Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

Jamie Lockhart steals with style, and, boy, does he make it look good. The titular character, played with zeal by the hunky Tony nominee Steven Pasquale , says he's a two-faced man, he's both the Bandit of the Woods and Jamie Lockhart. After saving townsman Clement Musgrove ( Lance Roberts ) from being robbed at the hand of Little Harp ( Andrew Durand ), Jamie is invited to dine with Clement and his family, which includes his second wife, Salome (Leslie Kritzer), and his daughter, Rosamund ( Ahna O'Reilly ). I suppose the plot is important—there's some stealing and scheming and loving going on down in Mississippi—but in my view, the plot is just the excuse for Tony-nominated director Alex Timbers to gather some merry players and put on a show. For this Alfred Uhry – Robert Waldman musical, Timbers ( Here Lies Love , Rocky ) returns to the scrappy, ensemble-reliant style he so expertly used with Peter and the Starcatcher  and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson . (He ...

The show begins with Robert ( Max Wilcox ) at a drum kit, showing off his skills and letting us know he doesn't see anything wrong with being overweight. We soon shift to Camp Overton (get it?), a "fat camp" run by Sandy (Leslie Kritzer) and Mike ( Burke Moses ), who've been engaged for 15 years. We then meet Robert's fellow campers, including Taylor (Ryann Redmond), a girl who, unlike most of the other campers, actually wants to be there. Gigantic is about being body positive (to use today's buzzy phrase), loving yourself and your look independent of other people's opinions. That's a good message, one magazines try to preach (although they usually do so just pages after a fashion editorial featuring a model that is "sample size"), and certainly one young people would do well to learn. With clever lyrics and a decent pop score (lyrics by Randy Blair ; music by Matthew roi Berger ), Gigantic , directed by Scott Schwartz , is entertaining...