Mickey Jo (0:00)

Fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame and a face and a name that look just the littlest bit different to how you remember them. But hey, it's still gonna be the same entertaining show, right? Right? Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic here on social media and I recently traveled to New York for the eighth time in just a few years to go and see as many of this spring's new Broadway shows as possible, including one of recent new musical openings, Smash. Yes, the much anticipated Broadway stage musical adaptation of the iconic NBC TV series from the 2010s gone but not Forgotten, in which Megan hilty and Catherine McPhee played Ivy and Karen, two young actresses battling it out for the role of Marilyn Monroe in a musical based on her life called Bombshell. The show ran for two seasons and while it never really took off with mainstream audiences and was sadly cancelled, it definitely resonated among the musical theatre community, which is why so many theatre fans are hugely excited to see Smash brought to the stage and very intrigued to find out if it's any good or not. And that is what we are going to be talking about today. I recently saw the Broadway production. I'm going to let you know what I thought of it. In the meantime, I would love to know what you thought as well. Let us know all of your thoughts in the comments section down below. The official opening night reviews have been published already for this one and it was pretty divisive. It got a New York Times critics pick. However, there were also a handful of negative reviews alongside which side of the fence do you fall on? What did you think of Smash? And if you enjoy listening to my thoughts and would like to stay up to date with everything I have to say about this season's Broadway shows, as well as everything happening here in the West End and worldwide. Make sure that you're subscribed right here on YouTube with the notifications turned on so you can stay up to date with all of my latest videos or following me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, don't say yes until I finish talking, but do feel free to comment along as we discuss Smash on Broadway. Okay, stay with me because there's an awful lot to say about this one. We saw this our first night in New York and I will let you know right off the bat that I was disappointed by Smash. I'm going to explain to you. Why? It's a heartbreaking revelation. I know it's not what you've been needing we're all here and our hearts are bleeding and yet, as we saw more and more shows on this trip, some of which I've already shared my feelings about, I've spoken about Cabaret, I've spoken about the last five years, Smash started to look a little bit better in the rear view mirror. So it's from that perspective that I bring you this three star review. I will say that the problems for the show sort of begin before you even go into the doors of the Imperial Theatre. And I'm not talking about the quote along the bottom that says behind every musical is a hot mess, which is semi ironic. I'm talking about the show artwork, which features simultaneously a picture of and a graphic of the title Smash in Light Bulbs. Now, unlike in this image here that you can see on the Playbill, featuring the show's cast alongside some real life Broadway personalities, which is a fun touch, this shows Smash with its name literally lights with big light bulbs lit behind in red, looking great. And they just have a picture of light bulbs on the marquee, which feels like the most ridiculously misguided choice. You may not think it matters. I think it's indicative of all of the problems that you discover once you go inside the theatre. But the first thing we're going to talk about, because I assume this is the first thing that you're going to want to hear about, is how different it is from the TV show that you may or may not know and love. And while this was certainly not a deal breaker for me, and while I had been made aware of this beforehand from people who saw the Public Workshop presentation last year, there were huge changes, substantial changes to Smash as we know it. Very few characters are retained from the TV shows, but we have the same kind of archetypes, and why wouldn't we? It's depicting the putting together of a Broadway musical. So you're always going to have a director, you're always going to have stressed out writers, you're always going to have a producer who's calling the shots. You're always going to have actors who are getting stressed as opening night approaches. And we still have a Karen and we still have an Ivy, but they bear no real resemblance to the Karen and Ivy that we know from the series. You could consider them like Karen and Ivy 10 years on, perhaps, but Ivy here is a Broadway star with an inexplicable number of Instagram followers. She's A Broadway star in an alternate universe in which that gains you a huge amount of mainstream notoriety. But she is a huge, huge deal. Without her, the show could not be happening. And Karen is her hard