Importance Score: 30 / 100 🔵
Theater review
SMASH
Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission. At the Imperial Theatre, 249 West 45th Street.
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The musical number “Let’s Be Bad” from the Broadway production “Smash” serves as an unintended motto for the show itself.
This ethos of questionable taste is evident even before entering the theater, with the show’s title boldly displayed on the marquee.
The stage adaptation of the NBC television series, which premiered Thursday night at the Imperial, seems to disregard the source material’s critical and popular failings. The original TV show, “Smash,” was canceled after two seasons when it failed to resonate with critics and viewers alike.
Labeling the TV program a cult favorite might be overly generous; “Smash” is often associated with the phenomenon of “hate-watching,” suggesting its appeal was rooted in its flaws.
Now, twelve years later, key members of the original backstage television drama’s creative team have seemingly doubled down on past missteps, yielding a theatrical production that arguably surpasses its predecessor in misguided choices.
It becomes challenging to discern which decisions are more perplexing: those made by the fictional, backstabbing creators of “Bombshell,” the Marilyn Monroe musical within the show, or those of the actual creative team—Robert Greenblatt, Steven Spielberg, and Susan Stroman—responsible for the stage spectacle that is “Smash.”
For the few who tuned into the NBC series, and even fewer who retain specific recollections, only two characters are reprised in this stage version, albeit with altered and arguably less intelligent narratives: Ivy Lynn (portrayed by Robyn Hurder) and Karen (played by Caroline Bowman).
Ivy, famously played by Megan Hilty on television, is depicted as a celebrated Broadway performer cast as Marilyn Monroe in “Bombshell,” a lighthearted musical comedy centered on the “Some Like It Hot” actress. This premise seems to gloss over the real Monroe’s history of abusive relationships and her tragic death from an overdose at just 36—an example of the production’s questionable taste.
Karen, the television counterpart played by Katharine McPhee, is presented as Ivy’s industrious and well-regarded understudy. She is married to the actor portraying Joe DiMaggio (Casey Garvin), a plot point that receives minimal attention.
From this starting point, many of the ideas in Bob Martin’s book should have been discarded.
The narrative introduces Susan (Kristine Nielsen), an eccentric acting coach hired by Ivy, whose attire resembles Igor from “Young Frankenstein.” Susan bizarrely prescribes pills to help Ivy immerse herself in the Marilyn role. Implausibly, Ivy begins to believe she is Marilyn, transforming into a drug-fueled menace.
Jerry (John Behlmann), one half of the musical’s writing duo, descends into alcoholism due to stress, marked by the comedic reveal of three flasks from his jacket. This is intended to be humorous.
Nigel (Brooks Ashmanskas), the show’s pompous director, delivers a predictably mannered performance, while engaging in unsettling advances toward a chorus member—ultimately portrayed as endearing by the production.
The second act witnesses a descent from questionable storytelling into utter absurdity. A cascade of increasingly improbable complications and laughable diversions prompts the audience to question the theatrical adage, “The show must go on.”
This sentiment extends to Stroman’s uninspired direction and the musical score itself.
Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the songwriting team behind “Hairspray,” contribute songs from the original television series. With the exception of the energetic “Let Me Be Your Star,” many of their songs, when presented consecutively rather than spaced across a television season, possess a repetitive quality reminiscent of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” Compounding this, they are primarily performed within the confines of a sparse rehearsal setting.
The score suffers from repetitiveness and a lack of excitement, paralleled by Joshua Bergasse’s choreography, which is neither amusing nor engaging.
Reflecting a similar uncertainty, “Smash” appears ambivalent about the quality of “Bombshell,” the musical-within-a-musical. This fundamental question of whether “Bombshell” is intended to be good or bad should have been a primary consideration.
By contrast, consider the brilliant backstage farce “Noises Off,” where the play-within-a-play, “Nothing On,” is explicitly awful—and that’s central to the comedy. The same principle applies to “Springtime for Hitler” in “The Producers.”
“Bombshell,” however, lands in an ambiguous territory of mediocrity. The implication is that the fictional composers, Jerry and his wife Tracy (Krysta Rodriguez), are creatively bankrupt, recycling melodies from their past, unsuccessful productions like “The Accidental Rabbi.”
Paradoxically, the very reason “Smash” has reached Broadway is arguably due to the enduring appeal of Shaiman and Wittman’s songs from the television series.
This raises a key inconsistency: why are the fictional composers depicted as untrustworthy and lacking in artistic credibility, despite the apparent merit of their work? The internal logic of the show remains elusive.
“Let Me Be Your Star” could serve as an alternate motto for this production. Each underdeveloped character relentlessly competes for attention, including a severe producer (Jacqueline B. Arnold), a Gen Z assistant (Nicholas Matos), and a neglected associate choreographer (Bella Coppola), among others.
The audience may briefly find themselves rooting for a character, only to quickly revert to a state of perplexed bewilderment.
Perhaps the most telling indication of the production’s shortcomings is that the antagonists are an acting coach and the social media platform TikTok.
Throughout the performance, none of the cast members—including Hurder and Bowman—are given the opportunity to truly shine. This isn’t necessarily a cohesive ensemble piece either. The muddled material forces the entire cast, despite their individual talents, to coalesce into a bland, indistinguishable mass.
“Smash” commences with Marilyn’s poignant lyric: “Fade in on a girl.”
By the final curtain, a more fitting sentiment emerges: “Fade out on a show.”