The Robber Bridegroom NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (473)
See it if You enjoy classic musicals that have been done time and time again
Don't see it if You are looking for something outside the box
See it if you enjoy old musicals and don't take life too seriously.
Don't see it if you don't like western twang.
See it if its great
Don't see it if its great
See it if Fun, playful, a fairy tale feeling without being childish. Elegantly done. terrific lead
Don't see it if You crave sparkly spectacle
See it if you want to see Alex Timber's cast work magic together. He is the master of "making theater" happen in front of you! So so so creative!
Don't see it if you aren't interested in musicals or bluegrass music.
See it if you have nothing better to do. If it is the only show left in Broadway.
Don't see it if you don't like country music. Read more
See it if you enjoy clever plot twists and just a fun show overall.
Don't see it if a looking for something deeper.
See it if you like bluegrass style music and are looking for a comical show.
Don't see it if you prefer a more classical-sounding musical.
Critic Reviews (40)
"Alex Timbers’s exceedingly high-spirited revival of this 1975 musical will not be to everyone’s liking. But even those allergic to Southern-fried shtick are unlikely to go away feeling entirely empty. Mr. Timbers uses visual wit and gleefully macabre gags to provide awakening jolts during this sustained singing hayride...'The Robber Bridegroom' is not asking you to think deep. Mostly, it just clomps, two-steps and square dances along its relentlessly exuberant way."
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"There’s nary a lull in Alex Timbers’s exuberant revival of 'The Robber Bridegroom', a raucous hootenanny set in a fanciful version of 18th-century Mississippi...It is a delightfully inventive reimagining of Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman’s 1975 musical...Like many of Timbers’s previous projects, including 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson' and 'Peter and the Starcatcher', 'The Robber Bridegroom' loves putting on a show."
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"It is a thigh-slapping, buckdancing hoedown. This is one 'lying, two-faced musical' shindig you just have to see...It’s like injecting pure undiluted joy right into your veins...Basically every moment is so perfectly crafted you feel alive on a cellular level...This cast exemplifies the definition of ensemble. A tight, frolicsome, physical team of impact players."
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"Timbers draws from his usual bag of magic tricks, prop jokes, and winking meta-theatricality to keep the eye and attention engaged at all times. Even so, the story, having been pulled away from any real engagement with its dark fundamentals, now seems like an excuse instead of the point. That inversion makes for some very uncomfortable juxtapositions...I’m not sure that story should have been made into musical comedy in 1975; making it a better one now only makes it worse."
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"The Roundabout’s exceptionally charming revival of 'The Robber Bridegroom' is exactly the kind of intimate extravaganza you would expect from Alex Timbers, among the most inventive young directors working today...'The Robber Bridegroom' is a highlight of a season that’s fast becoming a landmark for musicals...The score is fun if not exactly memorable. The show rests on committed performances and an atmosphere that inches up to cute without diving into it whole hog."
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"The rollicking new production of the 1975 Broadway musical offers numerous delights. One of them is the bluegrassy score. The bouncy music, performed by an onstage band, is just right for a frisky backwoods Mississippi fairy tale. Director Alex Timbers and the design team fashion a cheeky theatrical world...Leslie Kritzer’s antics as Rosamund’s scheming step-mother, Salome, is another blast...The rest of the cast playing ne’er-do-wells and knuckleheads are all terrific."
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"Having fun shouldn’t be as exhausting as director Alex Timbers makes it out to be in his overly antic production of 'The Robber Bridegroom'...The show is so overdirected, the unassuming charm of the humble material is crushed like a bug...Having started from the premise that more is more, Timbers won’t stop with anything less than comic overkill. The characters gain nothing, however, and actually squander their appeal when overplayed in a style so broad it becomes total caricature."
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"Combining hyperkinetic rowdiness and spirited self-mockery with the larkish low-tech Story Theater tricks, the production imposes the director's signature wink-wink style on the material to a suffocating degree. The show boasts a hardworking cast, a rousing five-piece band and gorgeous design elements. But this twangy 1975 bluegrass musical comedy works way too hard at stealing hearts."
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