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Smash Is the Wrong Kind of Dud
Instead of embracing its legendary love-to-hate-watch roots, the Broadway adaptation of the NBC show about a musical is surprisingly timid.
Hours before that performance, as Ivy has a diva moment and Karen is incapacitated in a reformatting of the series’ poisoning plot line, Bombshell ’s assistant director, Chloe (Bella Coppola), suddenly has to step up to play Marilyn, winning the love of the internet. In those sequences, as on TV, Smash transitions into a fantasy of a fully staged version of Bombshell, with Ivy (or Karen or Chloe) in Marilyn regalia as she navigates the studio system, and then back to a rehearsal room with characters in sweats still working through the counts of their dances. It’s not for lack of talent or budget: Stroman did The Producers, Hurder is an incredibly lithe dancer, they clearly spent a ton of money on Beowulf Boritt’s fully realized sets (he uses video screens only when dramatically necessary, bless him), and Alejo Vietti’s costumes have the texture and sparkle of quality material.
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