Steve Kazee as Guy and Cristin Milioti as Girl in the Broadway production of "Once." © Photo for Boneau/Bryan-Brown by Joan Marcus.
Steve Kazee’s first Broadway lead looks to be a hit with critics whose reviews are coming in after Sunday’s opening night performance of Once, the new musical based on the surprise hit 2006 film. Kazee, who was raised in Ashland and graduated from Morehead State University, plays Guy, an Irishman who falls in love with Girl, played by Cristin Milioti, when they discover they literally make beautiful music togther.
The big kahuna of the critics, The New York Times’ Ben Brantley, said the musical’s move from Off-Broadway to Broadway had been good for the show.
” … The greater distance between stage and audience that comes with a move to a Broadway house softens the edges of its exaggeration. And what was always wonderful about “Once,” its songs and its staging, has been magnified. In the meantime its appealing stars, Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti, have only grown in presence and dimensionality,” Brantley wrote. He added that Kazee, “manages to find a soulful, quietly erotic energy in his passive character, and his singing voice shifts by stealthy degrees from tuneful plaintiveness to howling pain.”
The Associated Press’ Mark Kennedy wrote that Once, “is a study in how to beautifully adapt a movie to the stage. In many ways, in fact, this Once is better than the original Once.” He added, “Kazee adopts a convincing Irish accent and he has a great voice, especially when he strains with emotion. He’s pretty good looking, too, in just jeans, an undershirt and a vest.”
The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones also called it a textbook example of taking a story from film to stage and said Once is a rare wise musical.
“Once offers a rush of new understanding of how those who succeed in life and love often do so because an unselfish someone either talked them into getting out of bed in the morning or removed some great boulder lying in the way. Kazee and Milioti … are so precise and specific to a particular time and place that they become potent representatives of every moment of the heart in every stubborn locale.”
Forbes’ Roger Friedman called the show “a knockout,” the likely winner of the Tony Award for best musical and a star maker.
“Ready for his walk of fame for a long time, I’d say, is Steve Kazee … Kazee plays guitar and sings like a legitimate rock star. He reminded me less of Bono than of another Irish folk rocker, Luka Bloom. And Kazee–who told me after the show that he’s played guitar since age 12–comes from Kentucky. How does he come by such a good stage accent? “I just slip into it,” he says with a shrug.”
