the production delivers, if more solidly in the second act than in the first...So where do the joys reside? In Dustin O’Neill’s video design, in which giant rear-stage projections ingeniously match the turning of more conventional sets and provide a nifty, non-realistic evocation of a New York where a hot dog cost a nickel, newspapers were a growth industry and everyone wore a hat.

Bloomberg News B-
(Jeremy Gerard) The dice throwing is launched by the “Crapshooters’ Dance,” an acrobatic, all-male ballet choreographed by Sergio Trujillo with humor, athleticism and swing. In quick order come Nathan’s confrontation with Chicago gangster Big Jule and Sky’s great Act II number, “Luck Be a Lady.” It’s about half an hour of pure Broadway joy in one of the best shows in the canon, and well worth the wait...
McAnuff, who scored a hit with “Jersey Boys,” is well served by Robert Brill’s Edward Hopperish settings. But Paul Tazewell’s costumes -- with the exception of the sexy outfits for the Hot Box Girls -- are homely for the men and women alike.
And yet: If you know “Guys and Dolls” only from the 1955 film, you really should see this revival: The film dropped the gorgeous ballad, “More I Cannot Wish You,” which Sarah’s protector, Arvide, sings to her. Crooned here with great tenderness by Jim Ortlieb, it’s one more good thing about the show.

Entertainment Weekly C+
(Thom Geier) Where does the show go astray? I've got the horse right here: It starts with the guys. Oliver Platt is an actor of many talents, but he's no one's idea of a musical comedy star. He seems adrift playing marriage-shy gambling impresario Nathan Detroit, caroming in and out of accents, sometimes within the same sentence. At times, he plays Nathan as a petulant 5-year-old boy; at others, as a savvy street-wise fella. Craig Bierko, as smooth gambling ace Sky Masterson, is on surer musical footing (he has a thin but confident voice), but he too seems miscast. It's hard to believe that a guy as self-absorbed as Bierko's Sky has much time for romance, let alone actually falling in love.

CurtainUp C+
(Simon Saltzman) Five will get you ten that you will not see a production with more visual excitement this season. In Act II there is an awesome scenic transition from street to sewer for the big and brilliantly danced crap game that will blow you away. Perched on three levels at the back of the stage, the orchestra, under the musical direction of Ted Sperling, revs up an audience that is quick to respond affirmatively not only to the musicians' visibility but also to the familiar and beloved melodies. The overture, enhanced with the sounds of the city, segues directly into the exhilaratingly staged opening scene that provides glimpses of "the devil's own city" a dingy pool hall, gambling den, and the interior of a bank wherein a robbery is in progress. Book-ended by the added on presence of Runyon (Raymond Del Barrio, who is also in the dancing ensemble) sitting at his desk typing out "Broadway Stories" the show is quickly turned over to the show's familiar characters. It's a promising start for what turns out to be an otherwise disappointing and inexplicably humorless production.

Lighting & Sound America C+
(David Barbour) The current production has been criticized for being overdesigned and under-acted, charges that are not surprising in a Des McAnuff production. The director's two big hits -- The Who's Tommy and Jersey Boys -- are exciting, visually striking conceptions, but neither one is loaded with memorable characters or star-making performances. (Tommy is more like an oratorio than a book musical; Jersey Boys' use of multiple narrators tends to keep the audience at a slight distance, and its playlist of Four Seasons hits doesn't move the story forward or illuminate character.) Neither show is particularly comic and neither one features the kind of musical number that puts a character's heart on display, for all the world to see. Such experiences, however successful, provide little guidance when staging Guys and Dolls, a classic screwball comedy about the low-lifes and soul-savers of mid-20th-century Times Square. While it's fun to wonder what a Kathleen Marshall or Rob Ashford might have done with this material, I hasten to add that the current production has its pleasures -- as long as you know what you're getting into.

