If you're looking for a musical with the laurels of Downton Abbey and the morals of a mongoose, look no further! A Gentleman's Guide To Love & Murder-the new comedy of manners (well, bad manners) that has won unanimous raves
Monty Navarro has just received some really great news! He's a long-lost member of a noble family and could become the next Earl of Highhurst. There are only eight minor issues, namely the other relatives who precede him in line for the title. So Monty does what any ambitious, highborn gentleman would do: he sets out to eliminate them one by one, all while juggling his mistress (she's after more than just love), his fiancee (she's his cousin, but who's keeping track?), plus the constant threat of landing behind bars! But it will all be worth it if he can slay his way into Highhurst Castle... and be done in time for tea.
Tony winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife, Gore Vidal's The Best Man) gives one of the most gasp-inducing performances ever attempted on the American stage, playing all eight doomed heirs who meet their ends in the most creative and hilarious ways. Mays leads a knockout cast alongside the delightfully debonair Bryce Pinkham (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) as Monty, the scoundrel whose greatest weapon is his charm. Don't miss this unabashedly raucous new show that Charles Isherwood of The New York Times calls "among the most inspired and entertaining new musicals I've seen in years!"
Functioning mainly as a comedic showcase for Jefferson Mays, who shot to acclaim exactly a decade ago for his tour-de-force performance in 'I Am My Own Wife,' Mays portrays eight different members of the aristocratic Highhurst family, often switching from one to the other in a matter of seconds...With a thin premise, a sluggish book and unmemorable songs that vaguely resemble work by Gilbert & Sullivan and Noel Coward, the show makes for a tiresome 21/2 hours that depend mainly upon Mays' frequent costume changes, death scenes and all-around versatility to lend an air of slapstick. Pinkham, on the other hand, comes off as too affected to garner audience sympathy.
Despite the high body count, this delightful show will lift the hearts of all those who've been pining for what sometimes seems a lost art form: musicals that match streams of memorable melody with fizzily witty turns of phrase. Bloodlust hasn't sung so sweetly, or provided so much theatrical fun, since Sweeney Todd first wielded his razor with gusto many a long year ago...Mr. Mays won a Tony Award for playing multiple roles in the Pulitzer Prize-winning solo show 'I Am My Own Wife,' but the chameleonic performance he gives here makes even that feat seem simple - a matter of filing your nails while whistling 'Edelweiss,' say. In a true tour de force that is hardly likely to be bettered on Broadway this season (apologies to the magnificent Mark Rylance, and those two knights, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, performing Beckett and Pinter in repertory), Mr. Mays sings, dances, ice-skates, bicycles and generally romps through some eight roles - flipping among personas male, female and somewhere in between - at a pace that sets your head spinning...As each precise caricature of British snootiness or silliness comes bounding onto the stage, Mr. Mays seems to be challenging himself to elicit bigger laughs, and he almost always succeeds. All but one of his characters ends up six feet under by the time this daffy, inspired musical concludes, but his brilliant performance deserves to be immortalized in Broadway lore for some time to come.
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