Review Roundup: Norbert Leo Butz, George Abud, Mary Beth Peil & More Star In CORNELIA STREET World Premiere
Cornelia Street features a book by Simon Stephens, music and lyrics by Mark Eitzel, choreography by Hope Boykin, and directed by Neil Pepe.
By: A.A. Cristi Feb. 14, 2023
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Read reviews for of Atlantic Theater Company's world premiere production of Cornelia Street, a new musical, below!
Cornelia Street features a book by Simon Stephens, music and lyrics by Mark Eitzel, choreography by Hope Boykin, and directed by Neil Pepe. Cornelia Street is now in performances will open Tuesday, February 14th, for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 5th, Off-Broadway at Atlantic Stage 2 (330 West 16th Street).
Cornelia Street features George Abud (The Band's Visit), two-time Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz (My Fair Lady), Esteban Andres Cruz (Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven), Gizel Jiménez (Netflix's Tick, Tick... Boom!, Wicked), Jordan Lage (American Buffalo), Kevyn Morrow (Hadestown), Tony Award nominee Mary Beth Peil (Anastasia), Lena Pepe (Off-Broadway Debut), and Ben Rosenfield ("Mrs. America").
In a back street in the West Village, Jacob Towney tries to save the restaurant that has been his home for longer than he can remember and release his daughter to the life he dreams she can have. His place is a home for the odd ghosts of the Village. It is out of place and out of time and running out of luck.
Cornelia Street features scenic design by Scott Pask, costume design by Linda Cho, lighting design by Stacey Derosier, sound design by Kai Harada, music direction by Chris Fenwick, orchestrations by John Clancy, music contractor Antoine Silverman, and casting by The Telsey Office; Rachel Hoffman, CSA. Jennifer Rogers will serve as the production stage manager.
Alexis Soloski, The New York Times: "Cornelia Street," a fidgety, aimless new musical, is set on one of the Village's quainter lanes. It goes through every stage, all at once. Written by Simon Stephens with music and lyrics by Mark Eitzel and directed by Neil Pepe for the Atlantic Theater's subterranean space, the show is simultaneously celebration, deflation and a neighborhood elegy in a minor key. It plays out amid and atop the rickety tables and sturdier bar of Marty's Café, a struggling Village restaurant. The show has deep affection for this (mostly) invented place and for the majority of its habitués. But like a lot of tourists who have walked these winding streets, it loses its way.
Jackson McHenry, Vulture: Otherwise, pretty much everyone is stuck in the mud of familiar tropes, and neither Neil Pepe's direction nor Mark Eitzel's workaday songwriting can lever them out of it. Stephens seems to want his book to wander across several plotlines, but for that to work, one of them has to have some depth. There are also fundamental holes. Intermission, for instance, comes not after a sung Act One finale but after a brief exchange of dialogue and a blackout. The audience wasn't sure whether to get up, though the couple next to me did and then, understandably, never came back. I hope they, unlike me, wandered down from 16th Street into the real-life West Village, found a non-facsimile of a bar, and got themselves an actual drink.
David Cote, Observer: The line, "Hey, we're New Yorkers, we bust our friggin' balls," technically isn't spoken in the dreadful new musical Cornelia Street, but it might as well be. Stephens's ersatz Gothamites bemoan testicles busted, kicked, or squeezed in a vise. Then, to console themselves, they name-check their geographic location. The last line of the final song goes, "Love is a magic you must believe / like a fool in love with New York City." Which is cute, if you can withstand the two hours and twenty minutes of aimless tedium that precedes it.
Gillian Russo, New York Theatre Guide: The overall result is a show that simply happens, with songs that do nothing to deepen or further any of its plot points. Cornelia Street needs some work - starting with becoming a straight play - if it has hopes of moving further uptown.
Robert Hofler, The Wrap: Eitzel's score disguises some of the weaknesses in the book; at other times, it exposes them. At its best, the music has the soaring, plaintive quality of vintage country-western while never betraying the urban-eastern roots of the characters singing those songs here. Eitzel is also a master lyricist, even when the occasional word-play may be out of character or more than a little convoluted. Because so many Broadway lyricists today don't even bother to rhyme, Eitzel sizable talent in this department may be a mere quibble if not for that fact that his very poetic lyrics highlight how ordinary Stephens's dialogue sounds when the characters stop singing.
Nicole Serratore, The Stage: Playwright Simon Stephens and indie-rocker Mark Eitzel of American Music Club previously collaborated on Marine Parade (2010) and Song from Far Away (2015). Now they join forces on a confounding new musical, directed by Neil Pepe. The piece flounders in its efforts to say something about New York City, and never finds depth in the voices of people struggling to make their way here.
Howard Miller, Talkin' Broadway: Sometimes it happens that you attend a play or musical and find that it suffers from a rickety script or uninspired score. Still, if you are lucky, there will be something about it that draws you in. Maybe the actors have managed to create compelling characters from sketchily drawn ones. Or the director has come up with an intriguing and original approach. Or one or two songs rise above the rest. Sadly, the gods of theatre have failed to bestow any of these blessings on Cornelia Street, a head-scratcher of a musical that is being presented by the Atlantic Theater Company at Atlantic Stage 2.
Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast: Director Neil Pepe (Tony-nominated for American Buffalo) keeps Cornelia Street's storylines on such a low simmer the show begins to feel too directionless in its storylines and somewhat stereotypical characters. Aimless conversation and song stall the plot. However, two songs stand out: Patti's "You Do Nothing" is a headbanger that blasts out of nowhere to express her dissatisfaction with her ineffectual dad, while "Dancing"-springing forth from Sarah's memories of Studio 54-is an all-too-familiar nostalgic totem given fresh life by the cast letting loose to the best of Hope Boykin's choreography.
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