The Robber Bridegroom NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (473)
See it if you love "storyteller theatre" or honkytonk music. A fresh, beautiful remastering of the original. The entire production is incredible.
Don't see it if you don't like silly stories or crazy staging. It may seem like a mess to someone who doesn't love a good musical romp.
See it if You love having a great time fully absorbed in a delightful stage production. Steven Pasquale was amazing
Don't see it if Don't like charming musical comedies
See it if you love to see actors/musicians having a fabulous time playing together. GO if you love Stephen Pasquale and his remarkable voice!
Don't see it if you hate bluegrass music or hate a bit of raunch.
See it if You like ensemble performances You are a fan of Steven Pasquale and his beautiful voice
Don't see it if You are ambivalent about musicals (the musicians are on stage and integral to the performance)
See it if If you you like great singing, funny stories and clever staging.
Don't see it if You wouldn't listen to bluegrass music.
See it if Just want to be entertained for 90 minutes by very talented people.
Don't see it if You do NOT want to be entertained and laugh out loud for 90 minutes.
See it if You enjoy rarely seen musicals that are perfectly done!
Don't see it if You don't have a sense of imagination & wit!
See it if you like fast paced, charming and enthusiastic performances
Don't see it if you don't want to have a blast
Critic Reviews (40)
"Alex Timbers’s exceedingly high-spirited revival of this 1975 musical will not be to everyone’s liking. But even those allergic to Southern-fried shtick are unlikely to go away feeling entirely empty. Mr. Timbers uses visual wit and gleefully macabre gags to provide awakening jolts during this sustained singing hayride...'The Robber Bridegroom' is not asking you to think deep. Mostly, it just clomps, two-steps and square dances along its relentlessly exuberant way."
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"There’s nary a lull in Alex Timbers’s exuberant revival of 'The Robber Bridegroom', a raucous hootenanny set in a fanciful version of 18th-century Mississippi...It is a delightfully inventive reimagining of Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman’s 1975 musical...Like many of Timbers’s previous projects, including 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson' and 'Peter and the Starcatcher', 'The Robber Bridegroom' loves putting on a show."
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"Timbers draws from his usual bag of magic tricks, prop jokes, and winking meta-theatricality to keep the eye and attention engaged at all times. Even so, the story, having been pulled away from any real engagement with its dark fundamentals, now seems like an excuse instead of the point. That inversion makes for some very uncomfortable juxtapositions...I’m not sure that story should have been made into musical comedy in 1975; making it a better one now only makes it worse."
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"Combining hyperkinetic rowdiness and spirited self-mockery with the larkish low-tech Story Theater tricks, the production imposes the director's signature wink-wink style on the material to a suffocating degree. The show boasts a hardworking cast, a rousing five-piece band and gorgeous design elements. But this twangy 1975 bluegrass musical comedy works way too hard at stealing hearts."
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"Roundabout has produced a 'Robber Bridegroom' that is totally stylish, deeply entertaining, and almost vanishingly slight. That’s not a criticism, entirely...Timbers has made this musical a rollicking good time, a goofy, high-spirited hootenanny. It’s a mighty Mississippi of fun...But Timbers has also stripped out whatever darkness and complexity Uhry’s script once contained...It doesn’t make much of a case for why 'The Robber Bridegroom,' a forgotten musical, deserves to be remembered."
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"Having fun shouldn’t be as exhausting as director Alex Timbers makes it out to be in his overly antic production of 'The Robber Bridegroom'...The show is so overdirected, the unassuming charm of the humble material is crushed like a bug...Having started from the premise that more is more, Timbers won’t stop with anything less than comic overkill. The characters gain nothing, however, and actually squander their appeal when overplayed in a style so broad it becomes total caricature."
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"The Roundabout’s exceptionally charming revival of 'The Robber Bridegroom' is exactly the kind of intimate extravaganza you would expect from Alex Timbers, among the most inventive young directors working today...'The Robber Bridegroom' is a highlight of a season that’s fast becoming a landmark for musicals...The score is fun if not exactly memorable. The show rests on committed performances and an atmosphere that inches up to cute without diving into it whole hog."
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"Set to a wonderfully catchy country-bluegrass score this 'Mississippi fairy tale' is the kind of show where a talking head is kept in a box...[Director] Timbers goes to town, piling up the gags, and setting a breakneck pace — while giving the slower, more serious songs space to breathe...The cast rises to the challenge, including Pasquale. But even he’s eclipsed by Leslie Kritzer’s gold-tooth-flashing wicked stepmother. She gleefully goes over the top, and then over the top of the top."
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