USA Today C
(Elyse Gardner) Imagine having dinner in a fabulous restaurant with two couples. One pair is delightfully witty and has sizzling chemistry; the other two seem so awkward that it's almost painful to be with them. That's something akin to the uneven, frustrating experience offered by the new revival of Guys and Dolls that opened Sunday at the Nederlander Theatre. In fairness to the awkward couple — stars Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham — their characters, bumbling gambler Nathan Detroit and his long-suffering squeeze Miss Adelaide, aren't elegant types... Craig Bierko's Sky is robust and dangerously sexy, but not so slick that we can't laugh at him or recognize the vulnerability and decency behind his easy swagger. As Sarah Brown, the repressed missionary whom Sky pursues on a bet, Kate Jennings Grant is a revelation, juggling the unruffled poise of an old-school movie heroine with a loosey-goosey sass and exquisite comic timing. Sadly, Sky and Sarah aren't the focus for more than a couple of scenes at a time. It doesn't help that the supporting cast is inconsistent, or that Des McAnuff's direction can suffer from acute cuteness.

Globe and Mail C
(J. Kelly Nestruck) Des McAnuff's flashy new Broadway revival of the show certainly proves the musical's resilience - it can survive miscast B-list stars as well, not to mention uneven direction... Paul Tazewell's costumes are gaudy (the men's clashing suits, anyway), while Robert Brill's oversized neon signs probably play better from the back of the balcony. (McAnuff often seems to ignore what Brill has set up for him, so we see a bank robber break back into a bank with his stolen loot, or Sarah end an argument with Sky in the mission by, er, walking back into the mission.) Dustin O'Neill's dizzying video design, which takes us through New York in animations, gives it all a vague The Sims: Guys and Dolls edition feeling. All things considered, McAnuff has rolled a winner here - but if the Guys and Dolls dice weren't so loaded in any director's favour, he might have crapped out.

Time Out New York C-
(Adam Feldman) When you see a guy heave a long-winded sigh, you can bet that he’s coming from Guys and Dolls. When a bum buys tix that a bum can’t afford, it seems fair that the bum get something less rum on the way called Broad-. When a movie slob gets a leading-man job, and you wish they had gone through more casting calls: Call it dumb, call it clever—but it’s a so-so endeavor, this uneven revival of Guys and Dolls.

Associated Press C-
(Michael Kuchwara) What's missing in this ambitious production, which opened Sunday at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre, is the raffish charm — and more importantly — the brash humor of Damon Runyon's stories about the high and low-life denizens of Times Square. This "Guys and Dolls" certainly looks glitzy enough, thanks to Robert Brill's neon-inundated settings and the dizzy, ever-moving video backdrops, mostly of New York, by Dustin O'Neill. Theatergoers who suffer from motion sickness are hereby warned. Give McAnuff credit for not attempting a mausoleum-like replication. He frames the busy evening with Runyon himself, sitting down at a typewriter and pounding out the story of Mission doll Sarah Brown and her involvement with unrepentant gambler Sky Masterson.

Theatermania C-
(Andy Propst) Given the production's dichotomous tone, it's little surprise that the show's leads turn in uneven and contradictory performances. As Nathan Detroit, who spends much of the show trying to find a place to hold the floating crap game he runs, Oliver Platt initially seems to be channeling both Nathan Lane (who starred in the last Broadway revival of this show) and Harvey Fierstein. It's a curious combination that evens out in the second act, when Nathan's on the ropes with Adelaide (Lauren Graham), a hoofer who's been his fiancé for 14 years. Graham, wisely forgoing the nasal little girl voice that has long been Adelaide's hallmark and looking stunning in Paul Tazewell's often whimsical period costumes, fares somewhat better. There's a sort of dimwitted cleverness at work in her performance that endears. Alongside this comic on-and-off romance is the unlikely one between Sarah (Kate Jennings Grant), of the "Save a Soul Mission," and gambler Sky Masterson (Craig Bierko). Both Grant and Bierko sing some of Loesser's most sumptuous love songs with beauty and power, but elsewhere their performances vacillate curiously. Grant wavers between strident steeliness and sappy dewiness, making Sarah seem almost schizophrenic. As Sky, who's bet that he can get this "doll" to go to Havana with him, Bierko is less variable, but his efforts to deliver Sky's more sensitive side occasionally seem at odds with the character's more hardnosed traits.

The Hollywood Reporter D+
(Frank Scheck) Oliver Platt would seem to be perfect casting for the boisterous Nathan, but though he usually brings an outsized charisma to his roles, he's strangely subdued and ineffective here. Craig Bierko's bland Sky Masterson lacks the terrific flair he brought to the title role in the Broadway revival of "The Music Man," while Kate Jennings Grant is perfectly fine but unmemorable in the least showy role of Sarah Brown. Only Lauren Graham ("Gilmore Girls"), here making her Broadway debut, fully captures the magic of the material, infusing her portrayal with a touching and comic vulnerability that is endlessly entertaining. She's perhaps also the sexiest Miss Adelaide ever, revealing her shapely body in a series of scanty costumes.

