An original, new musical comedy about timing, connections, and unexpected detours. Meet Dougal, an impossibly upbeat Brit who has just landed in New York City for the first time to attend th…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:49PMThe effervescent new musical comedy “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” which opened on Thursday at the Longacre Theater, is the most charmingly simple show on Broadway right…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMI felt a disorienting generational whiplash throughout the treacly rom-com Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). The latest British musical to make it through that country’s off-of…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMBut once the two are no longer strangers, the score, which most pointedly recalls Adam Gwon’s similarly small-scale tunes for Ordinary Days, loses its precision since there’s only so man…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PM“Two Strangers” is one of those rom-coms where the two lovers are wrong for each other. He’s too boyish, she’s too brittle. It’s a new soul/old soul dynamic. That frisson works ini…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMWhen the show’s creators zero in on those feelings, something a lot more specific and wistful than a love story between two strangers, the piece comes alive. If only it stayed there. The p…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMWhat elevates the show from an assembly-line rom-com is the way Barne and Buchan balance the genre’s baked-in cliches with sharp left turns and nuanced commentary about life experience and…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PM“Two Strangers” is funny in places, occasionally moving in others, and just a little off-feeling throughout, as if it is trying too hard to charm across the storytelling and whimsy chasm…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMTutty is an absolute star in the role, displaying boisterous enthusiasm as well as a tender naivete that hints at the inevitable act two disappointment to come. The actor’s flawless comedi…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMTwo Strangers could have sunk into treacly territory, but it stays afloat on a banter-filled book and twinkling contemporary score by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan. While the lyrics aren’t grou…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:47PMThis fall, see powerhouse trio Tony Award® winner Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge!), acclaimed stage and screen star Lea Michele (Funny Girl, Glee), and breakout talent Nicholas Christopher (Swee…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:58PMParts of the show are absolutely thrilling and parts are flat at best, aggressively dumb at worst. At least Mayer’s production, starring Nicholas Christopher, Lea Michele and Aaron Tveit, …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMIn its sweeping musical moments, it’s easy to see why “Chess” has diehard fans. However, there’s so much else that brings everything down: clunky plotting, nonsensical character moti…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMChess has always been a great score in search of a good book, and writer Danny Strong believes he’s cracked the code by reframing it as a self-referential examination of Cold War-era Ameri…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM“One Night In Bangkok” walked so Sam Rockwell’s White Lotus monologue could run. The song is such a ridiculous rush that it pretty much justifies the whole project. I think some plot s…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMThe script has been reworked and the characters retooled, only for Chess to end up back where it started: impeccable music, a flat story and a baffling execution. But the eternal contradicti…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMWhile I found myself longing for a wholly heartfelt Chess — whatever that might be — I also enjoyed the peppery, style-forward way that this production almost makes the amoebic musical i…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMThe production at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre, directed by Michael Mayer, has plenty of good moves. Memorable and tuneful songs, including some bona fide bangers? Check! Slickly staged mus…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMBig numbers and baffling story almost spent, Chess leans into the possibility that nuclear war is extremely nigh, and the outcome of a final chess match could kill us all. There is even more…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMAfter the revelatory 2023 revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” which finally clarified another difficult 80s musical, there was hope that “Chess” might enjoy a similar breakthrough. T…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PMElection night. The polls predict a landslide victory. Everything is about to change. Direct from a sold-out, record-breaking, Olivier Award-winning West End run, Sophocles’ epic tragedy i…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AMIcke’s change in timeline trades catastrophe for suspense, ontological disaster for down-to-the-cuticles nail biting. Is this a fair exchange? Maybe. Is it electrifying? God, yes. The resu…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AMHis Oedipus, while glowing with his usual whip-smart language, doesn’t have much fun in the toppling. Each domino falls (“I killed who?! You’re my what?”) with complete earnestness, …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AMMark Strong and Lesley Manville, giving two of this year’s great performances, lead a brilliant cast that turns this millennia-old story of pride and familial dysfunction into a timely pol…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AMThe biggest pleasure of this prestige production is watching how Icke pastes these modern references onto a classic story. It’s often fun to watch, but never more than clever. The post Mar…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AMIt’s where we learn her story in all its graphic detail, and though Manville is one hell of an actor—utterly at ease in one moment, ferocious in the next, destroyed in the one after that…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AMReid, Strong and Manville are transfixing as awful revelation after revelation comes to light. Strong’s nice guy gives way to brutishness and boiling blood, and Manville’s heretofore sta…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AMAnd above all there is his wife, Jocasta, who—as played by the great Lesley Manville—is a creature of effortless fascination: confident, worldly, intelligent, practical passionate, sexua…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AMIcke’s work is really something: I can’t recall ever previously being as riveted at a Greek tragedy. And my admiration for his show is increased by how Icke manages to stay remarkably tr…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AMThe taut spin on “Oedipus” now on Broadway after a West End run last fall is a rare and magnificent feat of adaptation: Writer and director Robert Icke draws Sophocles’ ancient play in…
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