Review by anonymous
June 29, 2025 certified reviewerWhat I liked
Again, the songs are folky and fun and leave you with a smile on your face or a tap in your toe. The performers sang with gusto and the live musicians were welcome and wonderful. The show exudes good “vibes” and a lot of heart.
What I didn't like
We’re logging on through a friend’s account as our devices are misbehaving, and maybe he could have answered this question, but what is the story really about? Some of our confusion might be because this iteration of the show just highlighted several of the big songs instead of focusing on narrative through-line. But is it about Bardot’s aunts and mother? Or is it about Bardot learning about them from her mother and deciding she doesn’t want to repeat their generation’s problems? Bardot’s fight with her mother in the end seemed to come a bit out of the blue. And the mourning for Rose could have used a bit more context – what makes her “the chosen one”? In the beginning it seemed like her sisters didn’t like her, or maybe just resented her for her beauty, but at her funeral it was like the March sisters in “Little Women” after beloved Beth dies. But again, does the crux of the story lie here? Or is it with Bardot? Why is she in therapy? Can she and her new beau be together? They sing about rain in L.A., but we weren’t sure what that meant for their relationship – her mother says she “can do better”, but why? There’s a great general vibe at the end about seizing control of your life and making your own home with a “chosen family”, but the context wasn’t clear – what exactly was wrong with Bardot’s life that she needed to break with it? Her mother’s generation obviously faced more limits, but did Bardot’s? The setting seems like rich dramatic soil – a Jewish family in the South, four very different sisters, one of whom tragically dies young, the daughter of one of them who leaves that world for something else, a recurring “Alice in Wonderland” motif – but this song-cycle version left us with good vibes but very unclear about who anybody really was and where the conflict lay and what actual story we were meant to be following. Again, all these questions might be easily answered in the fleshed-out production, so forgive us our curiosity. Thank you for an uplifting and well-executed afternoon’s entertainment!
My overall impression
Great vibes! Fun folky music, heartfelt singing, terrific live musicians. Also there seems to be the kernel of a rich story, or stories, in there, though of course this truncated format makes us eager to find out what that will turn out to be.
