"Its distinguishing features included a hazy provenance; an obsequious, uninformative text; a lazily organized catalog of songs; and an unaccountable focus on an unknown performer. Also: holograms...The kind of show that makes you wonder if someone is secretly satirizing ambition. Certainly the spirit of the production and the spirit of the man it honors are at odds...Each song is sung exactly alike, with the same few gestures and vocal mannerisms."
Read more

"An overwrought and over-designed musical revue. Racial insensitivities aside, 'Sincerely, Oscar' suffers from a general lack of self-awareness, which manifests in every design, directorial, and musical choice...The bigger musical problem, however, is in the monotonous jazz arrangements that scrub every ounce of character out of Hammerstein's greatest hits."
Read more

"Intriguing conceptually but lopsided musically, the clunky show presents an amped-up glow-and-tell cabaret with a technological twist...With two performers in the show, duets would seem to be a natural. That is not the case. Enumeratively, it's Taylor's passion project...'Sincerely, Oscar' rings most true in the elusive moments when it hits the right notes of compelling narrative and unobtrusive design. The rest of the time, the hologram rings hollow."
Read more

"We're not even ten minutes in, and the show resembles a commercial for Alpha-Bits...Brittany Merenda's projection designs are certainly technically accomplished if hilariously wrongheaded. Needless to say, what with the set lumbering around, the holographic Hammerstein expounding on his craft, and all those damn projections, the two-person cast never has a chance."
Read more

"If anything is being celebrated here, it’s Taylor celebrating herself, with the magnificent and humble Hammerstein wordsmith merely a peg on which to hang the souring production. Yes, Taylor’s voice has much to recommend it, but the self-aggrandizing way in which she exploits it is alienating. She’s full of off-putting gestures and other histrionics often at odds with the songs’ sentiments. Despite her supposedly celebrating a lyricist, it’s the notes she produces that are her focus."
Read more

"While recent revivals of 'South Pacific,' 'The King and I,' 'Carousel,' and 'Oklahoma!' demonstrate that Hammerstein was not as sentimental as he has been depicted in the past, 'Sincerely, Oscar' does him the injustice of making this the only takeaway from this cabaret musical. This is ultimately a misconceived tribute in almost all respects."
Read more

"Neither star is able to bring these timeless songs to heart-affecting life, their performances being superficially showy but rarely getting to the heart of the lyrics…Taylor likes showing off her big voice...Onyejekwe…may be a wonderful guy, he's not ready for prime-time Broadway-level singing or acting…Totally lacking…Is the contextualization of the songs, making them instead blandly abstract covers, with corny staging, far removed from the dramatic situations that inspired them."
Read more

“’Sincerely Oscar’ is what you get when you sing in the shower and think you have created a show. Incomprehensible and self-indulgent, this musical revue left me speechless, and not in a good way...From the first note, this show charts a course from indignity to embarrassment in tasteless arrangements and incomprehensible direction...’Sincerely, Oscar’ is sincerely awful. A combination of consistently appalling musical choices and dull performances.”
Read more