Well, I'm glad I was at least somewhat prepared for the desecration of the operatic masterwork Porgy and Bess that's now on view on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theater, or I probably would have booed loudly during the performance and caused a scene. Interviews given by director Diane Paulus, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and musician Diedre L. Murray concerning their "adaptation" of this beloved work as a Broadway musical in advance of the show's pre-Broadway run at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. made it clear that these women have little if any respect for the towering achievement of composer George Gershwin, librettist DuBose Heyward, and lyricist Ira Gershwin (who wrote a small percentage of the lyrics for the opera). Several nervy comments were also made by the star of the new production, four-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald.

Stephen Sondheim, thanks be to him, fired up a controversy when he publicly called out Paulus, Parks, Murray, and McDonald for their remarks. Now that The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, as the work was inaccurately and idiotically retitled some years ago, has opened at the Rodgers, New York audiences have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not the anger and concern expressed by Sondheim before he saw the production were well founded. My opinion? Probably not even in his worst nightmares could he have envisioned what has been done to what used to be one of the great masterworks of civilization.

Among the mostly positive reviews and other media coverage of the show when it played at ART, there were several articles that betrayed ignorance of both the history of Porgy and Bess and the extent of the changes that were made in the course of this "adaptation." The generally more negative notices filed by critics in conjunction with the Broadway opening evidenced greater knowledge and experience of the work, with especially insightful reviews from Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times and Martin Bernheimer of the Financial Times. Writing as someone who knows the opera almost as well as the back of my hand, my goal here is to offer something like a thorough, detailed analysis of exactly what the adapters have wrought.

For the first few moments of the production, you might think, "Maybe this isn't going to be so bad after all." The show curtain displays the original, three-word title of the work, not the infuriating new title; and the performance begins with conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos leading a reduced (but not disastrously so) orchestra through about 20 measures' worth of the thrilling orchestral introduction to the piece. But then, thanks to Diedre L. Murray, the intro morphs into a conventional, unexciting overture that includes snatches of Porgy's theme, "There's a Boat That's Leavin' Soon for New York," and the Jazzbo Brown Blues, the last of which has been cut from the show proper.

The show curtain rises to reveal a set (designed by Riccardo Hernandez) so ugly that it has been deplored even by those who have enjoyed this production overall. Instead of a teeming courtyard representing the vital community of Catfish Row, we see an ill-defined locale that looks something like the inside of a large storage shed. Nikki Renee Daniels begins a lovely rendition of the lullaby "Summertime" -- and then she's joined by her husband, Jake, in singing to their baby. Having Jake butt in here is a blunder in two respects: (1) "Summertime" is Clara's one shining moment in Porgy and Bess, and the focus should be on her alone throughout the song; (2) Jake's later attempt to calm the crying child with the jaunty ditty "A Woman is a Sometime Thing" is supposed to be an amusing contrast to Clara's soothing ballad, so bringing him into "Summertime" dulls the point.

As the action proceeds, it becomes all too clear that a huge amount of material -- I would guesstimate about 40 percent -- has been cut from the opera outright. The sung dialogue sections in Porgy and Bess as written are some of the most musically and dramatically effective in the work. In several previous presentations, including the first Broadway revival and the 1959 film version, the music was cut from many of these sections and the text was delivered as spoken dialogue -- as it was in the DuBose and Dorothy Heyward play Porgy, on which the opera was based. But The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess goes further in offering new spoken dialogue, penned by Suzan Lori-Parks, that in no way improves on what Heyward wrote. So why hire someone to write new lines? Sorry, but an answer to that question would involve a discussion of racial and gender politics that I'm not prepared to get into.

Ironically, in view of the new title, this adaptation also discards George Gershwin's brilliant orchestrations in favor of unworthy new ones by William David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke. The original choral arrangements have been messed with as well -- a pity, because it certainly sounds like this ensemble could have sung "Gone, Gone, Gone," "Overflow," "Leavin' for the Promised Land," and other magnificent pieces as they were originally conceived. (It's telling that I could find no credit for the new choral arrangements in the Playbill.)

