Waitress The Musical is going to Broadway! But guess what: it was in Boston first. Theatre District means more than just a blog for theatre kids, it also happens to be right around where I live! Now, I wasn’t able to see Waitress when it was at the American Repertory Theater (ART, see what they did there?) in Boston, butttttt a lot of people did. SO! For your reading pleasure, I am able to present a mashup of reviews from Variety, The Boston Globe, and Broadway World. Ready? Still undecided about whether to go see the show? Check it out for yourself during the Broadway Previews beginning on the 25th of March!
Variety
“Based on writer-director Adrienne Shelley’s 2007 indie film, Jessie Nelson’s book follows the movie’s narrative, beginning just as Jenna, in the midst of planning to leave her abusive husband, Earl (Joe Tippett), discovers she is pregnant. She decides to have the baby — but clearly it’s not a child she wants.
She finds support from her fellow waitresses, not dissimilar to the characters in the diner film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and its sitcom spinoff, “Alice.” There’s mousy, nervous Dawn (Jeanna De Waal) and tough, wisecracking Becky (Keala Settle). There’s also brusque Cal (Eric Anderson), the cook/manager, and the diner’s folksy-crusty owner, Joe (Dakin Matthews, in a performance as easygoing and tasty as molasses).
Things get more complicated when Jenna starts an affair with her newly-arrived-in-town — and married — gynecologist, Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling). As played by the sweetly awkward and disarmingly gentle Gehling, it’s the type of romance that, in another show, you would hope would work out somehow. But this distaff-centric tuner is not simply about getting Prince Charming, but also getting its heroine to clean up her own messes, take action and discover her maternal worth.
A comic-romantic subplot with Dawn and an Internet date with Ogie (Jeremy Morse, in a firecracker of a performance) brightens the mood, with Morse having a pair of highly charged numbers: “Never Getting Rid of Me,” which nicely contrasts with Earl’s creepy possessiveness, and the silly but joyous “I Love You Like a Table.”
Dawn and Becky have their musical moments, too, especially Settle’s searing “I Didn’t Plan It,” when Becky owns up to her own marital imperfections. (“Its not right/but it’s mine/and it’s finally something to feel.”) These flawed or broken characters live with their fates as best as they can, some better than others. When Jenna asks Cal if he’s happy, he responds, “Happy enough.” Jenna wants more than enough.
But making Earl so relentlessly horrible makes Jenna’s inability to leave him not just indecisive but something more worrisome. (In the film, Jeremy Sisto’s character is more wily and seductive in his pathology.) Meanwhile, there’s little evidence for the good doctor being Jenna’s lost soulmate, despite his loving bedside manner, and the 11th-hour cameo of Dr. Pomatter’s wife is a questionable choice, at least as it’s presented now.
Mueller’s performance transcends the show’s imperfections. She’s funny, frisky and likeable. She sings Bareilles’ songs beautifully, giving every word significance and interest even as the tunes in the second half slip increasingly into thicker sentiment.
Leading the sisterhood of creatives, director Diane Paulus fills the production with clever touches — a scalloped pie-crust proscenium, a fluid and easygoing flow and a natural truthfulness in the performances. Scott Pask’s set design authentically evokes the chrome, neon and Naugahyde look of a down-home joint, as do Kenneth Posner’s lighting and Suttirat Larlarb’s seemingly off-the rack costumes. Another nice touch: The band is positioned onstage in a side room of the diner, further populating the place — and justifying the diner’s three waitresses.
In a show that celebrates motherhood, pie and extramarital affairs, “Waitress” could be a kind of comfort-food musical. But at this point it still needs more filling.” — Frank Rizzo
Boston Globe
“Jessie Mueller’s terrific performance in the new musical “Waitress” at the American Repertory Theater makes one hope she’ll still be starring when the show, helmed by ART artistic director Diane Paulus, debuts on Broadway next spring.
The actress brings a weary gravity to the title role of the “desperately sad” Jenna, along with a luminous singing voice that makes clear why Mueller won a Tony Award last year for “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” Especially in the second act, Mueller elevates an entertaining show that faithfully follows the 2007 movie that starred Keri Russell, including some bits that are only sitcom deep.
