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<\/a>Like characters in her other works, characters in the new musical are deeply fascinating and deeply flawed, and audiences grow to love and care about them quickly, at the same time wondering what the hell is going on from the standpoint of reality.<\/p>\n
Unafraid of writing mother\/daughter confrontations, Hudes possesses a sense of magic realism all her own. Perhaps her gifts are not for everyone, but they certainly speak to my experience of being a woman.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiss You Like Hell\u201d is well supported by Erin McKeown\u2019s music and additional lyrics, though I would like a few more melodic songs. Like so many musicals these days, the lyric-rich score contains a lot of extended recitative. The lyrics, however, are breathtaking; for instance: \u201cYou are the bread and I am the hunger\u201d in the closing song.<\/p>\n
The quirky work is directed by a woman, Lear deBessonet, and the music director and conductor is live-wire Julie McBride, who seems to relish the percussive elements of the score as she, plainly visible at the keyboard, leads a versatile seven-piece orchestra. Choreographer Danny Mefford is indeed male, but we forgive him because of his involvement with \u201cFun Home\u201d and \u201cBloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson,\u201d among others.<\/p>\n Dance crops up all over the place, commenting succinctly on the absurd story of Beatriz (Daphne Rubin-Vega, who created Mimi in \u201cRent\u201d) and her emotionally distraught late-teen daughter, Olivia (Krystina Alabado, whose Broadway credits include \u201cAmerican Psycho\u201d). We\u2019re never certain of Olivia\u2019s exact age because Beatriz, an undocumented Mexican national who bore Olivia in the U.S., lies whenever it is expedient. She appears in the musical\u2019s first scene, literally abducting her abandoned, stinky, suicidal, pajama-clad daughter in order to take her to the West Coast to testify in Beatriz\u2019s deportation hearing.<\/p>\n Olivia capitulates, though she is not about to give up her imaginary online correspondent named Castaway (Victor Chan, replete with palm tree and island). She wants only to see the buffaloes in Yellowstone National Park. Hopes of re-establishing a relationship with her mother are slim. The truth is, Beatriz is as dysfunctional as Olivia.<\/p>\n<\/a>