New York Post D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) This production of Frank Loesser's masterpiece is a puzzle, all right: How can something so zippy be so tedious? As his megahit "Jersey Boys" showed, McAnuff is great at keeping things moving. He smoothly segues from Nathan and Adelaide's scenes to the show's other star-crossed couple, gambler Sky Masterson (Craig Bierko) and Save-a-Soul do-gooder Sarah Brown (Kate Jennings Grant), and makes colorful use of the flashy showgirls and small-time crooks Damon Runyon, on whose stories the book is based, so vividly brought to life. But McAnuff just can't ratchet up the energy at crucial times, a problem that's particularly glaring since "Guys and Dolls" is packed with fantastic songs. Typically, when Mary Testa's Gen. Cartwright hijacks "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," her rude 10-second eruption slaps the audience awake and into spontaneous applause. If only the central foursome could deliver this kind of shame less old- school stage craft. Part of the blame must lay with McAnuff - did he give his cast any direction at all?

Variety D
(David Rooney) Fronted by four likable leads whose collective charisma never rises above medium wattage, the production sucks the personality out of an American musical-theater classic. The consolation is that even in this misconceived presentation, the show itself is too good not to be at least minimally entertaining... A central obstacle is the design concept. As he showed in "Jersey Boys" and "The Farnsworth Invention," McAnuff loves his scaffolding. Working with designer Robert Brill, he has crowded the Nederlander stage with signage, structural beams and other setpieces that do battle with Dustin O'Neill's busy blur of projections, depicting random cityscape elements and location details. But this combo of digital and traditional sets has been integrated more seamlessly and with greater precision even in "The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular." The fussy video input constantly pulls focus, overwhelming the actors and snuffing out both the human drama and the comedy. It's a nocturnal playground that's all technology, no magic.

Wall Street Journal D-
(Terry Teachout) Never underestimate the power of a director to louse up a good show. That's what Des McAnuff has done to "Guys and Dolls," a pop-culture masterwork so bulletproof that it's never failed to make its effect, even when performed by amateurs -- until now. Mr. McAnuff, the director of "Jersey Boys," has taken Frank Loesser's timeless tale of New York in the '30s and turned it into a shrink-wrapped, over-designed piece of high-dollar plastic that belongs in a warm-weather theme park, not on Broadway. What we have here, I suspect, is yet another case of a revival whose makers didn't trust their material. Viewed in a dim light, after all, "Guys and Dolls" can look like a faded period piece, a backward glance at a long-lost Broadway that was already more than half gone when the show opened six decades ago, a land of crapshooting sharpies in snap-brimmed hats who prowled the streets in search of action. Hence Mr. McAnuff's cluttered, noisy staging, in which the actors cavort before a giant screen on which an ever-changing stream of glossy images of New York is digitally projected. You can barely see the cast for the scenery, or hear the score through Bruce Coughlin's buffed-up, smoothed-out orchestrations.

NY1 D-
(Roma Torre) Talent notwithstanding, and there is a lot of it, this "Guys and Dolls" is so leaden and uninspired, it might as well be called "Men and Women." The principal performers are one part of the problem--they're a mixed bag of musical novices and miscasting... The bigger complaint rests with director Des McAnuff, whose vision seems downright tone-deag. Paced badly, the production feels forced and slow.

The New York Times D-
(Ben Brantley) How bizarre, then, that the show feels so static, as if paralyzed by self-consciousness. Nearly all the performers — from stars to chorus — approach their roles eagerly but diffidently, as if they would like to get to know the characters they play but are afraid of being rejected. Such tentativeness creates the impression of an entire cast of understudies, who have the technical qualifications for their parts but no natural affinity. This means that the sui generis style of communication known as Runyonese — a mix of courtly formality, tough-guy vernacular and pretzel-shape sentences — is spoken here as if it were a second language, dotted with implicit question marks that seem to ask, “Am I getting this right?” (Nathan Detroit’s key henchmen, played by Tituss Burgess and Steve Rosen, have such disconcertingly different deliveries of this lingo, it’s as if they’ve been spliced into the same frame from movies of different periods.)

