Now that All About Us is open for public viewing, I’ll post a few comments I had jotted down after viewing the final dress this past Sunday night.
The good and the bad news is that the creative team has, IMHO, faithfully distilled the essence of Wilder’s play into a 2+ hour musical. So if you like the source play, I think you’ll like this musical, but if you don’t, I don’t think that the addition of music [albeit charming music] will make you a convert to the material.
The show ran an uninterrupted 2.5 hours [aside for a few momentary technical glitches]; no intermission. It sounds like they’ve tightened it up quite a bit by the first preview. The three part structure of the source remained intact. For me, the adaptation of the first part was just right. I felt they dwelt a bit too long on the second part, at the expense of the third part, which seemed more perfunctory and seemed to have the least amount of music. Dramatically, of course, the last section is much darker, so probably doesn’t lend itself to musicalization quite as well.
The score is unmistakably John Kander – it doesn’t sound like anyone else. I wouldn’t say that it’s my most favorite of his scores, but it serves the piece well enough, and there are some really delightful moments. I would really like to hear it again. The band did pretty well for their first staged run. The orchestrations are clear and clean. There were a few music cuing glitches that they stopped to iron out with the cast.
The design is spare but efficient, and functions beautifully. The acting and singing were all at least proficient, and in some cases considerably more – particularly from the two Tony winners, Cady Huffman and Shuler Hensley. Eartha was Eartha; the part suits her and obviously plays to her strengths. Wonderful material especially for Sabina, Mr. Antrobus, the mammoths, and the Philosophers.
I did not feel the sock-in-the-gut wrench of the third act material of the original material in this adaptation, which surprised me. I’d figured they would work out a way to make that devastation hit home even more poignantly with music. Although Shuler singing The Skin of Our Teeth at the end is very nice.
All in all, a very laudable effort with some great material. There are plenty of laughs in the first 2/3 of the show. Some nice performances. And the creators, IMHO, have done a good job distilling and adapting the material to the new medium. And of course, I was viewing a dress rehearsal, so all are still settling into their roles, notes, props, and costumes.
Thanks again to DR JoseSPiano for the opportunity to see just a little slice of the creative process at work.
