Reviews

With only a few episodes left I feel I can safely assess this series as a 10. The writing is sharp, the actors extremely credible and the corny touches that might feel forced in any other show are pulled off with aplomb here. We wait for the eponymous character's hair to fly back, a scene of a whale or dolphin appears as if we're seeing into her head and BAM she has pieced together the most salient facts of a case that no one else could have and, inevitably, wins the case. What could hav been cheesy is so moving because we developed such an overwhelming empathy for her character. Is it a completely honest portrayal of someone "on the spectrum?" As a licensed mental health professional there are many moments where I thought "No..she wouldn't be smiling or expressing emotion the way she does" but overall they stay true to what someone with autism might be like. It's called a spectrum after all. The point is despite minor flaws this is the most positive portrayal of someone on the spectrum I've ever seen and I hope it helps people understand the challenges these humans face everyday - even when you have an astounding IQ of 164. I say human and not people because too often society treats these people as if they were sub-human. Sadly, these prejudices cross country and cultural divides.

ENOUGH PRATTLE. The most important thing is it's extremely ENTERTAINING.. it proves you don't need sex & violence to reach a mass audience EVEN WHEN YOU MAKE AMERICANS READ SUBTITLES!

I really wanted to like this. I wouldn't consider myself a Renthead but the show holds a singular place in my heart, validating my experience in the mid-late 80s in San Francisco & NYC as an entire generation died and no one me seemed to notice for years & years on end. This came out after the second wave of deaths in the 90s & right around the time the cocktails with protease inhibitors began to help people live with HIV. Before that people often went from no visible signs of illness to death in sometimes weeks not even months.

I saw it on Broadway several times, and a couple of road company versions, the very flat movie version and the filmed stage version with most of the original cast. I've listened to the original B'Way cast countless times. Okay maybe a little renthead-ish.

That said, I found this buried in my Hulu feed not knowing a thing about the production before watching it. The opening was promising - I was completely ready to accept a Mark that wasn't your stereotypical neurotic NY'er and the guy playing Roger was dead on with a solid stage voice (turns out to be the only reliable voice in the cast) - it went downhill so rapidly it's hard to decide how to describe just how embarrassingly bad this production is.

Top down: An incredible set that seemingly sprawls a city block rendered inert and lifeless by some pretty nauseating camerawork and that's a big issue - way too much looks like it's shot through a fish lens! AND WTF? Really? Overhead shots? Just because you can does not mean it's a good artistic choice. The audience is a terrible distraction when it's not just so loud it drowns out the singing completely. Caging an audience within a set was a terrible idea. There are moments I wondered what the people who were calmly sitting in their seats were thinking - there were rows of people with flat affect: emotionless. Balcony seats? It was a bizarre contrast to people lining the stage screaming or shots of people sanguinely mouthing the lyrics in their seats.

This version takes much expected cuts in language that do indeed weaken it but the lack of any rhyme or reason to the stupid little changes to offensive-neutral material is puzzling at best. It's Hicksville assh-s - not Jersey. Her character's inherent irony is that she's from white middle class Long Island! Suffice to say the originals had back story that made their characters more relatable; none of that is present in this incarnation.

The emotional content is spoiled further by performances that, to be kind, one might say, um, are spotty? They are not helped by either being over or under-miked throughout the production. Did anybody audition or what? It's painfully clear the majority of the cast is in way above they're heads AND vocal ranges - with the exception of Roger and THE nadir of the casting: this A-N-G-E-L is DOA (that is something the performer is doing but it's not singing).

AND SORRY... that last number with the original cast members? Completely muddled. The few notes sung by the original Collins just rubs in how bad these performers are. To quote a line from another famous musical "I felt nothing."