Summary
A contemporary adaptation of The Beggar’s Opera set in 1850s Manhattan. A rip-roaring tale of grifters, gangs, and romance in a city where survival is the only game in town.
Wednesday, June 4, 2025 at 8:30 PM Jun 4, 2025, 8:30 PM
I really didn’t vibe with this but in an incredibly lucky twist fireworks started going off after an hour and they paused the show and I had a chance to escape and get to Los Tacos before they closed
To their credit, I will say that the quality of the production was actually pretty impressive - the staging was neat and the venue was of course lovely. There are accomplished voices in the cast and you can’t beat the price point. I’m very much looking forward to seeing something else here.
The actors do what they can with it, but the book’s just such a clunker. It’s hard to follow and it’s a lot of vulgar jokes that really don’t land. (Not to imply I’m above that type of humor in any way - it’s just that the level of cleverness here is often “it’s funny that we’re saying a curse word!” - you can get away with one or two of those but over time the laughs from the crowd were steadily getting more muted)
I can’t help feeling like they should have just picked a safer existing show to put on (instead of cranking this out in six months) and it would have made for a really lovely evening