working and well liked understudy who has been her understudy for the last few shows that they have done together. And the two of them have a brilliant personal and professional relationship. They are great friends. And so already, as you're finding all of this out, you're thinking, okay, because it is disorientating. And the reason for that is if you were to boil that TV show down to its most central component, it was Karen versus Ivy for Marilyn. Were you team Karen or did you have taste? And so to find out that these two are not only completely unfamiliar of the characters that you were rooting for in that series, but also on great terms with each other seems bizarre. In fact, the Karen in the stage version of Smash feels a lot like Ivy as played by Megan Hilty in the TV series. And the Ivy in the stage version feels a bit like Rebecca Duvall. If she was talented. That's the random character that Uma Thurman played for five minutes. That's a Smash deep cut for you. Now, to confuse matters even more, Krista Rodriguez appears in both. She played another performer character in the TV series and she plays one of the two writers for the show in the stage version, who sort of feels a little familiar of Debra Messing's character. But rather than her writing partner being a camp gay man as the character Tom was played by Christian Borrell, instead it is her husb, a deliberate choice, perhaps, so as to not tread on the toes of the now camp gay director played on stage by Brooks Ashmanskas. He is joined by another completely new character who will come to be very important to the plot, an assistant director named Chloe. She is a former performer who is demonstrably hugely talented. Great dancer, great singer. She has left the acting side of the business because she didn't really see a space for herself in the industry as a performer because she's plus size and didn't feel like she had a very Broadway friendly body type. Adding to, but not quite completing this cast of characters is our producer, Anita, another independent female producer not dissimilar to Anjelica Huston's character from the series, whose name I'm sure would come back to me if I were to spend any time thinking about it, but with a slightly different backstory. She's not going through a divorce with a terrible man. She once again is a former performer who has turned to the producing side of things. She's also followed around by a charming young intern named Scott, who is slowly learning about the industry. And he's there because his very wealthy father has invested a large amount of money in the show. So essentially, some characters have similar personalities, but different names. Some characters have the same names but entirely different personalities. And really, it does not exist in the same world as the Smash that you know, whatsoever. And the plot is also immediately different to really anything that we traversed in the many episodes of the TV series. Ivy Lynn is already cast as Marilyn and opening night is on the horizon. And I will say I understand where almost all of these changes came from. I get in 2025, not being thrilled about the idea of pitting two young women other and having that be your central premise. I also get the idea of pivoting from what was tonally a campy soap opera to a raucous backstage musical comedy that isn't particularly raucous. And along with that, not wanting to contend with a very heavy and challenging MeToo storyline. Hence getting rid of the Jack Davenport character and going with an inoffensive gay director. But, you know, I guess nodding to it because he also flirts with a member of the company, which is really a choice that they made for themselves. And as I was watching the Thing, so many of the other decision that were made, I was understanding them. I was thinking, I know where this has come from. I get it. Is it to the show's benefit? Not necessarily. The whole thing ends up being so far removed from Smash that the only thing it has in common is the name and the songs. But let's talk about those songs. So the score is the thing that I was really ready to hang my hat on, having heard mixed things about the show and the changes that they'd made to it. Whatever I was thinking, even if it's bad, I'm going to enjoy these songs. And I actually think if you are a musical theatre person who has not historically enjoyed jukebox musicals, I enjoy a good jukebox musical. I don't love all of them as a general rule, but if you're someone who has never been able to fathom their appeal and you don't get why your parents, your grandparents, your uncles, your colleagues love these shows so much. I think if you have any fondness for Smash, it's going to help you get into that mindset. Because with Smash on Broadway, you may as well be watching a jukebox musical using the music of Smash, because so many of These songs, the vast majority, majority of these songs, and there are many of them, are performed diegetically. What that means is that you are seeing a performance of a musical number that in the world of this show is an actual