Once is the acclaimed new musical based on the Academy Award-winning film. Authentic, funny and refreshingly unique, Once tells the story of an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant drawn together by their shared love of music. Over the course of one fateful week, their unexpected friendship and collaboration evolves into a powerful but complicated romance, heightened by the raw emotion of the songs they create together. Featuring an ensemble cast of gifted actor/musicians, helmed by the creators of the theatrical sensation Black Watch and fashioned by a team of Tony-winning designers, Once is a musical celebration of life and love: thrilling in its originality, daring in its honesty... and unforgettable in every way.
Now a stage adaptation has the chance to weave a similar spell over Broadway, after a hit run at Off-Broadway's New York Theatre Workshop earlier this season. Some of the intimacy is lost in the transfer to the Main Stem, but the musical maintains its warm and enveloping embrace as well as the quiet power to move and entrance. ... and the result is an unforgettable valentine of a show that you'll likely want to take in more than once.
So it’s a little surprising, though very satisfying, to report that the musical “Once” has made a happy Broadway landing at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, which has converted its stage into an old-fashioned Irish pub to make everyone feel, if not quite as cozy as they did at New York Theatre Workshop, where the work debuted late last year, at least just as relaxed and welcome ... The only major problem with the show, which stars Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti as the characters known simply as Guy and Girl, is that it overstretches its material. There really isn’t enough story or music for two acts. The film didn’t need more than 90 minutes to complete the arc of this adult fable, and neither does the stage version.
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