Once is the acclaimed new musical based on the Academy Award-winning film. Authentic, funny and refreshingly unique, Once tells the story of an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant drawn together by their shared love of music. Over the course of one fateful week, their unexpected friendship and collaboration evolves into a powerful but complicated romance, heightened by the raw emotion of the songs they create together. Featuring an ensemble cast of gifted actor/musicians, helmed by the creators of the theatrical sensation Black Watch and fashioned by a team of Tony-winning designers, Once is a musical celebration of life and love: thrilling in its originality, daring in its honesty... and unforgettable in every way.
Once stays homey, charming, and inviting; on a smaller scale than usual for a Broadway musical, which turns out to be a good thing. It is also slow moving and slight. It requires patience, or at least the right mind-set, to fall for this show (Falling slowly, indeed.) The musical is an hour longer than the movie. But even with John Carney’s movie script adapted by a first-rate playwright, Enda Walsh (whose most recent play produced in New York was the eerie Misterman), the story in Once the musical is only a bit less sketchy than the film.
So it’s a little surprising, though very satisfying, to report that the musical “Once” has made a happy Broadway landing at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, which has converted its stage into an old-fashioned Irish pub to make everyone feel, if not quite as cozy as they did at New York Theatre Workshop, where the work debuted late last year, at least just as relaxed and welcome ... The only major problem with the show, which stars Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti as the characters known simply as Guy and Girl, is that it overstretches its material. There really isn’t enough story or music for two acts. The film didn’t need more than 90 minutes to complete the arc of this adult fable, and neither does the stage version.
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