real life musical number, I. E. The character of Ivy Lynn is either in a performance or a rehearsal context singing the song. And it's not actually her bursting into song to express her feelings or her emotions. Which means that the vast majority of the songs in this show have no emotional weight or heft or meaning whatsoever. And it gets to be a little bit shallow. They sound great. They are, you know, almost entirely retained. There's some new arrangements here and there. We'll talk about the opening in just a moment. There are little tweaks like the ending of the song let's Be Bad, which after it appeared in the Smash TV series, was then appropriated for the other Shaman and Whitman scored musical, Some Like It Hot, which was seen recently, recently on Broadway. It has now been used once again for Smash on stage. Why would you not? It's a terrific song. But they've cut out the lyric where she sang Some Like It Hot. And that Ain't bad. That no longer appears. But many of your favorite songs from the TV show do appear here, albeit in the context of performances. Not only let's Be Bad, but also the national pastime. A little bit of Mr. And Mrs. Smith, a little bit of Cut Print, Moving On, a little bit of Don't Forget Me. Also secondhand White Baby grand, which we're going to talk about in just a moment. Also, they just keep moving the line, which we're going to talk about in a moment. And even a couple of deep cuts in there as well, like Public Relations. But also the title song Smash. Anyone remember that one with Megan hilty and Catherine McPhee at this point, both in the show's ensemble crawling over a sofa along with the rest of the female ensemble singing about how they were going to be a smash. This kind of allusion to the casting couch. Also the song Dig Deep, which musicalized the Actors Studio. Something that gets talked about a lot more in the stage version of Smash than it did at any point in the TV series. And the song let's Start Tomorrow Tonight. Some real deep cuts from the TV show included in this, but the reason I called some of those snippets is because we don't actually hear the full song. Some drama will be unfolding in rehearsals or backstage once the show actually begins. Performances. And we will cut away halfway through a number or we'll cut away before the end of a number or we'll just even hear a little section of it for the benefits of that scene working for that rehearsal or that performance, whatever it may be. And we don't get the whole thing. We get teased with a little bit of a number. And even if we were gonna see the whole number, like I said, it doesn't mean anything because there are no emotions attached to the thing, with the exception of a couple of moments. Even these not sung non diegetically, but because of where they fall in the plot, they mean a little something. I'm talking about Caroline Bowman singing in the middle of the second act, the song. They just keep moving the line. And this was always going to have a lot of great theatrical potential because it's a song about someone venting all of their frustrations, that no matter how hard they. And try and try, they can never be good enough because the system is rigged against them. This apparently was sung by a different character in the workshop. I love that Karen gets to sing it in the stage production because it aligns so well with where she is at that point in the plot. For those of you wondering what the plot is, we are going to talk about the plot. I don't want to spoil it completely, but I am going to address it when we talk about character and performances. I'll tell you this much, though. Karen is frustrated at this point. And so when she sings at a cast party, they just keep moving the line. It's still diegetic. She is still, still singing as Karen at a microphone at a piano bar in that moment. But she really means what she's saying, and that's a rarity in this show. So that moment stands out for that reason alone. And I'm pleased because, like I said, it's a very theatrically capable song, but so is secondhand White Baby Grand. This is a beautiful ballad that they created for the TV show. It comes so, so early in the show as Krista Rodriguez's character pitches it to Ivy for another song that they could add in for Marilyn, and she just sings it as a pitch. And then Robin Herder, as Ivy, takes over halfway through, and no one means anything. They're just singing through this lovely song. And it sounds lovely, but we're in a rehearsal room. These lyrics don't actually mean anything. And if you've ever been a part of the process of putting a show together, you will know that the only thrilling thing about that moment is hearing that voice and that music come together for the first time. And so for those of us who have heard the song before, it's not a beautiful surprise. It's just a little bit of a disappointment that this song that could have been such a moment is basically discarded 20 minutes into the first act. But hey, it is not the show's most puzzling act. One choice in terms of songs, that one happens