Broadway review: It's no mystery, 'Drood' cast has an infectious good time
9 / 10
Director Scott Ellis' lively, crowd-pleasing and — given the horrors of the East Coast storms and the abiding comedic quality of the material — very well-timed Broadway revival...all has the feeling of a live version of a star-laden holiday TV special, with many of the same pluses and minuses…As a solve-it-yourself, self-aware musical, 'Drood' presents some traps, not all of which are here fully avoided. At various points, one has to force oneself to re-engage with the grand questions of the plot, which are not always tracked as adroitly as would be ideal. The best productions of 'Drood' manage, at least in the final number, to exploit the way the lyrics allow the clutter of the show to fall away — and to help us ponder a few broader matters of life and death, at least in passing. That never happens here. But that was bothering almost no one inside Studio 54. Block, who seems relieved not to carry the entire enterprise, sounds particularly spectacular, as does Betsy Wolfe as the ripe ingenue Rosa Bud. Rivera, as one might imagine, could not be a more delightful presence in any romp in town.
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