Here I Sit, Broken Hearted…A Bathroom Odyssey

“An hourlong exercise in puerile scatology...Its frantic exertions and straining after wit prove exasperating...The skits are an R-rated fusillade of blanks...The kernel of possibility here - the notion of graffiti as an anonymous, underground expression of intimate preoccupations and hidden truths - is squandered. Instead, the show is exhausting and yet intellectually inert.” Full Review

"I sat for an hour with my mouth open in disgust...Had I not been a critic I would have left after the first five minutes...It is a primitive, uncouth musical revue that is poorly written, badly conceived, rips off other people's tunes and is, in a word, gross!...The cast, which includes Matt Lewis, Chip Persons, Ian Anderson and Seth Panitch, is relatively talented. Mr Pantich also directs, wrote the book and lyrics and you would have thought he would have created a better piece for himself." Full Review

"There they sat, singing about feces. There I sat, quite amused...I felt like I was seeing a mock Mel Brooks movie (just with slightly less of a plot)...With reenactments of the final 'Casablanca' scene with a man in a gigantic inflated penis costume and men with oversize pillow boobs, the show is clearly raunchy, but fun. It is the Celebrants who make it that way though. They are clearly experienced performers." Full Review

"I went into the show extremely optimistic regarding its potential for success. What I experienced was a 50-minute epic fail featuring 4th-grade humor...The only good thing worth seeing in the show was the set...There was no point to the story and you get what turned out to be a complete waste of time...This show is not entertaining and may very well be the worst show to open on Theatre Row in a decade." Full Review

"The four actors are a talented bunch but lost behind a script plagued by an out-of-touch sense of humor…'Here I Sit, Brokenhearted' is a prime example of a paper-thin premise that can’t begin to justify its existence. Before even the opening number has concluded, the audience is already looking to the stalls of the faux bathroom for any reason to chuckle, and the result is an unwarranted 70-minute long celebration of a single joke told in 99 different ways." Full Review

"'Here I go again, I hear those trumpets blow again. Me on my throne again, Taking a chance on love!' Sadly, the comedy of 'Here I Sit, Broken Hearted' never rises above these lyrics; it misses the mark on practically every level. The saving grace, beyond the short 60-minute length, is the pure joie de vivre of the cast…If the actors suspect that the material isn’t funny, current, or satirical, they never let on. Purely for trying to make it work they deserve kudos." Full Review

“All in all, think forty minutes of skits written and performed by the inhabitants of ‘Animal House’ at that point during a toga party when they can still hold a pencil...If you’re one of those who secretly smile at inappropriate salacious material, like everyone did in the old days, you might enjoy ‘Brokenhearted,’ but naturally in a very, very, very guilty way. The audience only filled one third of the seats in the theater, but their laughter sounded like the house was Standing Room Only.” Full Review