instantly. I'm talking about the opening number. They open with an up tempo version of Let Me Be youe Star, which after it finishes, they all acknowledge humorously, that isn't quite right is so close to being right. They are working on the version of Let Me Be youe Star. We all know what's coming. They're working on the version that we heard at the end of the first episode of the TV show Smash that has become iconic. The problem is, is they never quite get it right in the stage show. And the foolishness of starting with an opening number that you then immediately tell the audience isn't quite right, notwithstanding, we all experience a little bit of whiplash. Because if you're in that theater and you have to assume that a lot of people are. If you're in that theater because you have a fondness for the music for the TV show, if you're there because of nostalgia and the first thing you hear is the biggest song, the song, but dance differently and done in a different arrangement and at a different tempo with different lyrics and with a slightly different rhythm to adjust the way that it falls, you're getting a little bit of whiplash. I also think for several dramaturgical reasons, this opening number does not work. I think it has the same problem that Boop has in its opening number. Each of these shows are presenting an icon who needs no introduction. Marilyn Monroe, Betty Boop, we know who they are. And yet. Yet they give them the fullest introduction. They go the route of here's this iconic moment and this and this. And she's running between different parts of the stage being thrown literally between members of the company, giving you all the iconic Marilyn poses, all of the references, and working harder than I've ever seen Marilyn have to work to conjure her magic. And on a technical level, Robyn Herder is very impressive here. And throughout the show we'll talk more about performances. But she is also not really capable of delivering a vocal that stands alongside the one that you will remember from Megan Hilty, who was in a studio and who was never really dancing. And so with Robin trying to dance this song full out and sing this song full out at the same Time, the deck is kind of stacked against her, but they know that because they talk about it extensively in the script. And they eventually end up cutting the dance from that opening number. But it's already happened. It's already been to the detriment of the show. An opening number is so important. The way you introduce this star and this show matters. Now, when we do finally get the version of Let Me Be youe Star that we are expecting, it is sung by an unexpected character. I'll talk a little bit about why, but even then it's still not quite right because the version of it that you remember is a duet, where they have the sensational harmonies at the end. And there's something inherently about the lyrics and the style of the song, which are combative. It was written by Shaman and Whitman to be a duet, even if within that world, it wasn't written by Julia and Tom to be one. Do you know what I mean? And the fact that we never get that version in Smash on Broadway, I think is a big problem. Problem. Admittedly, not as big a problem as the fact that we spend the first 15 minutes with no real conflict. And we wonder why we're watching a pleasant enough backstage Broadway documentary. Let's talk about the plot. So, as mentioned, Ivy and Karen are good friends at the start of this show. Not only that, everything seems to be going right. They haven't quite written the right opening number yet, but everything is sort of heading in the right direction. And they are making a light hearted and family friendly version of Marilyn's life. They don't want to deal with all of the angst and all of the trauma. And for 15 minutes, everyone is on board. Everyone is so on board. In fact, Karen and Ivy are chatting about having a movie night. Karen's made everyone cupcakes, and her talented and handsome husband is also in the company. And everyone's getting on well and it's nice and it's lovely. But these are not the ingredients for backstage comedy, certainly not for the soap opera that the show originally was. But even with this new tone, you don't know where the issues are going to come from. You find out eventually because the writers share with Ivy a book that provides a little more backstory on the actor's studio, where Marilyn studied alongside a woman named Susan Proctor, who Ivy goes out and recruits. For reasons unbeknownst to us, it is completely out of character for her to do so because she has voiced at this point how comfortable she is with the show, how enthusiastic she is about the way that the show is going. She's done more than enough shows. There is nothing about this character in the first 15 minutes of the show that speak to any kind of insecurity. And then, weirdly, Karen is deeply insecure, even though she's understudied Ivy. However, many shows in a row, and she spends the rest of the show talking about how ready she is and how resentful she is, that she's