The performances of Norm Lewis as Porgy and Audra McDonald as Bess are willfully off the mark; both are playing characters markedly different from those created by Heyward and the Gershwins, and they're performing in a style appropriate to a gritty, slice of life indie film by a contemporary director rather than the more stylized and (if you will) romanticized manner that suits musical theater and opera. Lewis's Porgy is so surly that he fails to engender any sympathy at all, a far cry from the good-natured life force that this crippled beggar was meant to be. When Lewis sings the moving interlude "Nighttime, daytime," he sounds angry rather than lonely, so the audience is left dry-eyed. He doesn't even crack a smile until Scene 3, and then only because -- wait for it! -- Porgy has finally gotten laid. And with the excision of "God got plenty of money for the saucer" and other passages in which Porgy used to express his faith and inspire his friends, the character no longer reads as one of the community's spiritual bulwarks.

Despite what you may have read and heard everywhere else, McDonald as Bess gives what is in my opinion a tremendously self-indulgent, off-putting performance marked by lots of mumbling and twitching. Here we have a physically and emotionally battered woman who never seems truly happy during the course of the proceedings, not even when she's living in conjugal bliss with Porgy. There's no arc to the character, and as a result, the story becomes dull and uninteresting. (Could you ever have imagined those adjectives being applied to Porgy and Bess?) Equally sad is the fact that both McDonald and Lewis make hash of much of their music by singing it in what they presumably view as a less operatic, more "realistic" fashion, with lots of added rests, loose note values, and quirky pop/jazz phrasing that removes any sense of line or legato from Gershwin's score. One of the worst moments of the evening is "I Got Plenty of Nothing" [sic], in which Lewis annoyingly shifts back and forth between octaves every four measures and thereby sabotages one of the most joyous songs ever written for the American musical theater.

Nearly all of the other characters fare poorly as well, due to a combination of inept rewriting and misinterpretation. In the plum role of Sportin' Life, David Alan Grier is overtly nasty rather than faux-charming in an oily way, and he walks with an exaggerated strut that makes it look for all the world like his body is twisted as badly as Porgy's. Serena's lament "My Man's Gone Now," usually a show-stopper, goes for next to nothing as sung by Bryonha Marie Parham through no fault of her own, but rather because the key is wrong for her voice and the new arrangement and orchestrations are awful. In this bad-dream version of Porgy and Bess, only Phillip Boykin's Crown and NaTasha Yvette Williams' Maria are fully satisfying -- because the performances are so strong and, just as importantly, because their material was less severely futzed with by the adapters.

A full catalogue of this production's infelicities is beyond me, but please let me cite a few more. Now that there is so much spoken dialogue among the black characters, gone is the highly effective conceit of the original opera in which only the few white characters spoke rather than sang. Because there are no blackouts between scenes in this production, we get no sense of the passage of time. While the confrontation scene between Bess and Crown on Kittiwah Island is the strongest in the show (because it's performed pretty much as originally written), the climax is a shocker, and not in a good way: Bess at first fights off the violent Crown's sexual advances, but she eventually gives in and then assumes the role of aggressor, egging him on to screw her in the underbrush with exhortations of "Come on! Come on!" This may have been intended as a new interpretation in which the woman "takes ownership" of being raped, but...let's just say that it doesn't work, and leave it at that.

Before I go, let me list a few more random idiocies of staging and rewriting that dot this production. When Bess returns from Kittiwah in a mentally deranged state (which makes no sense if she wasn't raped), she is put to bed in the middle of the courtyard. In the original version of the opera, Jake and the entire crew of his fishing boat are lost at sea in a hurricane; here, just as the storm begins, the crew members return to Catfish Row and explain that "Jake sent us back." (Really? On what boat?) When Porgy kills Crown, he does so not by strangling him with his powerful arms and hands but by sticking him with Mariah's knife, thereby implicating her in the murder (according to Sportin' Life).

