Broadway's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown has closed on Broadway (along with lots of other shows). January is usually the thinning of the herd, and this time Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson along with others were closed. But I had seen Bloody Bloody a lot, and I wanted to see Women on the Verge before it closed.
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I am not sure how to explain the wonderful, explosive, giddy disaster this show was.
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But I'll try.
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The songs were, on the whole, dreadful. They tried to match the dialog of the movie too much. "An island in the sky" is poetic in Spanish. Singing about a bay and saltwater in the air in English is asinine. Poor wonderful Sheri Rene Scott was the unhappy recipient of most of these tunes.
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Also - why dye Sheri Rene Scott's hair. She is a crazy ass blonde, let her go. And no, she wouldn't clash with Patti LuPone who took off her blond wig and show'ed dark hair much of the play.
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Even Patti LuPone was stuck with crappy songs, until a showstopper in Act 2 which explains why she was in the show to begin with.
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The 3 young people (include Justin Warini) were very good. Laure Benanti (sitting with Patti and Sheri on the bench) had already won a Tony for her work in Gypsy and she had by far the best and most fun role.
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Brian Stoke Mitchell, usually a great actor, was stuck in a less than cardboard role. If possible he had less than 1 dimension. He was hired, seemingly, for his deep voice and that alone.
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Disaster.
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Fun, Crazy, Beautiful... disaster.