The reviews for Bonnie & Clyde are in, and though they’re not the worst Wildhorn has seen, they are far from positive. Reviewers did find some redeeming qualities in the show’s cast, but found the story and songs simply didn’t deliver. Unoriginal and uninspired, most of them left the theatre asking the question: “Why?”
NEW YORK TIMES
That Clyde Barrow is such a cutup. Why, the boy will do most anything to stir up his sluggish fellow Americans: slap at them, tickle them, shoot them in cold blood. He’ll even punch his fist clean through a wall and drive a big old car right onto the stage, just to try to get a rise out of somebody. But Clyde, honey, t’ain’t nothing you can do to raise the pulse of something that’s as near to dead as the show you’re in.
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HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Of all the legendary real-life outlaws who have cemented their place in the pages of classic Americana, few have been as iconically brought to life as Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in the landmark 1967 Arthur Penn film. So it takes a bold creative vision to put a fresh stamp on the doomed Depression-era felons. The new musical Bonnie & Clyde assembles four talented leads in a good-looking production, but its trite storytelling leaves them shooting blanks.
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VARIETY
Boy meets girl on a deserted road in Depression-era West Dallas, and sooner than you can say “Warren Beatty,” they’re rolling in the hay — or rather, the dust. Seeing as how his name is Clyde and hers is Bonnie, the eventual outcome is no surprise here, and indeed the dead-end story trajectory grows burdensome, as does the fact that unschooled white-trash gunslingers generally aren’t loquacious enough to steal the spotlight. For all that, three exciting performances and a better-than-usual score from Frank Wildhorn combine to make this an arresting if problematic new musical.
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WALL STREET JOURNAL
‘Bonnie & Clyde’ isn’t the worst musical to open on Broadway in the past decade. It isn’t even the worst Frank Wildhorn musical to open on Broadway in the past decade. (That would be “Dracula.”) It is, however, quite sufficiently bad enough to qualify for the finals of this year’s What-Were-They-Thinking Prize. Why would anyone not obviously deranged put money into a show with music by a composer whose last three Broadway outings tanked? And who thought it was a good idea to write a commodity musical whose title gives the impression that “Bonnie & Clyde” is based (even though it isn’t) on a 44-year-old movie that is no longer well remembered save by upper-middle-age baby boomers? Nor have Mr. Wildhorn and his feckless collaborators managed to beat these long odds: “Bonnie & Clyde” is so enervatingly bland and insipid that you’ll leave the theater asking yourself why you ever liked musicals in the first place.
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NEWSDAY
There should be — and I’m guessing there will be — a place on Broadway this season for “Bonnie & Clyde.” Certainly, Arthur Penn’s 1967 film masterwork of violence and gorgeous outlaws does not cry out to be a musical. And, if it did, vanilla-pop composer Frank Wildhorn would not appear on most lists of feasible adapters.
Click here to read the full “Bonnie & Clyde” review.
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