BroadwayWorld.com's fans and theatre biddies are now posting reviews of the show - early reviews of the UK Kenwright one sound like it was crap, and there's only one rave in the whole thread that looks like it was planted by a shill.
Show itself:
CAST - Great with the exception of Minister (his voice reportedly "cracked in every other song" because his material's not in his range) and Snake Preacher, "partly the material's fault"
CHOREOGRAPHY - described as looking "at points like a constipated version of Thriller" and "at others like bad modern interpretational dance"
BOOK - the book needs a re-write, and the dialogue is too rushed, especially in Act 1, which now opens with the mother's death ("Vaults of Heaven" is at her funeral service, and "Overture" apparently denotes passage of time since then, but the audience doesn't get it, and the poster who does thinks it's a stupid choice). Apparently, this then plunges the whole town into mass depression (presumably because she was the life of the community? they don't know, neither do I), and The Man is supposed to be a gift to a town "Long Overdue for a Miracle."
NOCH MEHR BUCHER (Yes, More Books, Alfred!) - The biggest problem character-wise seems to be the lack of development of a viable father-daughter relationship between Boone and Swallow. To quote one reviewer: "Clearly his standoffishness about his wife's death leads his daughter to look for a father figure and believe this criminal was Jesus. This was completely missing from the show and what I find most intriguing."
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