Look, nobody asked for a Broadway musical adaptation of Beaches. The 1988 Bette Midler film already makes grown adults sob into their popcorn just fine without added choreography. And yet, here we are.
According to a review from Mashable, Beaches: A New Musical is landing on Broadway with all the grace of a seagull flying into a window - loud, chaotic, and leaving everyone feeling a little sad about the whole thing.
The canary in the coal mine wore a bra
The review points to a surprisingly specific moment as the first sign that things have gone sideways: the death of 'Otto Titsling.' That's right - the goofy, beloved comedy number from the original film, about the supposed inventor of the brassiere, has apparently been cut or gutted, and critics are treating it like the first domino falling in a very tragic chain reaction.
If you lose the bit about Otto Titsling, what do you even have left? Just crying? Just Wind Beneath My Wings and existential dread?
Not Jessica Vosk's fault, reportedly
To be very clear - and Mashable's review apparently makes this point - star Jessica Vosk is giving everything she has to this show. Like, everything. The woman is presumably leaving nothing in the dressing room. The problem, according to the review, is that the adaptation itself is the disaster, not the talent on stage.
This is the theatrical equivalent of a Formula 1 driver getting handed a go-kart and being expected to win Le Mans. You can root for the driver and still acknowledge the vehicle is the problem.
Why does this keep happening?
There is a very specific genre of Broadway disaster that goes like this: beloved emotional property gets adapted into a musical, beloved emotional property loses the exact things that made it beloved, audiences and critics are left mourning both the new show AND their memories of the original. It is a rich and tragic tradition.
Beaches worked as a film because it was messy, specific, and emotionally raw. Musicalizing that into something stageable apparently requires a kind of surgical precision that this production - based on Mashable's account - does not seem to have achieved.
The full review is worth reading over at Mashable if you want the complete breakdown, or if you just need something to cry about today. Either way, valid.
