Take a look at what is being said about this new musical based on John Cassavetes’ film..
Broadway World: ** “Fans of his work will know van Hove is no stranger to using screens on stage and we see its use prominently again here. It is becoming a rather over-used trope, with far superior shows The Picture of Dorian Grey and Sunset Boulevard using them much more successfully. Here they add little but a visual overload. There are also video effects that feel over-stylised and a strobe that looks lazy and dated. Camera syncing comes with its own issues, with the camera giving a bird’s eye view of the stage often distractingly delayed.”
The Guardian: **** “Unadventurous musical adaptations of films comprise a crowded corner in the West End, but this one seems to shake up musical theatre itself. It may be the most unusual thing on the London stage right now and is captivating in its glittering strangeness.”
The FT: ** “Wainwright’s music is richly varied and sympathetic. Lush, lyrical, intricate, even capricious, it ranges from full-blown operatic emotional overdrive to a delicate solo accompanied by acoustic guitar for the director’s heartsore wife (Amy Lennox).”
Time Out: **** “There are no dance numbers, power ballads, lavish sets, or cute romantic storylines. By entering the West End, ‘Opening Night’ is almost inevitably inviting an audience that will be confused by it. And yet: there’s a palpable warmth to it. Maybe it’s a musical, maybe it isn’t, but under all the avant-garde bells and whistles, it unquestionably has a heart – a buoyancy and belief in humanity that’s lacking in the original film.”
All That Dazzles: * “Opening Night is a perplexing beast of a show. It confuses and seems to show a severe lack of understanding of the art of theatre, seemingly unbothered with the necessity to connect to its audience. It is a show where all of its production elements clash, never blending and suggesting multiple creative visions couldn’t reach an agreement, resulting in some ungodly mess.”
Evening Standard: * “Here Van Hove simplifies and updates the jazzy narrative of the film and shoves everything subtextual into the foreground. The show becomes a series of needy pleas for love and tedious emotional collapses, while Wainwright’s score skips from a Ravel homage/ripoff to hollow torch songs to footling showtunes. His lyrics range from the staggeringly obvious to the buttock-clenchingly pretentious.”
Express.co.uk: * “Not even a charismatic, soul-baring Sheridan Smith can save Ivo van Hove’s abominable, misjudged musical adaptation of John Cassavetes’ iconic, challenging 1977 film starring Gena Rowlands. Examinations of the punishing relationship between art and artist, or between a woman and the varyingly toxic men in her life, or even between self-destructive and self are all squandered.”
The Independent: *** “Rufus Wainwright’s songs reach new emotional heights, Smith’s performance is radiant – but Ivo van Hove’s stage adaptation of John Cassavetes’s 1977 film is sometimes misjudged.”
London Theatre.co.uk: *** The one thing that’s absolutely clear is Smith’s total commitment. She really gives something of herself in an emotionally raw turn, and, using that gorgeous powerhouse voice, lends some welcome dramatic heft to Wainwright’s meandering songs, which would be better suited as atmospheric underscoring. She plays particularly well off the excellent Nicola Hughes, and Hadley Fraser is a compellingly brash antagonist.”
Daily Mail: **** “Thank God also for Rufus Wainwright’s music. True, it sometimes dwindles into semi-tonal burbling. But it also explodes with the singer-songwriter’s gift for doomed glory. A spectacular duet with Nicola Hughes as an exasperated writer character even brought to mind the brassy swagger of All That Jazz, the 1979 film starring Roy Scheider.”
The Telegraph: ** “This musical adaptation of John Cassavetes’s film 1977 film lurches from one so-so number to the next.”
WhatsOnStage: ** “In the second half, the efforts of the entire ensemble actually bring about a measure of coherence. It’s not the least engaging evening of musical theatre I’ve ever sat through, but it is one of the most baffling wastes of talent.”
iNews: * ” Smith offers an utterly compelling portrait of a woman who is disintegrating mentally – and after an extended section involving fearsome strobe lighting, I felt as though I was too.”
Variety: “Smith, an actor with a strong fan base who has been very public about her past demons with regard to her theatrical behavior (she famously exited Sonia Friedman’s 2016 revival of “Funny Girl” in a storm of bad publicity), is cunning casting. She’s game and the least of the show’s problems. She handles both music and character with dedication, and repeatedly seeing her tear-stained face in close-up shows how seriously she takes the role. But, as with all the characters, her material lacks the depth to allow her to shine. Van Hove is many things, but the least of them is a playwright.”
Theatre & Tonic: ** “Amid van Hove’s dabbling and experimentation, the closing number of Opening Night is a dazzling reminder of what could have been as the cast joined together in an exuberant song-and-dance. Maybe it’s meant to gloss over the confusing and meandering shambles that came before it. Or maybe not. With van Hove, who really knows?”
The Stage: ** “Sheridan Smith struggles to illuminate this weird new musical from Ivo van Hove and Rufus Wainwright based on John Cassavetes’ 1977 film.”
British Theatre.com: * “Sheridan Smith throws herself and her considerable talent into the role, and kudos to her for taking on a role that reflects her own very public break down. With the camera in her face for most of her performance, pain is etched on her face, and she sings beautifully. But she is never given freedom to break out and let the part rip and shine.”
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