Bonnie & Clyde or Let's Distract the Audience with Jeremy's Pecs

The real Bonnie & Clyde

If my review were based on the old adage, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," it would be a one-liner:  Bonnie & Clyde has a beautiful set.  But lucky for you, it isn't.  And  how boring would that be, anyway?

Actually, I didn't hate the show.  I love the unit set (a perfect combination of constructed pieces and projections), the moody lighting design is gorgeous, the orchestrations and costumes are stylistically on point and the cast is uniformly excellent. 

Laura Osnes and Jeremy Jordan are both sickeningly gorgeous and vocally stunning.  Although it's pretty obvious a gay man directed the piece given Jordan was shirtless at every possible opportunity the story permits - just an observation, not a complaint.  Don't worry you straight men (though I doubt any read this blog), Osnes gets to show off her six pack and ample bosom as well.  There's plenty of flesh and sex for everyone.  Both also have charisma to spare and should, and likely will, become big Broadway stars - though inevitably more lucrative TV and movie deals likely will steal them away from us.


The Broadway Bonnie & Clyde - nice mic wire Jeremy

The book is also unusually strong by modern standards.  Like the golden age classics of the 50s and 60s, we get book scenes that don't merely string together songs, but are actually compelling and emotionally complex - no self-referential audience-winking here, thankfully.  Sad that this should be the modern exception rather than the rule.  In fact, my recommendation would be to scrap the score altogether and make the darn thing a play.  Speaking of the score... 

Full disclosure - I'm not a Wildhorn fan.  I do admit, however, that he has a talent for writing memorable pop hooks.  Unfortunately, that talent isn't displayed much here.  The score does have a couple of strong songs - and I mean "couple" literally, as in "two" - both of which are delegated to our heroine. 

The first is unusually sedate for Wildhorn, no cheesy strings or high belting.  It's supposed to be a period hit Bonnie knows from the radio.  It works, but seems like a show-horned in trunk song.  The second is Bonnie's 11-o'-clock number resigning herself to an inevitable youthful death.  It's soaring melody and pop sensibility show Wildhorn at his best.  I'm sure we'll be hearing the 16-bar version ad nauseum in audition rooms across the country soon enough.

Sadly, poor Jeremy Jordan isn't given comparable material.  Where's his "This is the Moment"? His "Soliloquy"?  That soaring tenor seems sadly wasted, though he gets several random consolation high notes throughout the evening.  Hopefully - if internet rumors are to be believed - he'll be able to get the hell out of dodge and move on to the Broadway production of Newsies! - not a perfect show either, but at least gives him a couple of show-stopping vocal moments.

The men in general are given short shrift.  Given the luxury casting of Claybourne Elder (Clyde's brother, Buck) and Louis Hobson (the upstanding cop competing for Bonnie's affections), the men's music is disappointingly bland.  There's a cheesy duet for Hobson and Jordan and a fun, but dramatically inert song about Clyde's love for the open road for the Barrow brothers.  Sure, there's high belting galore, but ultimately their material doesn't leave a lasting impression.

My straight show crush, though, is Melissa Van Der Schyff as Blanche, Buck's upstanding wife.  I'm obsessed with her voice.  It has a Dolly-Parton-on-helium quality that I find strangely exciting.  Someone in Nashville get her a recording contract, stat!  She also nearly steals the show from our title characters with her comedic charm, then turns right around and almost crushes us with her dramatic chops in her closing scene.  I say "almost," because right at the moment I thought I was actually going to lose it emotionally (at a Wildhorn musical, no less!), the mood is broken by a cloying faux-gospel number.

I do have to cut Wildhorn a little compositional slack.  His lyricist, Don Black, sabotages him at every turn of phrase.  Black's lyrics manage to be both tritely sentimental and nursery-rhyme embarrassing at the same time.   

My other major gripe with Bonnie & Clyde is that Wildhorn many times chooses the wrong moments to musicalize.  Regardless of their quality, the placement of the songs stop the book's momentum cold.  It's frustrating because Bonnie & Clyde's story is so fascinating and inherently dramatic; a real-life American fable ripe for musicalization.  Wildhorn lucks out, though, with a cast that makes his score seem better than it actually is.

Schoenfeld Theatre
Thursday, November 10
8pm performance