Then there are inexplicable revisions to the original lyrics. Sportin' Life's remark to Bess, "I can't see for the life of me what you is hangin' round this place for" has been changed to "...what you is doin' round this place for," which is ungrammatical even by Catfish Row standards. Bess's reply, originally "I can't remember ever meetin' a nothin' what I likes less that I does you," is now "...what I likes worse that I does you." (Have you ever heard anyone say that he or she "likes someone worse" than someone else? I doubt it. The expression is never used because it makes no sense.) In "There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York," Sportin' Life's repeated phrase "that's where we belong" has for some reason been changed to "that's where you belong," and the phrase "in the latest Paris styles" is now "just like the Paris styles," which doesn't scan with the music.

The egregious rethinking of Porgy and Bess by Paulus, Parks, and Murray continues right up to the end. The title of this review was inspired by that of the contrapuntal trio "Oh, Bess, Oh, Where's My Bess?" in which Porgy, back from having been hauled off to prison for questioning about the death of Crown, pleads with his friends to tell him where his woman has gone while Serena and Maria try to persuade him that's he's better off without her. Here, the opening lyrics of the trio have been changed to "Oh, Bess, I want my Bess," although the title is listed in the program as "Where's My Bess?" The emotionally shattering finale of the opera, "Oh, Lord, I'm on My Way," is less than shattering in this production because of the rearrangement of the choral and orchestral parts.

In the final moments of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, the ugly set flies up and out of sight. (It should only have done so two and a half hours earlier.) The fly-up reveals a dark void -- or, if you prefer, a black hole, which is a perfect description of this execrable production.

THE BEST

I'm placing The Book of Mormon at the top of this section even though I have some reservations about the show, which is a monster hit. (A colleague of mine who works at the box office told me that the regular-priced seats are basically sold out for a year, and even premium tix are hard to come by). There are a few moments in Mormon that made me a little queasy, including the AIDS-related material and the way the onstage murder of one of the minor characters is handled. But when all is said and done, this show is remarkably successful at achieving its goals. Plus, it's an almost completely original book musical -- not a "jukebox" show, not a revival or "revisal," and wonder of wonders, not based on a popular movie. These days, that counts for a lot.

As it happened, the largely dispiriting fall of 2011 brought us at least one other excellent, original musical-- but this one had a limited run Off-Broadway, so a lot of people weren't aware of it. Michael John LaChiusa's Queen of the Mist, based on the true story of the first woman ever to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel (!), was one of the most moving theatrical experiences I've ever had, and it would have stood out as a very special show even in a stronger year. It's a sad sign of our times that this production of The Transport Group had a short life in the gym at Judson Memorial Church while the company's far inferior Lysistrata Jones, which had been previously staged in the same venue, received a Broadway transfer -- presumably because it was thought to be more "commercial." (How'd that work out for you guys?) On a happier note, Queen of the Mist is going to have a cast recording that will make its glorious score available to the public at large and will hopefully prompt many future productions.

Hugh Jackman has probably done more to make musical theater seem "cool" again than any one other individual. That's what can happen when a hot-hot-hot movie star best known as an action hero returns to his stage roots in a concert show built around his talents as a song-and-dance man. Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway was one of the year's biggest hits, and deservedly so. The greatest testament I can give to the show is that I've sung its praises in writing (and in person to everyone I know) even though I found myself in the rare position of having to buy my ticket; because the production was considered a "theatrical concert" and therefore somehow ineligible for Tony, Drama Desk and other awards, only a limited number of critics and other theater journalists received press comps. So my rave is that of a paying customer who almost never has to pay for theater.

Of course, there were dozens of top-drawer performances by exceptionally talented actors in shows that opened in 2011, including Tony winners (Mark Rylance in Jerusalem, Frances McDormand in Good People, Bobby Cannavale in The Motherfucker With the Hat) and non-Tony winners (Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad in The Book of Mormon, Tony Sheldon in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the entire cast of The Normal Heart). A flawed but still fabulous revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies was sparked by the work of leading players Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell, Danny Burstein, and Ron Raines, as well as thrilling turns by Elaine Paige, Terri White, Jayne Houdyshell, and opera veteran Rosalind Elias. The year also brought us several fine performances in less than worthy vehicles; a complete list would be miles long, but some of the most prominent examples were Laura Osnes and Jeremy Jordan in Bonnie & Clyde (God, I hate that ampersand!), Tyne Daly in Master Class, Donna Murphy in The People in the Picture, and Beth Leavel in the execrable Baby, It's You!.