not necessarily going to be given the opportunity to replace Ivy because of a third character who comes into the mix. The easiest fix in the world here that would not solve the rest of the show's problems, but would sort these two out, is to have Ivy be the one who is inexplicably insecure despite her great career, and have Karen just be confident and ready, because that would explain why Ivy goes and seeks out this crazy acting teacher who has her become method and derail the entire thing. Spoiler alert. That's what happens. And it would speak to Karen's impatience to be given the opportunity because she's there and she's ready and she's not insecure and she knows that she can do it. But like I said, Ivy turns up to rehearsals with this new acting coach in tow, insists everyone calls her Marilyn, and begins to cause more and more problems in the run up to the first preview performance, which she doesn't attend because she is off pretending that she's Marilyn and fulfilling some historic event in her life. This after making everyone deeply uncomfortable with diva behavior at the Zits probe, which causes tension in the existing friendship between her and Karen, who she thinks is out to replace her because becoming Marilyn has made her deeply paranoid. And so the first act, which is very long, ends with. In fact, I don't even think it's the first preview. I believe it's the invited dress rehearsal to which they have have bafflingly invited dozens of influencers, which I will say happens sometimes, but only at very select shows and only when they have, you know, creative control of the narrative that is going to be shared. Certainly a crowd of influencers at an invited dress rehearsal in the real world would not be a justification for terror. But with Ivy having not shown up, it falls to Karen to assume the role. Except Karen's husband Charlie, who is also a member of the company, who was just really eager for her to have this opportunity, has, unbeknownst to everyone, poisoned one of Ivy's cupcakes baked by Karen with laxatives, which has the effect that you could imagine, meaning neither Ivy nor Karen are fit to play the role of Marilyn at the first performance of the show. And so who has to do it but Chloe, played by Bella Coppola, the assistant director, who knows the entire show and is more than capable of performing it. And it's Chloe who sings the new solo version of Let Me Be youe Star. And if we didn't already feel, as smash fans, pretty divorced from the show that we knew and loved, you do by this point. Because who's Chloe and why is she singing Let Me Be youe Star? Fortunately, she sings the hell out of it, but it is a confusing act break at this point, though, going into the second act, at least we know where we are because finally there is some question of who is going to play Marilyn when the show officially opens on Broadway. Is it going to be Ivy? Is it going to be Chloe, or is it going to be Karen? To that end, I think I did enjoy the second act more than the first. I will say the whole thing just gains more and more momentum. It does not start with a strong ignition, but it gets there. It grows funnier. The pacing gets better and better. But it is also a little ironic how well the show is able to diagnose its own problems. When Ivy brings Susan Proctor into the rehearsal room and she interrupts her between every single line reading for the two of them to go and whisper in a corner about how she's going to perform it. Nigel, the director, played by Brooks, cracks a joke about how this kind of pacing is the enemy of comedy, which is something that the show ought to learn for itself. Itself. There's another, perhaps slightly more knowing line in the first act where one of the writers talks about the fact that audiences want songs in musicals. They don't want extended book scenes. And this has massive passages between songs because those are the only moments that were able to actually move the plot forward. Because the songs aren't doing that, because they're diegetic, because they feel like a jukebox musical. The songs, of course, as already mentioned, are the work of the brilliant Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. The book for this production is by Bob Martin, who is thrice represented on Broadway this season with the returning engagement of Elf that played over Christmas, When Else at the Marquee Theatre, and also Boop, which opened alongside Smash, One street down over at the Broadhurst. And I don't have issues with the book of Smash as far as the dialogue goes, as far as character goes, beyond the oddity of Karen and Ivy having sort of the opposite personalities to those that might be considered helpful. There is the occasional left turn into a punchline when the very obvious and preferable version staring you in the face. Face. For example, Charlie, who becomes an alcoholic. He's one of the show's co writers. Over the course of the development of Bombshell fees a production meeting at one point to which his wife asks, why are you going to the bar? Or why are you going to the party? His reply is this. Two words. Alcohol. Holl. And every single person I have spoken to about this line, they know the right answer. I know the right answer. You might know the right answer. Feel free to comment it down below. The right answer is open bar. It's such an easy joke. It's so much better than saying alcohol. If you're going to say that, say one word, alcohol. But guess what? That's not going to get a laugh because it's not particularly funny. Do you know what's no funnier? Calling it two words and saying alcohol. