I would call it my favorite musical if going by sheer number of songs I love. Grew up adoring my parents’ cast album and reading the story in the gatefold and extra mini-paper flap of cast notes. Seeing tv commercials ad infinitum when Richard Burton toured it into Chicago in like 1980…
When I finally saw a production in 1985 at the Fabulous Fox theatre in ATL, starring Richard Harris, I was… underwhelmed with how the story played out. Saw a limited production at Lincoln Center many years later and it was Zzzzz.
It either needed to be like the 4-hour epic it briefly was, or none of the drama works. Now to take the songs, shoehorn in some Sorkin-isms, make up new motivations….An exercise in futility.
The one brief shining moment may exist only on the Original Cast LP on Columbia Records.