As always, some of the best shows of the year were seen Off-Broadway. Stephen Karam's Sons of the Prophet, a beautiful play in and of itself, was further beautified in the Roundabout's production at the Laura Pels by an exquisite performance from Santino Fontana, who has come into his own as one of New York's finest actors after surviving an extremely unfair and unfortunate incident that caused him to leave the company of the 2010 revival of A View From the Bridge during rehearsals. (Don't ask.)

Nothing is more powerful than a well-done piece of agitprop theater, and Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was very well done, indeed. This exposé of the dark side of the Apple, specifically the horrific working conditions at the company's huge factory in China, was so disturbing that I did as instructed by a sheet of paper in the program and wrote to Apple to urge that steps be taken to ameliorate the situation a.s.a.p. (Yes, I received a boilerplate response, and yes, I wrote back to say that a boilerplate response was useless and especially shameful given the seriousness of the situation.)

Audience response to Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays was rapturous. Most of the brief playlets in this collection were hilarious, yet still managed to make cogent points about marriage equality. Truly side-splitting were the two entries written by Paul Rudnick and featuring the comic force of nature that goes by the name of Harriet Harris; another gem was a piece that Doug Wright adapted largely verbatim from an actual thread on Facebook. The two more serious playlets, by Neil LaBute and Moisés Kaufman, brought some gravitas to a program that was, for the most part, wonderfully light and very, very funny.

There were lots of other delights to be found Off-Broadway, and even Off-Off-Broadway. One of the most delightful could almost be viewed as a Christmas present, since it opened on December 4: The Peccadillo Theater Company's production of the classic Kaufman and Hart comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner, praiseworthy for the stellar work of Jim Brochu and a strong cast as well as for Broadway-caliber set design, costumes, and lighting -- all of this for an extremely low ticket price. I don't know how they did it.

THE WORST

In theater -- as in every other facet of life -- there's bad, and then there's BAD. Worst of all in my opinion are plays and musicals that treat a deadly serious subject so ineptly, with so little talent evident on the part of the creators, that the results are deeply offensive. Don't get me wrong: The jukebox musical Baby, It's You! was a worthless enterprise that should never have been produced on Broadway or, for that matter, in a community theater in West Podunk. But that show is about the rise and fall of the '60s girl group The Shirelles, not exactly a subject of tremendous import. So I didn't hate it with the white-hot passion that characterized my hatred for Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, a sophomoric sit-com about the last night in the life of Martin Luther King. The silly script does take a serious turn in its final half hour or so, but it's too little, too late, and it has the effect of making what came before seem even sillier in retrospect.

The three "comedies" that make up the program of one-acts titled Relatively Speaking variously concern a man who's in prison for killing his parents; a long-married woman who turns out to be useless and unbearably needy in the wake of her husband's death; and a middle-aged loser who runs away with his son's bride at the wedding. The problem is not that such subjects can't be treated comedically to great effect, but it takes something of a genius to pull off this sort of thing; and while Ethan Coen, Elaine May, and/or Woody Allen may be placed in that category based on any number of their past achievements, the plays they came up with for Relatively Speaking are not works of genius, to put it kindly. This show is from hunger.

Sometimes, bad shows have a longer life than they deserve, and sometimes they close in a flash, the victims of deservedly terrible reviews and poisonous word of mouth. Relatively Speaking opened on October 20 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre and is still running. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark should have gone dark months ago, but it's still darkening the Foxwoods Theater. (God, I hate that name!) On the other hand, Matthew Lombardo's High -- all about a foul-mouthed, ex-drug-addict nun (Kathleen Turner) charged with counseling a young druggie who at one point strips off all of his clothes for no other reason than to sell tickets -- only managed to stagger through 29 previews and seven performances at the Booth in April. And the noisy, enervating disaster that was Frank Wildhorn's Wonderland had a blink-and-you-missed-it run at the Marquis before yielding that theater to Follies. Talk about going from the ridiculous to the sublime!

