Rating: 0/5 stars
This review isn't fun for me. I guess it was bound to happen that I would see a terrible show and have to review it. But even other terrible shows I've seen, at least I could see why people liked it and who I thought should go see it. For this one I'm actually requesting no one purchase a ticket. Even if you get a free ticket, which I did, you may still want to skip it. I want you all to know that I'm not a theatre snob. I can enjoy stupid, silly shows and I can even enjoy shows with bad acting because that's entertaining in itself. This show was offensive and took a giant leap backwards in the development of theatre, especially musical theatre.
I attended It Shoulda Been You this past Thursday night and got a free ticket through a friend. I had already heard rumblings through my work that the show was not good, but I tried to go in with an open mind and just enjoy myself. No, it wasn't going to be a Something Rotten, but maybe it would be along the lines of Mamma Mia (which I hate but understand how some people enjoy it). So I'm going to spoil the plot for you now. Hopefully this will give you another reason not to see it.
The younger daughter of a present-day Jewish family is getting married, the older sister who is "fat" and is constantly reminded of it is helping run the wedding. The mothers of both wedding parties hate each other and make snide remarks the whole time. Both sets of parents don't want these two getting married because she's Jewish and he's not [insert lots of Jewish jokes]. Then, right after the ceremony concludes, we find out that the bride is a lesbian and is dating her maid of honor and the groom is gay and is dating his best man. What? Apparently the groom has a trust fund that he only receives if he marries a woman, and they were friends in college so they decided to get married and lie to all of their family members. And to throw in another bizarre twist, the bride is actually pregnant and it's the groom's baby! What? Oh sure, he's gay and she's a lesbian, but they got drunk one night and procreated accidentally anyways. ????????? But don't forget the fat older sister who is actually the lead in this show. She ends up re-falling for her sister's ex-boyfriend who showed up at the wedding to stop it. He also "loves" her and proposes. She says yes? And then the gay couples decide to say "screw it!" after everyone finds out the truth and the finale is three weddings...
The story is completely insane and it seems they are more like kids "trying on" being gay than people discovering themselves. It's not like people are fighting EVERY DAY for marriage equality rights or going through the long and hard journey of adoption and surrogacy. I guess everyone should have just married a friend for the money and gotten pregnant along the way! There were a lot of tasteless jokes in this show and why it makes me so mad is because people laughed and they felt it was ok to laugh because it was in a Broadway musical. There were a lot of "turning people gay" jokes. As if the family is what turned them gay. As the groom said to his father "whether it's nurture or nature, it's your fault!" The maid of honor was the one black person in the show and she says at one point "it's been easier being black than being gay. People just look at me and know I'm black." The gay best man then says "black people have it so easy!" Then all of the fat jokes and making the older sister feel awful. She doesn't have any self-respect until her mother and soon-to-be husband call her beautiful. I mean, what century are we in???
The acting was bad all around. And there are some pretty big names (Sierra Boggess, Tyne Daly, David Burtka). I don't know if they just didn't care or didn't have much to work with but it seemed like a bad community theatre production. I can't remember a single song from the show, thank God, and the musical style was very old.
I think this show upset me so much because why I love theatre is it makes you feel things you don't normally feel and it makes you see things in a way you wouldn't have before. Theatre opens your mind and can bring such joy and inspiration to people. This show was a disgrace to musical theatre. And it was so offensive. Have you seen the news? With the things happening in Indiana, Ferguson, Russia, etc I think we deserve shows with more respect. And I want to point out that I love Book of Mormon and that's about as offensive as it gets, but that show is complete farce and is actually trying to make a point underneath it all. I can only hope that people see how harmful this show is and it closes as soon as possible.
Who should see this show:
- No one
- Please tell others not to see it or support it