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. A lot of the industry inside jokes get significantly bigger laughs. Our two best and most reliable sources for comedy are Brooks Ashmanskas, making anything funny and the young intern character Scott, played by Nicholas Matos. Being very charming and witty in his naive moving into the second act. And more into spoiler territory here, if you don't want to know. The bigger problem becomes the songs and the scenes that we don't have. The Ivy eventually begins to see the error of her ways and begins to see the effect that she is having on people as she is terrorizing her dresser as she is causing this rift with Karen. And she starts to change her approach and come back to her senses slowly and gradually. It's bizarre that there is no musical moment here where she can sing out her feelings and have some sort of remorse. She needs a look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee reprise moment. The way that nobody has ever needed this on stage before, it is so clear to me. And yet we have her just kind of sheepishly going into scene after scene fixing these relationships and apologizing for the way that she behaved, heading straight into the finale with no musical acknowledgment of this. You're in a Broadway show. Sing about it. If you finally come to your senses and you've been being a crazy person who we couldn't root for this entire time because you were so unhinged, then you need to sing an apology not just to your dresser and to your understudy and to your creative team and to your company, but to us, the audience. We all need to Hear that? Ah, she just needs a look at me. I'm Sandra D. Reprice. That's all she needs. Now, before we talk about the performances, I do want to touch on the efforts of this creative team. It's directed by Susan Stroman, veteran director Susan Stroman. And it's a little surprising how labored and contrived the whole thing is under her direction. Part of me wonders if her and Jerry Mitchell, who directed Boop at the Broadhurst, ought to have switched shows. This reason one person who's in exactly the right place is Joshua Bagasse, who worked on the TV show as choreographer, who was also choreographed for the stage version. It looks fantastic. It's high energy, it is giving contemporary Broadway, but also with nods to the classic. And thrillingly, because he has this continuity with the stage version, we see some familiarity, especially in the more striking and iconic numbers like the baseball song, the National Pastime. And that's something I wish that we had in Bob Martin's book as well. Well, fine for them to be different characters. I understand why the decisions were made. I still think there could be more Easter eggs and more nods to the campier moments from the TV show. Why is Krystal Rodriguez's character not wearing ridiculous scarves? Why is the producer or anyone really not threatening to throw a martini in someone's face every five seconds? Like Gerry is the co writer character who has the same name as Jerry, the ex husband from the TV show. And people keep saying, I never liked you, Gerry. Is that a sort of a clumsy nod? Perhaps? Probably. But there are way more inside jokes that we could have used. Did they do an I'm in tech moment? Did I manage to miss tech? Did they ever. Were they ever truly in tech? Stephen Remus did characteristically great work on the music supervision. I like Leo Vietti's costume design. They look stunning. I enjoy Beowulf Borit's set design after we get out of the opening number, which is altogether too sparse. But we come to find out that the whole thing is basically a fantasy sequence anyway, because they're really in a rehearsal room and they're just imagining what it might look like on a Broadway stage. And, you know, dream bigger is my advice to them. And yet, with all of the criticism that I have for this show, it still has an entertainment value that exceeds that of many other musicals opening on Broadway right now. These songs are far, far better, even if they are minimally empowered. Howard. In the context that we hear them here, the choreography, the visuals and the staging far, far Better than many other shows and also these terrific performances. Let's talk about the company. So we begin with Robin Herder, who is playing Ivy Lynn, who does go entirely missing in the second act and who eventually comes back, but not in a particularly substantial way way. She is an extraordinarily talented performer. That is very clear to us very early on. And