Beyond Broadway, I saw at least three plays that made me angry. Wild Animals You Should Know, by Thomas Higgins, is partly about a scout master facing sexual abuse allegations by one of the scouts; but the fact that the aggressively seductive "boy" in question was played by an actor who looked to be in his mid 20s, rather than the young teenager specified by the script, muddled whatever point Higgins was trying to be make and lent an extra-creepy air to the proceedings. The New Group presented Burning, a literally outrageous play by Thomas Bradshaw, and I still haven't decided which parts of this awful thing were most disgusting: The neo-Nazi finger-fucking his disabled sister to orgasm? The 15-year-old boy being "adopted" by two middle-aged gay men who then proceed to have sexual threesomes with him? There were so many possibilities! And I'm sorry that I saw a staged reading of Consent, by Frank J. Avella; I attended because I was led to believe that the play concerned the tragedy of anti-gay bullying among teenagers, but it actually has almost nothing to do with that. Instead, it's about a bunch of adults taking sexual advantage of a minor -- another deadly serious issue, but here handled in such a smutty way that I wanted to take a shower after the performance. (Sorry, no Jerry Sandusky joke intended.)

Finally, I must note what I perceive to be an alarming decline in critical standards. That several pieces of theatrical trash received some positive reviews this year is pretty damned scary, if you ask me. So I was glad that Entertainment Weekly's review of "The Worst Theater of 2011" included not only shows that were savaged by critics but also Relatively Speaking, Burning, and a few other horrors that garnered good notices from people who should know better but, apparently, do not. Thanks, EW!

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Walter Bobbie (Roger), Adrienne Barbeau (Rizzo), Barry Bostwick (Danny Zuko), and Carole Demas (Sandy Dumbrowski) from the original Grease. Remembered forever!

It's raining on prom night...

"Freddy, My Love," featuring Katie Hanley (the original Marty), who was also in the original cast of Godspell.

Chang-chang, changitty-chang-she bop, that's the way it should be!

Among the many celebs to appear on the New Amsterdam stage during the proceedings were Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli -- in the persons of Amy Griffin and Christine Pedi.

The show's highlights included presentations by the company of Chicago...

...and the company of Mamma Mia!.

The Follies company noted that they'll soon be yielding the Marquis Theatre to the revival of Evita. They brought out one of their stars, Elaine Paige -- who happens to have created the role of Evita in the original London production -- to wow the crowd with a few measures of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."

A number titled "Everyday I'm Shufflin," directed and choreographed by Shea Sullivan, celebrated the participation of national touring companies in the BC/EFA fundraising.

No question, the most hilarious presentation of the afternoon had the kids from Mary Poppins performing scenes from "junior" versions of such inappropriate-for-youngsters plays as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Here's the company of Memphis in "What's Goin' On."

Two lithe lads from Naked Boys Singing in "Forever Naked."

The company of The Lion King performs "In Your Left Ear," directed and choreographed by Ray Mercer.

The fabulous Leslie Uggams proved herself a great sport by appearing with the company of Anything Goes in a number that made fun of her obliteration of the lyrics of "June is Bustin' Out All Over" in a performance that has become infamous thanks to YouTube.

Adam Riegler, a.k.a. Puggsley, collected for The Addams Family rather than for BC/EFA (because his show hasn't recouped during its Broadway run).

The presentation award of the competition was won by the company of Billy Elliot for their performance of Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," with choreography by Sarah Burns (adapted from the show's original choreography).

At the end of the show, Broadway megastars Hugh Jackman, Bernadette Peters, and Daniel Radcliffe took the stage to announce the winners in the various categories.

Here's to Hugh!

Don Giovanni is generally conceded to be one of the supreme masterworks of civilization. And yet, as Jay Goodwin reminds us in his notes for the new Metropolitan Opera production, "many scholars have argued that [Lorenzo] Da Ponte's libretto...is dramatically a bit of a mess, only saved by Mozart's transcendent music."

Certainly, the libretto has its issues in being so episodic -- not to mention the fact that, especially in the last half of the work, there are perhaps too many moments when the action comes to a standstill in order for one or another of the characters to emote in long, slow arias. But what arias! It would be silly to quibble with any production as beautifully sung as this one is, and as for the drama, director Michael Grandage and company play it for all its worth.

