well, to be honest, ben brantley’s review has a couple of quibbles. one about the length of the first act (i get what he’s saying, but it doesn’t bother me) and one about the actress portraying young little edie in the first act (i disagree; i think her performance is a perfectly understated complement to christine ebersole’s second act tour-de-force).
but, at any rate, you can call it a rave.
from the review:
The wit, exact detail and, above all, compassion with which Ms. Ebersole infuses each of her numbers as Little Edie are ravishing. Even dancing like a drunken U.S.O. entertainer from World War II, flapping flags as if they were flyswatters, this Edie is never merely ridiculous. And when her voice goes pure and girlish for the show’s most conventionally pretty numbers, she becomes the frightened, resentful and perversely hopeful child that persists in everyone, longing for parental approval and the sanctuary of a real home.
There is another phrase, by the way, in addition to the immortal “da-da-da-da-dum,†that I can’t get out of my head. This one is two words, “Oh, God,†and Ms. Ebersole sings them in her climactic number, “Another Winter in a Summer Town,†with a layering of despair, rebellion and surrender that becomes a heartbreaking epitaph for an entire life. Watching this performance is the best argument I can think of for the survival of the American musical.
you might as well engrave “christine ebersole” on the tony now.
this thing is here for the long haul. do yourself a favor, and get yourself a ticket. this is a performance that, in future years, you’ll brag about having seen.