Gutenberg! The Musical!
Opening Night: October 12, 2023
Theater: James Earl Jones Theatre
Website: gutenbergbway.com
In this two-man musical spoof, a pair of aspiring playwrights perform a backers’ audition for their new project – a big, splashy musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. With an unending supply of enthusiasm, Bud and Doug sing all the songs and play all the parts in their crass historical epic, with the hope that one of the producers in attendance will give them a Broadway contract – fulfilling their ill-advised dreams.
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October 12, 2023
But with more than two hours of can-you-bottom-this yucks, it’s exhausting work — for them and for us.
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October 13, 2023
Two-handers run the risk of tilting in favor of one performer over the other, but Gad and Rannells strike perfect comedic balance.
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October 12, 2023
Affection is the key that opens the show’s comedy: As ridiculous as Doug and Bud may be, you feel for these guys and even root for them. As stupid as their historical musical may be, you can’t deny that they’ve got heart.
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October 12, 2023
Not only has the musical been fine-tuned and shined-up, but a Shucked-era Broadway is clearly in the mood for some absurdly silly good fun.
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October 12, 2023
In the end, it’s not “Gutenberg” the show but rather this odd coupling of comedic pals, both on stage and off, that delights. Hats off to them.
October 12, 2023
That those lyrics are now being sung on Broadway doesn’t justify their existence, and the charm of witnessing self-consciously bad theater wears off over the course of two hours, 15 minutes (including intermission). Gutenberg! feels a lot like beating a horse that has been dead for years.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 12, 2023
The show is a roughly 2-hour sketch – one that’s clever and filled with laughs but too long and overstuffed to ward off diminishing returns.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 12, 2023
But the reality here is that this is a show relying on two skilled comic actors and their contrasting relationship. These two stars could do this kind of thing in their sleep, should they so choose, and I suspect their challenge will come from messing with each other and keeping everything fresh.
READ THE REVIEWOctober 12, 2023
The two exclamation points in the title are a super-spoiler for “Gutenberg! The Musical!,” a ticklishly funny but, well, paper-thin show about two theater-smitten fellows determined to put on a big Broadway show about the inventor of the printing press.
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October 12, 2023
There is a legendary anecdote, perhaps apocryphal but probably not, that after a performance of “The Addams Family” on Broadway, Elaine Stritch visited Nathan Lane backstage and told the star, “They’re not paying you enough.” That goes double for the musical “Gutenberg!,” which opened Thursday at the James Earl Jones Theatre. It manages to waste the talent of not one but two very talented performers.
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October 12, 2023
So, what happens when one of these stories actually lands in a Broadway theater? What happens when the impossible dream… comes true? That question hovers around Gutenberg! The Musical! before the show even gets underway, and it’s a question the production dances with but isn’t quite able to resolve.
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October 12, 2023
On Broadway, it feels both overdone (with an elaborate set invoking an empty stage, instead of an actual empty stage, and a band instead of a single piano, losing its original charm) and undercooked (a slight, overextended, and rudimentary comic routine).
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October 12, 2023
But the talent onstage is unimpeachable, and their characters’ grief at the state of Broadway finances extends far beyond backroom production teams: Bud’s fictional uncle might have left a lucky fictional inheritance behind, but how many cars have been traded in for a pair of Hamilton seats? Here, one could find a worse deal.
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