she's also, I think, the kind of an old school Broadway talent that we have grown poor at acknowledging. This woman, if she had been on a Broadway stage in the 60s, in the 70s, would have had so many consecutive shows built around her talents. She feels like a harkening back to the Chita Riveras, the Gwen Verdans that really is is her skill set. She's so glamorous. She commands so much power. She has this old school brassy belt. She sings the score in a very exciting way because she adds a little bit of growl into it that you never really heard from Megan Hilty, which is not to say I think that one vocal interpretation here is better than the other. But I like that it feels different enough and it feels characteristically feisty. It feels like that's who her Ivy is like. She's a fighter in some. Some ways, which is why it's so strange that she goes utterly off the deep end and becomes the puppet of this deranged woman. And she has her taking pills. And that is meant to offer some kind of an explanation, but it just feels so out of character with the version of Ivy that we've met. The other thing that we have to talk about is her dance prowess. And it's not even that. There are no words that I could conjure here that would speak to how phenomenally impressive and captivating it is watching Robin Herder dance on stage. It's not just Broadway talent. She feels like an Olympic athlete in almost every company number that she does. And there are a lot. I mean, it's kind of the whole reason that Bombshell could never realistically be brought to the stage as its own musical, because it's just Marilyn doing number after number after number, belting really high and dancing and belting and dancing and belting and dancing. But in every number that we see her do here, they find a different way to throw her over herself or between different ensemble members. It's wild. She is extraordinarily talented in a deeply frustrating role. Then you cut to Brooks Ashmanskas, who sort of feels like the second lead here as Nigel. And we get to learn via his flirtation and, you know, hesitation to begin an inappropriate relationship with one of the male ensemble dancers. A little bit more about him personally, but for the most part, he is a campy, comic caricature, utterly familiar of the role that he played in the Prom. There are moments, moments when this feels like the prom, but on Broadway. In fact, he is doing what he does well as Brooks Ashmanskas. But that's also not to be discredited here, just because it's familiar of other work in his career. Thank God for him on this stage, because he makes a lot of this material sing when it perhaps otherwise wouldn't. He lands a lot of these jokes. The funniest moment in the show is when they are standing around speculating about who they can find as a scapegoat, and the hilarious, timid stage manager, played by Meghan Cain, enters on and he says, go quickly before they fire you. And she runs off stage. And he manages to milk that as a laugh for a decent stretch of time, which is something that he can do. He has the abilities. Again, it's literally nothing that we haven't seen him do before. But if you're creating this kind of a role, Brooks Ashmanskas is the best possible person you could have to play it. And he benefits from a strong, clear character, which cannot quite be said for Jerry and Tracy, the show's co writers, who are also a couple, with him becoming more and more of an alcoholic, with them disagreeing about the right direction for the show. And who should play Marilyn once we get into the familiar stages of, you know, these hushed creative meetings, when they're voting on who would be the right actress to take on the role amidst all these problems. And there's a sparkling wit to their dynamic. And John Bellman is always going to be a very funny punching bag. And Krista Rodriguez. Rodriguez sings beautifully on secondhand White Baby grand, and I like that she characterizes it with an insecurity at every step. And there's a repeated line in the script when she always says, like, here's my terrible idea, before she pitches something. And speaking of insecurity, we arrive at Caroline Bowman playing Karen, who I thought was kind of a highlight of this company for me. I've never had the chance to see Caroline before on stage, so that was already a joy. She. She is phenomenally talented, and this was a character, at least that made sense. I think the insecurity would sit a little better with Ivy, but it doesn't completely contradict Karen's character. What's interesting is that I've heard her role has been very much expanded since the workshop presentations of the show last year. In that time, she has been standing by for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard down at the St James, which she only got to go on for the one time, which very nearly didn't happen. And I wonder if some of that experience has empowered Caroline Bowman to give a really great perspective performance in Smash as this long suffering understudy who is just ready to go on when they need her to and wants