Blogger Roundup: A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER

With the lines blurring between professional and amateur drama critics, and indeed between anointed critics and avid theatergoers, we thought it worth hearing from more alternative voices. Click here to check out the official A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER Review Roundup.

A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER, a new musical opened earlier this month at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The production stars Tony Award Winner Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham, and features Lisa O'Hare, Lauren Worsham, Jane Carr, Pamela Bob,Joanna Glushak, Eddie Korbich, Jeff Kready, Mark Ledbetter,Jennifer Smith, Price Waldman, and Catherine Walker.

A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER features a book by Robert L. Freedman, music by Steven Lutvak, and lyrics by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak. Darko Tresnjak directs and Peggy Hickey choreographs. The musical is adapted from a 1907 novel by Roy Horniman, the same novel that inspired the 1949 movie "Kind Heart and Coronets," starring Alec Guinness, and tells the story of a man who sets out to kill eight of his aristocratic relatives so that he can inherit the earldom.

Here are some reviews from the blogosphere:

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: Jefferson Mays dies eight times in "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder," a musical now opened on Broadway whose story is familiar to those who have seen the 1949 Alec Guinness movie, "Kind Hearts and Coronets"; whose tone and design are familiar from "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"; and whose musical style evokes "Gilbert and Sullivan."...The musical is well-designed, well-acted, and well enough plotted (with some twists that are well-crafted.) Yet for all its cleverness and wicked charm, this is an entertainment I could easily have skipped...Targeting out-of-touch British aristocrats from the early twentieth century, as Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak do in "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder" is not just easy. It becomes tiresome - and at times disturbing.

Geri Silver, Theatre Is Easy: A darkly comic and delightfully silly comedy...The evening, though overlong, provides plenty of perfectly-executed (no pun intended) comedic gags and musical moments.

Aaron Botwick, Scribicide: Bryce Pinkham is quite good as Monty...To say that Jefferson Mays falls short of living up to Alec Guinness would be unnecessary and a little cruel, since the two are so far apart in talent that it would be like comparing William Shakespeare with John Grisham. His is an athletically impressive performance (the costume changes alone would topple a less gymnastic actor), but he has an off-putting, almost creepy smugness about him, and one gets the impression that he is the type of person who laughs loudest at his own jokes. True, this isn't entirely Mr. Mays' fault, since the writing is consistently obvious and unfunny, not to mention occasionally uncomfortable.

David NouNou, Stagezine a most delightful and charming evening. ..A lot happens in Act I and not enough in Act II. This had all the makings for a superb musical had it been a 100-minute one act without an intermission and the excess fat in Act II could have been trimmed.

Jeff Kyler, JK's Theatre Scene: With exceptionally versatile cast, razor-sharp direction and a handsome production by any standards, as well as one of the wittiest original books and scores in some time...you'd think that I'd have been chomping at the bit to spread the word on my "latest favorite show." Unfortunately, my ultimate impression is one of appreciation and enjoyment, and not that hard-to-explain feeling of musical theater ecstasy...I thought I'd laugh heartily more often, when I actually mostly chuckled to myself.

Matthew Murray, Talkin' Broadway When raw entertainment is the goal - which it more or less always is when Mays is at the center of things - you're able to lose yourself in the show's abundant charms. But there's no escaping Monty's essential loathsomeness, and as talented as Pinkham... is, his onstage presence naturally leans toward the frosty and severe, which doesn't ingratiate us to this ever-scheming man... More damaging still is the structure of the show itself. Because the majority of the D'Ysquiths depart for the grave in the first act, that leaves perilously little fun to be had with the conceit later on... (Mays) makes A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder a legitimate must-see, when otherwise it would be at best a forgettable lark.

Robert Hofler, The Wrap At first listen, the score by lyricist-composer Steven Lutvak and co-lyricist Freedman sounds overly chock full of patter songs. It's not a problem: the wonderfully witty lyrics deserve to be heard and savored. But that's what they used to say about Stephen Sondheim, whose melodies often needed repeated airings to be appreciated. Lufvak (this is his Broadway debut) borrows from English music hall, Gilbert & Sullivan and Lerner & Loewe (the gay anthem "Better with a Man" is a nice reworking of Henry Higgins's "A Hymn to Him" and will soon be sung in better piano bars everywhere), but he ultimately makes the songs his own.