"As long as it sticks to the story of a mother-daughter relationship...it is a powerful example of what musicals do best: explore the unprotected border where individual needs and social issues intermix...Too often falls short of its own ambitions...Too much time is turned over to diversions apparently meant to be distracting or, worse, heartwarming...Rubin-Vega, with her rough charisma, and Jiménez, with her blue-sky voice, generally make you forget all that."
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"The show is quite a tearjerker when it sticks to the fraught mother-daughter relationship at its core, with tuneful folk-rock songs that touch on depression, heritage and family. But after hitting a few bumps on the highway, Hudes’s book loses focus and crashes into cliché...It’s a treat to spend time with complex Latinx characters who buck stereotypes. But although 'Miss You Like Hell' takes us on a resonant journey, its trajectory needs adjusting."
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"Smart, if a bit on the nose, and with a less generic score and more trenchant direction, 'Miss You Like Hell' might really start to flex its muscles. But McKeown's songs evaporate from the brain pretty quickly, and deBessonet is so invested in the poignancy of the story that she never really finds its edges...There's power to its central plot, and to Rubin-Vega's and Jiménez's performances...But this car trip sticks to such well-worn emotional terrain, it loses its sense of adventure."
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""Has a timely political edge, an ethnically diverse cast and a score by a singer-songwriter who knows how to rock. What's more, it's good-really good...Steers a bit erratically between sentiment and sentimentality, but it scarcely ever descends to outright tearjerking and Ms. McKeown’s score heightens every emotion so skillfully that you’d think this was her third or fourth show instead of her theatrical debut."
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"The socially aware but awkward musical traces a road trip and reminds that traveling and theater share some rules for success. Don't overpack. Do choose good company...Hudes, McKeown, and deBessonet get the latter one right. Otherwise, the show is overstuffed and overstated...Songs are mostly so-so, and sometimes better, but the production is too much and too little at the same time. On the plus side, there are richly emotional performances all around."
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"An earnest show that too often gets stuck in a traffic jam of multiple themes, characters and storylines...Overstuffed with ideas and incidents that don't add up to a sweeping, satisfying whole...The human touches of the mother-daughter dynamic are the most appealing part of the show...Low-tech to a fault...However, McKeown makes an impressive stage debut with music that is eclectic and appealing, though the lyrics are too often an odd mix of fleeting grace and awkwardness."
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"This timely show addresses such hot-button societal issues...But in an effort to be as entertaining as impactful, it does so in a cutesy, cloying manner that undercuts the important messages being imparted...Hudes' episodic book shifts wildly in tone, consistent only in its inconsistency and lack of credibility, while McKeown's pop-rock score features unmemorable ditties...The 10-person ensemble works hard to bring heart to the material, and they often succeed."
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"Hudes and McKeown admirably attempt to put a human face on cold statistics, but they are too often thwarted by a lack of faith in their central story...deBessonet falls into the trap of delivering a workshop production in lieu of a full one...Frustratingly, it often feels like 'Miss You Like Hell' is more interested in broadcasting its woke intersectional bona fides than actually telling the story at hand...It's not hell to sit through, but you certainly won't miss it once it's gone."
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