The AP’s review is pretty spot-on. I also found this production buoyant and vastly entertaining. Hugh and Sutton are at the top of their game. By contrast, I cannot understand why Jesse Green thinks HJ’s Hill should have been more “dangerous” or less “cool and manipulative.” Huh? Isn’t “manipulative” what Hill is supposed to be? And it’s absurd to state that this Hill is not “lovable.” If he didn’t project amiability, the townspeople would never take to him or his conman concoctions.
Some critics cannot avoid the temptation of tearing down a show because it’s not the one they envisioned in their own brilliant minds: mostly nonwhite principals, edginess, more woke, less woke, experimental staging, etc. And that’s a shame. But the hundreds of Winter Garden audience members at the several performances I’ve attended who wax rhapsodically about the show during intermission and as they leave their seats don’t care what those critics think. They’re too busy feeling uplifted after two and a half hours of pure enjoyment. |
