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sabergowitz · 7 years

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GHD

Groundhog Day Broadway reaction post!!!! I’ve been waiting to see it for like a year and a half, and boy howdy do I like this show. I saw one preview, opening night, and once front row! General thoughts, plus a section at the bottom for opening night specifically (aka me stressing unnecessarily about his injury)

Disclaimer one: I wrote about spoilers, stuff I like, stuff I don’t like, staging, the whole nine. largely show-chronological. may not make sense to you unless you’ve seen the show

Disclaimer two: I wrote this on a bus in the middle of the night so it is not the most coherent.

tl;dr all the people who say “i’m too busy literally spinning on bill murray’s dick to even consider seeing this show” can suck my fucking toe

ACT I

one of the screens in the beginning shows phil talking about the weather on mars? wot is tha abah

that beginning-of-frozen/come from away swag in ‘there will be sun’, that mountain sound. one of the reviewers pointed this out too

I saw one of the reviewers say that not one song was memorable to them after the show??? I don’t know what they were smoking, because I’ve had ‘day one’/””””small town usa”””” stuck in my head since I first saw it

the punxsutawney jingle is so disneyland-ready it’s scary

barrett never enunciates "flood" story. the first time I heard it I was like "blood story? wat"

Also re: barrett -- she fits the character so well and I LOVE her singing voice!!! I think her acting is mostly In Service Of andy, which, duh -- but I’d like her to (and I have confidence she will) make it her own/a little more individual/idiosyncratic. Just the three performances I’ve seen I think she’s growing into it/getting more comfy :3

the "with a kiss- twist!" gets a little laugh, but following it up with "/fuck/" just tickles me every time hehe

love how the point they freeze at in ‘there will be sun’ is right before the sunrise/"oh if i could i'd will these clouds away" stuff - which all happens once phil is freed, and he watches the sunrise with rita :')

I LOVE ned’s chopped and screwed jingle on the third go around. it's like five seconds but it's so good at setting the mood. I am Frankly Appalled that the jingle isn’t on the cast recording, you don’t get the full impact of ‘night will come’ then

did not see ned’s pedo stache on my first two viewings, it grrrrosses me out and is not even ghd-movie-canonical, why this

the drunk driving joke always gets a big laugh which makes me a bit uncomfy

‘nobody cares’ is so FUCKING good. I esp like "shoot some cans, crack some cans, shoot the breeze". I wish they’d perform it at the tonys but alas….

… okay an Aside for tonys performance thoughts: I’d love them to perform ‘nobody cares’ but it would kind of waste andy and I feel like they’d want him prominent. Plus the big car is run on the turntables, which they wouldn’t have on that stage, but maybe they could just block it differently. ‘hope’ would obviously be fucking incredible but I think it’s too Dark and staging-complicated for the tonys. I have a feeling we’re gonna get ‘if I had my time again’ which is fffffine but a little generic for my taste. Obviously the solution is ‘seeing you’, pls. okay moving on (ETA: they are apparently doing a medley that includes one of the Days. I am Nervous about this choice)

still don’t know how they do the bag blowing across the stage so well in ‘philanderer’! I don’t see a string or anything and it blows so realistically

also, important note: when he goes behind the door with nancy and is making ~sex noises~, he is actually in real time also thrusting/writhing up on her, I saw it with my eyes lordy lou

"me, in all my finery! and you, in your - practical attire!" makes me laugh EVERY time I just love how andy delivers it

the shining armor masturbation joke never lands and I think barrett have given up on trying to telegraph it super clearly haha

"same! that is my favorite drink!" handonchest.jpeg

rita's constant response to phil’s sleaziness is "grow up" -- which, I understand that is what they're trying to push thematically for phil? but like grown ass men aren't doing gross ass shit every day???

“for me modesty is second only to humility" is the laugh line for me but "my humility is legend" always gets it

in ‘one day’ when rita sings “metrosexual”, phil points to himself like “me? why you gotta call me out wtf”

in the snowball fight scene, once when rita’s turned away, phil turns to the kids and mouths “FUCK OFF” with hand gestures, I screamed

love how phil’s “fictional man” hits at the same time as rita’s “actual man”, and they’re both right, and they’re both wrong

ACT II

okay ‘playing nancy’. I see what they were going for with this song, but I think we can all agree that “it’s better to be leered at than not desired at all” is A Bad Take, Greg. whatever, none of the reviewers like this song either, it gives people time to get back to their seats ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ not only is the content strange, but it’s kind of boring musically/melodically too. also I think it’s fucky that they have nancy be a sympathetic character for “taking what men give her”, but shit on rita’s ‘one day’ farm girl for doing the same thing? idk, I haven’t really unpacked all my thoughts about it but it’s not keeping me up at night. they tried, they largely got there, whatevs

the shooting scene before ‘hope’ was so shocking to me when I first saw it, but ‘hope’ itself was just thrilling and exciting. music fixes everything I guess