“Waitress” is an empowerment fable with pie. If it was a novel, it would include recipes and be a favorite of book clubs but not the critics.Jenna is a small-town diner waitress with a hard life — married young to an abusive moron named Earl (Joe Tippett), who takes her tip money when she gets home. At Joe’s Pie Diner, she’s the secret weapon, baking delicious and imaginative pies with cute names that turn dark after she finds out she’s pregnant: “I Don’t Want to Have a Baby With Earl Pie” and “Pregnant Miserable Self Pitying Loser Humble Pie.”
It looks like her life might change for the better when sparks fly between her and her OB-GYN, Dr. Pomatter, a romance that turns physical right there on the exam table. In the movie, the doctor was played by the twinkly-eyed hunk Nathan Fillion, so you knew it was going to happen. Here Drew Gehling is a nervous suitor and has a good way with a funny line, but even given Jenna’s agitated state, their hookup seemed a little abrupt. It ought to be easy enough for director Paulus and book writer Jessie Nelson to add a moment for the pair as they tweak the show through its run in Cambridge.
Sara Bareilles’s songs give Jenna and one or two other characters a chance to explore their feelings, and they’re best when they stay close to her normal singer-songwriter mode. Jenna’s second-act solo number, “She Used to Be Mine,” is the night’s showstopper, coming when she finds out that Dr. Pomatter may not be the answer to her problems. With a voice that sometimes recalls King, Mueller sings a heartbreaking self-assessment: “She is broken but won’t ask for help/ She is messy but she’s kind/ She is lonely most of the time.”
Bareilles and Paulus also give a lovely moment to veteran character actor Dakin Matthews as Joe, the diner owner, a curmudgeon whose heart of gold only Jenna sees. When he sings “Take It From an Old Man” to her while they dance at a wedding, it’s a genuine lump-in-the-throat moment.
Aside from Joe and the doctor, the characters aren’t much deeper than their one-line descriptions, although the actors are often winning. The best lines, happy and sad, often come directly from the movie. Eric Anderson hits his jokes with a Nick Offerman rhythm as grumpy, put-upon cook Cal. Keala Settle wrings every laugh out of the sassy/tough waitress Becky, and sings the heck out of her number, “I Didn’t Plan It.”
Jeanna de Waal is sweet as nebbishy waitress Dawn, the role played in the movie by writer-director Adrienne Shelly. (Shelly was murdered before the movie opened, adding a layer of tragedy to the story.) And Jeremy Morse is a ball of energy as Ogie, the dweeby weirdo with whom she finds love.
In the bigger picture — spoiler alert! — the road to happiness for the heroine seems to be through baking pies and being a mother, not a common route in today’s theater. But with some subtle additions to Jenna’s back story here, it’s a longer arc than you’d think.
Stagecraft is never a question at the ART these days. The Broadway design team from the Paulus-directed “Finding Neverland” produces the usual effortless-looking theatrical magic, although this time there’s no actual magic required. The onstage area for the band seems to take up an awful lot of space, but the musicians are excellent.
The whisper-sung repetition of “Sugar . . . butter . . . flour” as Jenna builds her pies adds an almost eerie touch to her sadness. In a program note, Nelson mentions the adage that you can know everything about people by how they treat their waitress. Seeing “Waitress,” it’s clear that Mueller feels a deep empathy for her server, enough to carry this show past its limitations.” — Joel Brown
BroadwayWorld
“Mueller is a singing actress with a salt-of-the-Earth quality that works extremely well for this down-home story and country-fried score. She’s completely natural whether shrinking from her overbearing husband (Joe Tippett) or falling for her doctor (Drew Gehling) misgivings be damned. She’s tender with Joe, the crusty pie shop owner (Dakin Matthews), and funny with her co-workers, Becky (Keala Settle), Dawn (Jeanna De Waal) and Cal (Eric Anderson). Mueller is most affecting, though, when she segues from one-way conversations with her as yet unborn baby into deeply moving self-reflective songs. “She Used to Be Mine” is a tear-inducing pop-rock ballad in which Jenna yearns for the once happy and strong young woman she used to be. “Everything Changes” is a beautiful lullaby of birth and re-birth in which Jenna becomes mother and newborn at the same time.” — Jan Nargi
Still undecided about whether to go see the show? Check it out for yourself during the Broadway Previews beginning on the 25th of March! As always, you can contact TD at the addresses below!
Twitter: @theatredblog OR @kraioloa
Email: theatredistrictblog@gmail.com
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