Too glib to be serious and too po-faced to be a spoof, this Broadway musical about the Depression-era outlaw couple suffers from a criminal lack of focus. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow killed around 13 people and became folk heroes during their early-1930s robbery spree. The show’s creators can’t decide if they are romantic rebels or vicious murderers. Hint: it’s the latter.
Apart from one jazzy, one bluesy and one superb gospel number, Frank Wildhorn’s score mostly comprises generic, string and slide-guitar driven soft rock. Ivan Menchell’s book is a by-the-numbers account of the couple’s romance and criminal notoriety, that hints the duo were failed by the American dream’s promise of prosperity, and by the bible-thumping Christianity of their native Texas. This is not the great American lyricist Don Black’s finest hour, either. Clyde’s hymn to his motoring skills (“when I drive… I’m alive”) is a case in point.
