
This 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 (Sw…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:58PM[SHARE]Parts 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, is…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]In 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 motivations,…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]Chess 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 America…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]"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 still h…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]The 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 11:57PM[SHARE]While 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 itsel…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]The 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 music…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]Big 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 11:57PM[SHARE]After 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. This isn'…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 11:57PM[SHARE]Election 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 is …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AM[SHARE]Icke'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 result…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AM[SHARE]His 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, and with…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AM[SHARE]Mark 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 polit…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:54AM[SHARE]The 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 Mark …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AM[SHARE]It'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"eve…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AM[SHARE]Reid, 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 stalwar…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AM[SHARE]And 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, sexually …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AM[SHARE]Icke'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 true t…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AM[SHARE]The 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 into the…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 12:53AM[SHARE]The post The Queen of Versailles appeared first on Did They Like It?.
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:04AM[SHARE]And Chenoweth is a wonder, sounding a little bit country whenever Jackie is most herself, as in "Each and Every Day," a love song to the infant Victoria; taking her high notes out for a spin…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]Saddled with an unmemorable score by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and a confused book by Lindsey Ferrentino (Amy and the Orphans), Versailles glides by as bland bio-musical for much of …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]This A-list team has been able to create some genuinely arresting moments, but they are fleeting in a busy show that still doesn't quite know what story it wants to tell. It's like a house t…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]There is a two-hour-and-40-minute luxury-car crash happening at the St. James Theatre. If I were the litigious type, I'd be trying to figure out how to sue for whiplash. Instead, here I am s…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]The performances, including a megatallented ensemble, are also excellent. As expected, Chenoweth is a force, and though Jackie isn't really a "likable" figure, the Emmy Award winner draws ou…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]Like the 90,000"square-foot, $100-million palace that the Siegels are determined to build for themselves in Orlando, The Queen of Versailles is nothing if not ambitious. But like that same p…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]I hoped the tag-team of Chenoweth and Arden would have magic to do. No such luck. The actress is a theatrical force, as everybody knows, but Simone Biles can't do a back handspring on a toot…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:02AM[SHARE]Much like the ill-fated Tammy Faye from last year, Versailles (directed by Michael Arden) toggles between different modus operandi " in this case, campy comedic sendup, surface level social …
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:01AM[SHARE]But The Queen of Versailles isn't camp. It's cheap tat, queasy spectacle, grubby glitz. It doesn't burrow beneath its surface wealth to ask anything of substance. The post Kristin Chenoweth'…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 01:01AM[SHARE]Set on the remote edge of a small Idaho town, LITTLE BEAR RIDGE ROAD centers on a razor-tongued aunt and her long-estranged nephew who find themselves suddenly back in each other's lives " t…
SOURCE: Did They Like It? at 10:48PM[SHARE]

