When I first heard about this play I wondered if it had anything to do with Liz Phair, who has a song with the same name. Then I heard a very brief description of the show and thought “oh, not related at all.” Then the pre-show music started, and there was Liz Phair. Then I read the credits for the show, and no mention of Liz Phair for the music (it’s a musical). Then the show started and the link became clear. Lots of mental whiplash.
The show has some great stuff, but I struggled with a couple of things that made it less enjoyable for me.
Thing one: Stories about writers struggling to write rarely work for me, and that’s a central focus of the show. It helps that the musical he’s struggling to write is supposed to be the one we’re watching (and that it makes fun of that).
Thing two: I’m old. Specifically, my ears are old. If music isn’t mixed just right for my ears, I miss a lot of lyrics. That’s fine when it’s a song on the radio, but not great when the lyrics are giving important story beats. I’m sure I missed at least a quarter of the words in most songs. It’s an easy fix: just custom tune every musical production specifically to my ears.