Title: A misconceived flop
Product review: Despite all that is praiseworthy about this production--sets, costumes, supporting roles--it misses John Gay's artistic intent by several thousand light years. Gay didn't write just another British working-class grumble about real or fancied oppression by everybody in sight, as this production has it. He crafted a sly, funny dig at the upper classes as aped by the lowest: outcasts, thieves and scalawags. Until Jonathan Miller's "rehabilitation" it was a very funny, even romantic, little piece. Anthony Powell, in his autobiography, dwells nostalgically on the charm it cast every time a new production was mounted every 20 years or so. Or at least did cast until this latest--which should finish it for good. It may be politically unimpeachable but artistically it is witless and mendacious.The now unobtainable Olivier version, marred only by Lord Laurence's decision to sing his own part, may well be the last to respect Gay's original intent.
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