The Record F+
(Robert Feldberg) The evening starts off with a dark and edgy dance number, and includes prostitutes, violence and not one, but two strip-tease routines. But "Guys and Dolls" was not intended to portray bad old Times Square. It's a sweet comic fantasy, with lifelike, though not real, characters in a make-believe world. From the drab, underwhelming presentation of "Fugue for Tinhorns" ("I got the horse right here ..."), which introduces us to this fanciful universe of Broadway gamblers with oddly formal speech patterns, it's obvious we aren't in for a treat comparable to the bright and funny 1992 "Guys and Dolls" revival... The surrounding gamblers are the most unconvincing group I've ever seen. Instead of a bunch of quirky-looking, individualized street characters, the youthful, expressionless, would-be wise guys look exactly like the chorus dancers that they are.

The Daily News F+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Des McAnuff, who directed the flatfooted new Broadway production, needed to take some things back, too. That includes the overdesigned sets, unflattering costumes, pretentious dance numbers and an undeveloped bit about Damon Runyon observing characters he created. He shows up in scenes like a Where's Waldo wanna-be. Instead of glitz and tricks, McAnuff would have been far better off casting leads who could sing Frank Loesser's dazzling songs in all their glory and vividly breathe life into the high-rollers and Holy Rollers created by Runyon and adapted by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows.

AM New York F+
(Matt Windman) In his expensive but unattractive production, McAnuff displays a total mistrust of the already pitch-perfect material by making countless awkward changes: the setting is shifted to 1935; headache-inducing computer-animation is projected against the set, actors leap in and out of the orchestra pit; and a new character based on Damon Runyon, who penned the short stories on which the musical is based, runs around taking notes... Unexpectedly, actors with much smaller roles like Jim Walton (Harry the Horse), Mary Testa (General Cartwright) and Steve Rosen (Benn Southstreet) steal the show because they actually understand how to perform old-fashioned comedy. Were it not for them, this “Guys and Dolls” would be a total loss.

Backstage F+
(Adam R. Perlman) McAnuff settles on something darker — but this is largely a matter of visuals, not interpretation. There's no deconstruction, no rethinking the blithe, powerful dance sequences, choreographed here without distinction by Sergio Trujillo. Instead, working with scenic designer Robert Brill, McAnuff gives us New York refracted through a cesspool, as if not only "Luck Be a Lady" but the entire evening were set in the sewer. The production's key visual is a massive LED wall, which replaces old-fashioned flats, drops, and trucks with a series of shockingly inept noirish CGI renderings that have the sophistication of a teenager playing around in the early '90s.

Newsday F+
(Linda Winer) In the crapshoot called Broadway, "Guys and Dolls" is as close as the theater gets to a sure thing. Or at least it seemed that way until Des McAnuff's tarted-up and dumbed-down revival opened last night at the handsomely remodeled Nederlander Theatre. Oddly cast and oppressively overproduced, the show is so busy with dizzying cinematic scenery, hard-edge choreography and updated musical arrangements that it's hard to find the people, much less the pulse. Almost lost in the spectacle is the Broadway debut by Lauren Graham, much admired as the single mom in TV's "Gilmore Girls." She plays Adelaide - long-awaiting fiancee of Nathan Detroit and adenoidal queen of the Hot Box Revue - with an understated twinkle and the well-timed bleat of a funny lamb.

New York Observer F+
(John Heilpern) It’s sad to report that the revival of the iconic 1950 Guys and Dolls, currently hitting us over the head with a meat cleaver at the Nederlander on Broadway, is extraordinarily disappointing. Whether the show will be a hit, only Mr. Gopnik’s penguins can say. The numbing effect it had on me was akin to listening to a fabulously witty story you adore being retold by someone with zero sense of humor... Any production of the show ought to have a certain style and period. This one’s a mess: The busy video work is contemporary, the props period, and the cityscape images are loudly pro-forma archival. The costumes appear to be 1930s, but Sergio Trujillo’s tense choreography presents a fiercely contemporary attitude. The unfocused production, which ought to be easeful, assaults the audience. It’s oversold, overproduced and overmiked. The brassy sound of the hidden onstage orchestra is at times ramped up way too loud. Yet Frank Loesser’s unmatchable score possesses an innate street vitality that should speak (and sing and swoon) for itself.

