Befitting its overenthusiastic title, Gutenberg! The Musical! has always benefited from a certain plucky “Let’s put on a show!” quality. Originally seen in 2005 as a 45-minute act at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival and performed by its authors Scott Brown and Anthony King (who have since gone on to collaborate on Beetlejuice), the show had a cheeky insider’s irreverence toward musical theater that shone through when it received an Off-Broadway production the following year starring the formidable comic talents Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos.
Many years later, the show has now arrived on Broadway, where its thin charms and relentless meta-humor don’t prove quite as accessible in the large James Earl Jones Theatre with its commensurately extravagant ticket prices. Since the show is not widely known despite its many regional theater productions, the main selling point is its stars Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, reuniting after their breakout turns in The Book of Mormon and seemingly aspiring to become the next hot Broadway comedy team after Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
How much you’ll enjoy the results will depend greatly on your tolerance for very silly jokes and your fondness for the two stars. The pair appear to be having a fine old time onstage, displaying the sort of chemistry that seems the result of their well-meshed comedic styles and warm rapport. They work beautifully together, garnering laughs not only from the wittier dialogue and bits of business but also from their jovial presences.
[Read Roma Torre’s ★★★★★ review here.]
The show’s concept is that their characters, Bud (Gad) and Doug (Rannells), are aspiring Broadway musical creators from Nutley, NJ (the town seems to have been chosen for its name, but Piscataway might have been funnier) who have rented the theater “on the weird side of 7th Ave” to audition their new musical for a bunch of Broadway producers who are supposedly in the audience. Said musical is about Johan Gutenberg, the 15th-century inventor of the printing press using movable type. Since details of his life are “scant,” Bud and Doug have taken an approach of historical fiction, which they define as “fiction…that’s true.”
Donning a wide variety of caps emblazoned with the names of different characters, they proceed to act out the musical on the mostly bare stage, accompanied by three onstage musicians and playing all of the parts, including a romantic interest named Helvetica (like the font) and a satanic monk. Bud and Doug, who support themselves by working in a nursing home while pursuing their musical theater career — they inform us their previous efforts included Stephen King! The Musical! and a prequel to Phantom of the Opera — prove the sort of endlessly enthusiastic, if not particularly talented, creators who will be instantly recognizable to anyone who’s sat through a musical workshop.
The problem is that the show they’ve supposedly devised is not particularly funny, with the relatively esoteric subject matter not exactly lending itself to riotous satire – even Mel Brooks would have trouble coming up with more than a few throwaway gags about Gutenberg. Thus, the real fun comes from the show’s spoofing of musical theater conventions and Broadway itself. But even those jokes don’t have the same impact considering the profusion of similarly themed efforts, such as [title of show], that have followed in its wake. And the original songs, while featuring some mildly amusing lyrics, are instantly forgettable.
Humor being of course subjective, there were gales of laughter throughout the performances, so audiences are clearly getting a kick out of the whole thing. Much of the writing is undeniably clever, and there are some fun surprises, including an elaborate set reveal that seems awfully expensive for a single laugh, albeit a big one. And Gad and Rannells are at the top of their game, elevating the proceedings considerably with their expert physical shtick and comic delivery. Still, it’s hard not to wish that the show was once again housed in a more intimate venue and that it ran 90 minutes instead of a bloated two hours including intermission.