I love ‘everything about you’, it really struck me in the sternum the first time I saw the show. I’m a BIG sucker for very simplistic imagery communicating larger ideas of love or death or whatever (see also: underwater from caroline or change, origin of love from hedwig and the angry inch)

also “you thought jesus was going to appear from the dark” in your bedroom is totally ripped from the headlines of tim minchin’s life (right? I remember a very similar anecdote from an interview of his) ETA: YES

‘if i had my time again’ is fun and fine!! for me there’s not enough blocking/telegraphing of phil ~truly falling for~ rita. you get some of it in the tilt-a-whirls but it’s pretty hard to follow visually. this song is like a slightly less effective ‘when you’re home’? “feels like you’re showing me around your hometown”, yanno.

“and I would be a lot more zen” immediately followed by “and I would punch a lot of men” same girl

also phil holds the hot dog for SO LONG in this song, I didn’t realize. like for more than half of the song he’s holding this hot dog rita handed to him near the beginning ahahaha

andy karl gets the tony award for best coat-ography, whipping that shit around his shoulders twenty times a show

ned ryerson’s ballad about death is one of my favorite songs, which is a sentence tim minchin made me type with my own two goddamn hands. and john sanders sings it sooooo well I love it. (I like him singing it live better than some of the vocal choices he made on the cast recording)

if I think too hard about what phil is actually doing?? or trying to accomplish?? during that moment it fucks me up so hard. sisyphian 4 real

also the staging at the end of the number, phil (who is dark) following in step behind ned (who is lit) fuck meeee

‘philanthropy’ is the most joyous I have ever been in a theater fight me

also vishal did the whole number and then came back on and was supes sweaty in a tuxedo plus coat, poor thing

and then when all the sound is sucked out of the room and seeing you kicks in I’m d o n e :’’’’’’’’))))))))))

when the final scene comes around and it was clear he had been freed, a lady behind me scoffed and said too loud, “he’s broken out of it now. watch.” and I was like DEBORAH WE’RE ALL AWARE OF THE MOVIE your insight is not necessary pipe down pls

matthew warchus has a talent for ending shows with lovely simple artistic vignettes (ms honey and matilda cartwheeling towards a tiny house, phil and rita with their arms around each other bathed in sunrise) :’)

OPENING NIGHT

maybe it was just me because i had too much coffee beforehand? but I think during the first half I/the audience, plus andy himself, were a little tense/stiff/high strung? not quite ~in the groove~. it is a very anxiety-inducing first half to be fair. (plus it was literally opening night, so.) some of the audience was v aware he was injured: at one point putting on his shoes he almost slipped off the bed platform and a bunch of people gasped/winced. I swear I saw him at one point (when he was stage left, not in the spotlight yet) wave off “no im fine” to someone in the wings. I took deep breaths during intermission to zen out tho, and once he nailed ‘hope’ I was like pshaw we good

he was not quiiiite limping but almost. was stiff. at "with what a dixie cup" I saw him like ~hobbling off the stage :( and he was pulling his punches somewhat with the physical comedy, but I only knew that because I saw him do it at full strength at the preview. I don't think it was obvious to first timers. he didn't go Full Loony Slapstick Panic Attack, it was more like real ass nervous and Stressed, which just made ME stressed because I didn't know if he was struggling injury wise or not

he really gave his all in the slick dancing of ‘philandering’ tho. and everyone was cheering him on, it was great

“one lonely people? c’mon...” *extends his leg with knee brace up onto a diner stool, gestures to it, massages his thigh, literally two distinct applause breaks* “aren't you even curious?”

he kept bending down as the snowball fight scene warrants and I was like BUDDY PLS

in ‘hope’ “there will be mornings you’ll be utterly defeated by your laces” got LAUGHS, I was upset. but people gave crazy cheers each time he woke up again. he just crushed it like fuckin YEAH

when the bell chimes started in for philanthropy my heart rate skyrocketed. instead of doing a silly gangly full on sprint like he did uninjured, he did like, tiny running? in the style of a powerwalker? it was still very comedic and good

‘seeing you’: he broke down/cracked a bit on “I know nothing” and paused, looked upstage, looked at barrett, looked out at the audience, and continued. READER I CRIED

#groundhog day #groundhog day musical #They Did That #ghd in punx pa #come chat at me about stuff!!#ask me questions!#(((do not yell at me about stuff you disagree with I Do Not Care)))

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