Village Voice F
(Michael Feingold) McAnuff's twitchy, incessant, visual blitzkrieg of a production makes it a tale of two cities: The characters may be rooted in midtown Manhattan, but the staging and design are pure Vegas—a Vegas that inexplicably screens a high-speed IMAX documentary of bygone New York 24/7. No scene is left unfidgeted with; even the title song gets interrupted by an elevated train rumbling overhead, though what Benny Southstreet and Nicely-Nicely Johnson would be doing on Third Avenue is anybody's guess... And what goes on at Joey Biltmore's garage while he's yakking with Nathan Detroit, I decline to describe; I'll just quote Kenneth Tynan on an analogous piece of directorial charm-killing: "Thus can poetry, in one gesture, become irrevocable prose."

Chicago Tribune F
(Chris Jones) Des McAnuff’s strangely cast, uncharacteristically insecure and weirdly unfunny revival—which features Oliver Platt as the perennial bachelor Nathan Detroit and “Gilmore Girl” Lauren Graham as Miss Adelaide—seems to have about six different concepts for this show, tries to do them all at once, and manages to make none of them land. This show partly wants to be a retro, day-glo revival--accounting for the massive amounts of period signage in the Nederlander Theatre (until recently the home of “Rent”). I’m not just speaking of the traditional marquees floating in the air. One huge sign has been planted in the theater itself, its named bulbs close enough to the seats to generate some heat. It wants to be a fresh, high-tech update—the main element in Robert Brill’s misguided set is a colossal screen, allowing for a cold, computer-generated look at period New York.

Nytheatre.com F-
(Michael Criscuolo) On the flip side of the company's collective laziness is the nagging sensation that they all know they're working on a bad production and don't care enough about it—or the audience, for that matter—to, maybe, try and make it better. The result is like watching a bunch of apathetic office drones drag themselves to work on Monday morning: they don't want to be there, but they've got bills to pay, so they do the minimum amount necessary to keep from getting fired... All of Guys and Dolls's warmth and charm is absent here, held at bay by director Des McAnuff, who fails to embrace it. The rock 'n' roll razzmatazz that has made many of his previous Broadway productions successes ill suits a show of this vintage. The open-hearted sentiments expressed in Loesser's lovely songs seem to make McAnuff uncomfortable, and his direction reflects that. It's as if he's fighting a misanthropic urge to make fun of the show the whole way through, a fight that he doesn't always win: the production is laden with a collection of dubious Noo Yawk accents and weighed down by cartoonish production design that suggests what Warren Beatty's film of Dick Tracy might look like if it were a Vegas floor show.

Talkin' Broadway F-
(Matthew Murray) One wonders if McAnuff has been blinded by his recent experiences trying to jolt to life underwritten titles such as Dracula and Jersey Boys (truly succeeding with the latter), and ignored the dangers of what that can do to a show that doesn’t need the help. His idea of energy is Dustin O’Neill’s ugly video backdrops, which render this Guys and Dolls’s New York both unduly busy and one-dimensional when they’re not inspiring motion sickness. What he needed to do instead was inspire his cast to kinetic greatness, to help them unlock the frantic hearts that pursue profit and the opposite sex with equal abandon. That’s the only way to do true justice to Swerling, Burrows, Loesser, and - yes - Runyon himself.

Theater News Online A 13; Hartford Courant A- 12; Talk Entertainment A- 12; New Yorker B+ 11; Financial Times B- 9; Bloomberg News B- 9; Entertainment Weekly C+ 8; CurtainUp C+ 8; Lighting & Sound America C+ 8; USA Today C 7; Globe and Mail C 7; TONY C- 6; AP C- 6; Theatermania C- 6; The Hollywood Reporter D+ 5; New York Post D+ 5; Variety D 4; WSJ D- 3; NY1 D- 3; The New York Times D- 3; The Record F+ 2; The Daily News F+ 2; AMNY F+ 2; Backstage F+ 2; Newsday F+ 2; NY Observer F+ 2; Village Voice F 1; Chicago Tribune F 1; Nytheatre.com F- 0; Talkin' Broadway F- 0; TOTAL: 159/30 = 5.3 (D+)

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