Baritone Mariusz Kwiecien's debut in the production was delayed because of a back injury, so I rescheduled my press tickets in order to experience him in the role. He was more than the worth the wait. The sheer beauty of the voice is extraordinary, and Kwiecen also triumphs as an actor: His Giovanni is the epitome of refined, aristocratic gallantry when charming one of his many female conquests and, conversely, calls to mind a sloppy, horny, drunken frat boy when at his worst behavior.

Marina Rebeka, a handsome woman with a gorgeous, superbly controlled voice, is perfection as Donna Anna; her volume and power are thrilling in "Or sai che l'onore" and other big moments, yet she can sound like the loveliest of lyric sopranos in the lady's more tender utterances.

The production is notable for some interesting casting against type. The fact that Mojca Erdmann is much taller than the usual Zerlina, and Joshua Bloom more handsome than the typical Masetto, brings new colors to their relationship. For that matter, Luca Pisaroni's Leporello is considerably taller than Kwiecen's Giovanni, and this has an intriguing effect on the servant/master dynamic.

As expertly conducted by Louis Langrée, the magnificent Met orchestra conjures the sweetness of true love, the eroticism of seduction, the fury of sworn vengeance, and the horrors of Hell by turns. The overture and the scenes with the Commendatore (sung with great authority by Stefan Kocan) have never sounded more fearsome and, at the other end of the spectrum, Anna's "Non mi dir," Zerlina's "Vedrai carino," and Ottavio's arias (rendered with honeyed tone by Ramon Vargas) never more beautiful.

Grandage's staging eschews ludicrous updating and cheap tricks, instead offering clear storytelling and a number of memorable images -- as when, during Leporello's "Catalogue" aria, the extent of Giovanni's sexual exploits is illustrated by the image of two dozen or more women posed on the balconies of Christopher Oram's simple, effective set. The color palette of both the sets and costumes (also designed by Oram) shies away from the blue end of the spectrum. For the benefit of those who love special effects, the real flames that shoot up around Giovanni in his moment of reckoning are awesome.

Miscalculations are few and minor: Ben Wright's lively choreography takes a little too much focus away from Zerlina's vocal in "Giovinette che fate all'amore," and at the performance I attended, the stage fog used for the graveyard scene telegraphed its presence by seeping onto the stage towards the end of the previous scene. Otherwise, all is very well here. This production is one that the Met will be happy to keep in its repertoire for years to come.

Their current offering is All American, a 1962 flop (86 perfs.) with a book by Mel Brooks (!) and a score by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams that includes one of the most gorgeous songs ever written for the theater, "Once Upon a Time." The original production starred Ray Bolger and Eileen Herlie; the Musicals Tonight! cast is headed by Matt Wilson, Kate Marilly, Sean Bell, Jessica Wagner, and Mark Thomas Epperson, and also includes Renee Barnett, Sara Jayne Blackmore, Ronald Brown, Jody Cook, Judah Gavra, David Brent Howard, Andy Jones, James Kidd, BJ Olson, Sam Prince, Jessica Taige, and Georgia Tapp. Here are my photos of the show, which runs October 25-November 6 in the company's new home, The Lion at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street). For more information, visit www.musicalstonight.org.

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In musical theater land, 2010 was all about Stephen Sondheim, as everyone celebrated his life and work during his 80th birthday year. Now it's time to honor another great composer/lyricist, Jerry Herman, who was born on July 10, 1931 and whose wonderfully hummable hit scores include Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage aux Folles. Among the several upcoming tributes that I know about, the first one has "the best of times" written all over it: Perfect Hermany, a show starring the amazingly energetic, multi-talented Jason Graae, to be performed Oct. 18, 19, 24, and 25 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Here's what the hilarious Mr. Graae had to tell me about this special event.

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BROADWAYSTARS: Jason, there's a live recording of your show that was just handed to me. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, so you'll have to tell me how wonderful it is.

JASON GRAAE: Oh God, it is so wonderful. I actually think it's better before you hear it.

STARS: Why is that?

JASON: Just the anticipation of it. I don't think it can possibly deliver what it is in your mind.