Technically, this is a recording of a concert that was held in 2015 (obviously, it was no time recently, given all the closer-than-6-feet-apart-edness on display throughout,) but I’m listing it as 2020 since it was never released until now and the stream included a newly-recorded remote reunion with the cast. Of Bombshell? No, because that isn’t actually a thing (yet.) It’s the cast of Smash, the erstwhile Broadway-themed TV show in which Bombshell was the invented Marilyn Monroe bio-musical-within-a-show that the characters were mounting. All clear?
What we have here is a concert performance of most of the numbers written for Bombshell on Smash, pretty much in order. There are a few omissions here and there, but nothing I particularly pine for (no JFK number, for instance.) For the most part, everything is sung by the actors who sang it in the show, although Katherine McPhee and Megan Hilty, in trading assorted Marilyn numbers, mix things up a bit now and then and join forces for a couple of songs. There are also a few instances of Smash Broadway-vet cast members who never had a part in singing Bombshell tunes on the show getting in on the action.
The most consistently-great part of Smash was always Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s Bombshell score, even if it doesn’t make an overabundance of sense when you string all the numbers together chronologically into a “real” musical (like 75% of the songs are either Marilyn solos or Marilyn backed by the chorus.) And it’s great fun to see so many talented people from the show singing these songs again. Obviously, Hilty is a force of nature – her “The National Pastime,” “They Just Keep Moving the Line,” and “Let’s Be Bad” are all highlights of the concert. I always enjoy Christian Borle, and he’s a delight in “Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking.” I really appreciate the inclusion of Ann Harada, Jeremy Jordan, and Brian d’Arcy James in the concert, both because I love all their voices and because it gives McPhee and Hilty chances to take breaks for a bit. I especially like Jordan’s rendition of “Cut, Print… Moving On,” but Harada is a hoot on “I Never Met a Wolf Who Didn’t Love to Howl” and James sounds lovely on “The Right Regrets.” And although at the time the concert was filmed, he was still just “Sam from Smash,” I bet the producers are relieved that they included Leslie Odom Jr. singing “Let’s Start Tomorrow Tonight” – cue a good number of the people watching the stream going, “OMG, Aaron Burr was on Smash?!?” If they could’ve found a way to bring in Andy Mientus or Krysta Rodriguez, I’d have been quite the happy camper.
Even if Smash was never really a favorite of mine, always a little bit more of a series of lost potential than the full-on knockout it could’ve been, I actually enjoyed the cast reunion quite a bit. It was fun to see all these cast members “together” again and listen to them reminiscing about their time on the show. I laughed at Will Chase’s admission that he tried to talk Odom into taking a TV gig over Hamilton, I continue to admire Hilty’s enduring love for the show and her character, and everyone was filled with praise for Shaiman and Wittman. Jack Davenport had a lot of terrific anecdotes, which kind of surprised me – even though he was of course a major part of the show, he’s not a Broadway person himself, but he was just as into everything as everyone else was (I liked his recount of the one and only time his character demonstrated choreography rather than just barked orders from behind a table.) I also appreciated that the reunion acknowledged some of the less-great parts about the show, like Jordan talking about the hate-watching trend that cropped up near the end of the series.
Overall, an enjoyable trip down memory lane and a fun night of catchy music. Not much to complain about there!
Warnings
Language, lots of sexual references, and thematic elements.
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