"Swanson and Rosett configure the many-layered story of Edwin Booth ingeniously using a seamlessly crafted, organic structure...Rosett, Swanson and the superlative cast engage us with moment-to-moment truthfulness...I absolutely adored this profoundly brilliant production. Under the power of Christopher Scott’s expertly realized, detailed direction, the production and all of the designers’ attendant elements adhere to create a scintillating elucidation of an amazing man and his family."
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“The show...is an earnest attempt to wring some drama from Booth’s trepidation about what to expect from the public in the wake of his brother’s act, but the result is a talkative, tedious, two and a half hour exercise whose most interesting dramatic moment...comes a few minutes before the final curtain...It does little, however, to salvage a work burdened...with a drearily generic and derivative score and a dramatic treatment that’s more flatline than arc.”
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"Nothing can truly save this musical...Scott’s direction is all over the map. Swanson tries to incorporate Shakespeare’s themes with Edwin’s life and it does not work. It is difficult to follow, seems wordy and pretentious. In the end I spent about three hours researching things that befuddled my mind and found that much more interesting. Edwin Booth deserves a good play or even a musical, but this is not it."
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"The choice not to make John Wilkes Booth the nucleus of the piece is inspired. Illuminating and entertaining, 'Edwin' delivers a real feeling for life tethered to the theater as well as a family portrait. It also has a whiz-bang ending. But, beginning with its length, there are issues...Dana Watkins is alas the weak link here...The strongest creative contribution comes from librettist and lyricist Eric Swanson...His tone is literate, and mercifully lacking in contemporary vernacular."
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"While the sound fit the story, the lyrics from Swanson were sloppily predictable. And many times they pulled focus for being a tad cheesy...Director Christopher Scott offered some sloppy staging...'Edwin' looked like a well-polished production but the material felt like a first draft. There was much to be desired yet an abundance of fluff that needs to be axed...Booth’s story is one worth telling. Perhaps just not in this current format."
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"The imagined memory play–filled with quotations and scenes from the Bard’s canon and passages of exhaustive facts about Booth and his dysfunctional family of actors, alcoholics, and enablers–too often comes across as a prized research project, an exercise in pedantry, or a dry historical biography, rather than a tightly focused dramatic musical. While the concept is compelling, there could be fewer 'words, words, words'...'Edwin's' cast of seven excels in the ensemble vocals."
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"Instead of drama we get various conflicts that go nowhere because they all happened in the past and have little to do with the present situation...What we see is talented performers doing their best in the wrong play. There’s also a score with lots of songs that seem like little more than afterthoughts...Surely there is a story to be told about the great tragedian who was witness to and somehow involved with one of this country’s greatest tragedies. But that story is not served by 'Edwin.'"
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"The historical setting of the lives of the musical’s characters radiate drama that this new musical has yet successfully to hone…There are genuinely moving moments in this production…And there are many times that this often luscious piece feels without clear focus or too many perspectives presented…This history is rich, the characters are endlessly fascinating, and the structural frame here feels unnecessarily twee at moments."
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