to get the opportunity. So it does feel very at her fingertips, particularly at this moment in time. But it's acted terrifically. She sounds great, she dances brilliantly. We also have Jacqueline B. Arnold, who plays Anita, our producer character. And I would love for there to be some part of her characterization that can feel a little more exaggerated and a little comic. It was easy enough for us to laugh at how campy and over, over the top Angelica Houston's producer character was. And Jacqueline is a little more down to earth with a very earnest background, which is nice, but it isn't funny. The same can be said for Bella Coppola's character, Chloe, although truthfully, she doesn't really exist within this script to add to the comedy. She is just there to be another viable, exciting option to play Marilyn, who has a stunning voice and she sounds sensational. She has this extraordinarily exciting vocal tone when she sings Let me be your star at the end of the first act. I still would like to hear the harmonies, but she sounds gorgeous and it's a strong enough performance to send us off into an intermission. As I mentioned, Nicholas Matos, also very charming as this intern who is finding more and more enthusiasm about Broadway and the way that it works. Casey Garvin has a couple of charming moments as Karen's husband Charlie. And Christine Nielsen, who previously has stopped shows cold with audiences in hysterics. She plays Susan Proctor in this production, who is this bizarre character who comes in and is not quite exaggerated enough or over the top enough or brash enough or loud enough to really get us to laugh. The whole time we're looking at this and we're thinking, okay. And it has the makings of comedy because it's so absurd, because her aesthetic, aesthetic is so absurd with this wide eyed expression and this thing over her head as she's this hunching presence intruding on their rehearsal space and her clashing with Brooks Ashmanskas and the two of these performers going at it. This ought to be hilarious. And for whatever reason, it isn't. And that reason is that the material just isn't really there for her. And neither, honestly, is her entrance. She arrives, arrives on stage in a sort of a strange whisper. And despite having such a strong impact on the narrative, it's with that kind of a presence that she continues. Now, all of this to say the version of Smash that you have been hoping for, that you may have been waiting for, that you have been getting excited about on Broadway, is not really the version that exists. And I think that is an element of the show's biggest problem, which is a branding problem. My question right now is who is going to see this show? I think fans of it are going to have a reaction and, you know, hopefully many will be satisfied by just having the opportunity to hear the songs and see something at least a little comparable to the TV show that they enjoyed. But once we acknowledge the fact that that isn't really the biggest crowd of people in the first place, a problem that Smash is going to encounter is do they try and brand it in conjunction with the TV series and say, remember how great Megan Hilty was in that? Because the problem you then have is people say, oh, yeah, Megan Hilty is great. I'm gonna go one street up and I'm gonna go see her. And death becomes her at the Lint Fontan. Or you try and sell the Marilyn of it all, this classic, the Hollywood icon, but Boop, the Betty Boop musical is playing down at the Broadhurst. And if you're trying to sell backstage comedy and like the diva goings on, you also have Gypsy, you also have Sunset Boulevard, both of which are shows featuring big diva leading lady performances. Robyn Herder is so talented in this, but doesn't have the material to be in the same conversation as Nicole Scherzinger and Audra McDonald and Jasmine, Amy Rogers and Boop, and Megan Hilde and Jensen Martindeth becomes her. All of that taken into account, I don't really know what Smash, a show that on its own terms is funny enough and has great songs and great performances, is and is longer than it needs to be, but has charm and has wit, is offering audience members. Needless to say, I have my concerns about this one right now on Broadway. But we will find out what's going to happen with Smash soon enough, with the Tony nominations set to be announced at the very start of next month. In the meantime, that is what I thought of the show. I hope, even if this review has been disappointing, that you may have enjoyed it on some level. As always, I would love to know what you thought if you have also had the opportunity to see Smash already on Broadway. Let us know what you thought of the show in the comments section down below. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure that you are subscribed to my theatre themed YouTube channel with the notifications turned on so you don't miss any of my upcoming Broadway and West End reviews. Or make sure you're following me on podcast platforms. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day subscrib.