Review Roundup: THE HEART OF ROBIN HOOD in Toronto; Updated!

The Heart of Robin Hood, opened in Toronto and will play through March 1, 2015. The show is currently set to play the Marquis Theatre on Broadway beginning March 10. Opening night is scheduled for March 29th. The production will play a strictly limited engagement through Sunday, August 23, 2015.

Let's see what the critics had to say:

Richard Ouzounian of The Toronto Star: On one level, you could say that David Farr's script is a feminist rearrangement of the classic Robin Hood story, with Maid Marion (and her male alter ego, Martin) picking up the heroic mantle, while Robin himself is a kind of cranky cynic in this version, surrounded by a lot of sweaty, half-naked Merry Men who go in heavily for leather accessories... Strangely enough, that doesn't make things unsavoury, but instead injects a kind of welcome air of sexuality into a narrative that has always perplexed one by its relative chastity.

Alan Henry of BroadwayWorld.com: The entire cast is marvelous, but Izzie Steele is the true standout and a star in the making. She's giving a tour de force performance - both in terms of her physicality and acting ability. Gabriel Ebert's Robin Hood is likable, despite his evil inclinations - and Ebert commands the stage with his bravado.... Christian Lloyd is charming as Pierre - who also serves as the shows narrator (though the latter is in a lesser capacity.) The roles of the two young children in the cast are alternated, with Anna Bartlam and Tate Yap serving as Sarah and Jethro Summers at the media performance. Both were great, though Yap left a larger impression as his role has much more to do.

Joff Schmidt of CBC News: It offers up a satisfyingly fresh take on the Robin Hood story, laced with enough action and comedy to make it a crowd-pleaser. We meet the title character (played here by Tony-winner Gabriel Ebert) as he's threatening to flay a nobleman he's just robbed - not so he can distribute the riches, mind you, but so that he and his feral band of merry men can add to their own hoard.

J. Kelly Nestruck of The Globe and Mail: Leads Ebert and Steele rise to the physical and dramatic demands of the show wonderfully, the former somehow making this Robin into more than the sulky overgrown boy he is written as, the latter bringing a winning sense of humour to her heroine. Their romance is rudimentary, however, and I didn't buy Robin's reversal from his unexplained misogyny - it requires a long jump in logic.

Glenn Sumi of Now Magazine: The show has energy and a couple of good sight gags - some involving musical instruments - but it feels thin. And for some reason characters keep insisting it's not a musical. Why? Ebert and Morton are both first-rate musical theatre performers, and it's a shame they don't get to show that. Perhaps if the leads got to harmonize in an actual love song, there'd be more of a beating heart, and not just laughs, to this show.

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