‘Be More Chill’ found an audience online. But in a Broadway theater, it lost me.
4 / 10
I couldn't be less chill, not after sitting through the insipid 'Be More Chill' for the second time. I saw it last year off-Broadway, a perch on which it landed by virtue of the mad crush many young folk developed for a cast recording that streamed online long before a New York engagement was ever in the works. It is, in that sense, the first musical to click its way onto Broadway, where it had its official opening at the Lyceum Theatre on Sunday. And, boy, were my misgivings from my initial encounter confirmed. 'Be More Shrill' would be a better title for director Stephen Brackett's heinously overamplified and overacted production, built on the story of a nerd played by the intrepid Will Roland, who takes a magic pill to become popular with the high school 'in' crowd.
