Side Show
6 / 10
If ever there was a show that defines the phrase 'cult musical', it's Side Show...If you saw Side Show the first time around, you may not recognize it...And if you didn't see it the first time around, you're likely to leave asking: what was all the fuss about? Certainly not this leaden, sporadically moving update -- which bears little resemblance to the original production...in giving the girls a backstory...Condon subverts the show's momentum...One aspect such revisions have not messed with: the two linchpins of Side Show's score, the twins' power-ballad duets 'Who Will Love Me As I Am?' and 'I Will Never Leave You', both as heart-stopping (and tear-jerking) as ever, and Padgett and Davie are never more connected than they are in those moments...But in making Daisy and Violet's connection literal, the production robs us of a chance to fully relate to the sisters -- even if it is just, as Houdini sings, 'all in the mind.' C

