Double Review Roundup: 9 to 5 and Waiting for Godot
by Robert Diamond - May 01, 2009
Don't miss this new musical comedy based on the classic hit movie! 9 to 5: THE MUSICAL features a brand-new score by seven-time Grammy Award® winner Dolly Parton that includes the blockbuster title song, plus a book by original screenwriter Patricia Resnick, direction by two time Tony Award® winner Joe Mantello (directing his first new musical since Wicked), and choreography by Tony winner Andy Blankenbuehler (In The Heights). Emmy Award® winner and Tony Award nominee Allison Janney stars as Violet Newstead, the super-efficient office manager who joins her fellow co-workers - frazzled divorcée Judy Bernly (Stephanie J. Block) and sexy secretary Doralee Rhodes (Megan Hilty) - to turn the tables on their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss, Franklin Hart, Jr. (Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch).
In a hilarious turn of events, Violet, Judy and Doralee live out their wildest fantasy - giving their boss the boot! While Hart remains "otherwise engaged," the women give their workplace a dream makeover, taking control of the company that had always kept them down. Hey, a girl can scheme, can't she?
David Rooney, Variety: "The principal asset in "9 to 5: The Musical" is unquestionably the beloved screen property on which this eager-to-please adaptation is based. The popular 1980 fem-powerment farce about three renegade secretaries who turn the tables on their chauvinistic boss was driven by three iconic performances, and the women who step into those heels here do dandy work re-creating those characters with enough freshness to rise above mere imitation. If the material showcasing the trio is an uneven cut-and-paste job that struggles to recapture the movie's giddy estrogen rush, plenty of folks will nonetheless find this a nostalgic crowd-pleaser."
Ben Brantley, New York Times: "Give some credit to "9 to 5" - the overinflated whoopee cushion lodged at the Marquis Theater - for bucking this spring's fashion trends. Can this gaudy, empty musical really be part of the same Broadway season that gave us the minimally decorated, maximally effective "Exit the King," "God Of Carnage," "Next to Normal," "Hair," "Mary Stuart" and "Norman Conquests"?"
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