I’ve listened to the soundtrack for this show a fair few times and liked it, but it’s not playing IRL anywhere near me, so I booted my legs up to see what it’s like onstage. It’s clear from the soundtrack that it’s not sung through and I was missing parts of it, so it’s definitely a different experience to see it as opposed to just hearing it. The montage at the beginning, with different actors playing Bonnie and Clyde at different ages singing in harmony as they switch, was really cool to watch, and also recontextualized “Picture Show” for me. Just listening to the soundtrack, I thought the first half was all Bonnie with Clyde only coming in for the last verse, and that both of them were singing about wanting to be outlaws, that both of them singing “ain’t nothin’ I can’t do with a gun” was a way of showing them being on the same morally questionable wavelength before they even met. Nope, it’s just child actors and my poor ear for distinguishing voices! The kid actors returning at conflicted moments for their adult selves was good, and I do love me a bit of Doomed By The Narrative where we open on their dead bodies and then go back. On a lighter note, I really liked the staging for You’re Going Back to Jail. As a history nerd, what really hit me was the inclusion of the real Bonnie’s poetry and, at strategic moments, real photographs of the gang, newspaper headlines about them, the photo of Blanche’s arrest, and, finally, the photos of their corpses.
Is it good? I wouldn’t call it one of the best musicals I’ve ever seen because I like a bit more dancing, but it’s a really solid show in its own right as well as actually being a pretty good telling of what happened to Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. It also stars Clyde’s brother Buck and his wife Blanche, the latter of whom was ultimately the only survivor of the gang. Blanche in particular gets some of the best songs in the show, imo. It goes hard on the “the Depression fucking sucked and they wouldn’t be Like This if making an honest living was an option and the prison system wasn’t so brutal” theme, which is very true and correct and honestly Made in America is a banger song. The staging really grows on you through the show, especially the projections of real photographs and the centrality of the car. How Ted Hinton is used as a character is a bit weird, though—most of his stagetime is about him being in love with Bonnie, and IRL he did later say he had a crush on Bonnie, but was mainly on the hunt because he’d known the Barrow brothers since they were all boys and could identify them. Making most of his stagetime be about being in love with Bonnie had the weird vibe of a one-sided love triangle, and when I heard the soundtrack I got confused and thought maybe he was supposed to be Bonnie’s husband Roy, given a large role in the show than he had in her life. Ted functionally allows us to check in on what the cops are thinking, but his fixation on Bonnie and multiple songs about it just kinda detracted from the show, IMO.
Is it fun? It’s a good time at the shows, despite the characters’ grim fates—and actually, while the show opens on their deaths, it ends on a fairly romantic note, with them driving away to see their parents, knowing they’re going to die soon (and surrounded by projections of real photos of their corpses) but happy to be together. A lot of the show in the middle is lighter, too. My favourite song, You’re Going Back To Jail, is a laugh beginning to end, especially when you can see the way Buck is reacting to the other women’s feelings on their jailed husbands. I also particularly like a moment from later in the show you can’t get on just the soundtrack; the titular characters are arguing over what sounds better, “Clyde and Bonnie” or “Bonnie and Clyde”, and ask a bystander, who goes for “Clyde and Bonnie”… which Bonnie points out is because Clyde is holding the gun, then draws a gun from her boot before asking again. It’s an entirely visual bit of great comedic timing, I love it.
Is it queer? No. There is mention of the inmate who sexually assaulted Clyde Barrow in prison and who was the first person that Clyde killed, but prison rape is most commonly more about power and violence than actual sexual desire and isn’t an indicator that anybody involved is queer.
You’re Wrong About has a really good episode about Bonnie and Clyde that’s also really damn sad—there’s a moment where Sarah Marshall has been describing the car crash that injured Bonnie’s leg and says that Clyde “had to carry her around for… well, the rest of her life” and it hits you like a brick to the face that she’s talking about a period of less than a year. It does a good job of putting both their actions and their considerable media popularity in context of the Great Depression, and it’s well worth a listen.
Have you got a giant to-watch list and no idea where to start? Watch something beginning with B and tell me about it!
