Imperial Theatre, New York, NY.
April 5, 2025.
Smash, the NBC musical drama of 2012, was by no means actually a smash. Regardless of that, it garnered a cult following of musical theater devotees, and when previews opened to the re-imagined Broadway present in March 2025, they had been out in full drive. No matter what any critic may write concerning the intricacies of advantage or lack thereof, the viewers of the preview present I attended was nothing however rousingly enthusiastic. The traditional show-within-a-show actually has all of it. There are a lot of shiny objects bobbling on the floor of depth. However, they by no means dive down to truly search it. From my seat, although, that was simply positive. The shiny objects had been shimmering, buoyant, enjoyable to observe and made fairly sounds.
The story is the convoluted journey {that a} Broadway present takes on its strategy to opening night time. Whereas the TV present was a drama, this musical absolutely embraces comedy. Every character is almost excessive, however in a Michael Scott from The Workplace sort of means – so absurd it’s intestine busting. The e book is a bit meandering, with just a few too many storylines to every develop their depth. However the sturdy appearing drives the present, together with the belting musical numbers and pleasant dancing.
Merely, there’s a Broadway present within the works — an illusively lighthearted telling of Marilyn Monroe’s life, however not one of the darkish stuff. Whether or not this strategy works is a battle between the creatives, made worse when the lead actress taking part in Marilyn goes into full technique appearing mode, inflicting all types of issues. One end result being a query as to who will play Marilyn on opening night time? The reply is much less necessary than the journey to determine it out, because the viewers is handled to a number of variations of the driving music, “Let Me Be Your Star”, from just a few of the candidates. We heard it a minimum of thrice from three completely different singers, and I couldn’t select a favourite. These women can all sing.
Brooks Ashmanskas performs the director Nigel, serving up comedy on a silver platter of bitchy theater one-liners like a cater-waiter who doesn’t care in case you take a canapé or not. However you do each time, since you simply should have yet one more tasty morsel. His presence onstage is definitely worth the worth of admission alone. The small however mighty dancer refrain is flexible, hysterical and akin to proficient sticky glue that retains the present intact – provided that that sticky glue was the sort with glitter in it, these ubiquitous shiny objects of enjoyment.
There are a number of layers to this model of Smash, most of them superficial. That mentioned, I don’t want an enormous, showy, belt-y, glittering, over-the-top Broadway present to have the depth of Les Misérables, Lease and even the TV present (though one may argue how a lot depth that had both). The 2-and-a-half-hour run time felt like 45 minutes, my abdomen damage from laughing once I left, and I walked out of the theater able to belt a ballad and twirl in the course of 45th Road in a (fake) fur coat.
By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
