Los Angeles The
Backstage reviewer wrote: "Though the overlong show improves marginally during the home stretch, its story and themes never fully cohere, and the derivative, gospel-driven Alan Menken-
Glenn Slater score is disappointing. By inserting superfluous
Agnes de Mille-style
ballet segments, as if this were a modern-day
Rodgers-and-Hammerstein opus, and pumping up the volume and the histrionics, it's clear Menken, director-choreographer Rob Ashford, and co-librettists Slater and Janus Cercone envisioned this adaptation as more of an artsy prestige musical than a sentimental bromide for
The Sound of Music crowd ... Esparza has a dynamic singing voice and is a formidable presence, but his
Mephistophelean con man seems a shade too smarmy for us to buy into his eventual redemption. The performer also sometimes indulges in a mush-mouthed
Brando broodiness that seems inappropriate here. Shields sings sweetly if not spectacularly and provides a welcome note of calmness amid the boisterous goings-on."
Charles McNulty, in his review for the
Los Angeles Times, wrote: "much of the score is derivative, the dancing often seems like ballet school parody, Shields' singing defensively retreats to the safest possible key and the closing moments are pure sentimental hokum. But there's a fascinating character in the middle of it all, and a performance by Esparza that digs deep into questions of faith, love and mystery. The show needs another overhaul, but it's easy to see why the creators have persisted for so long with this project: There's something uniquely compelling in the source material. I hope the collaborators press on (Broadway is apparently in their sights). They can begin with some radical pruning."
Broadway The show received mixed-to-negative reviews on Broadway, with critics writing generally of the show's unsurprising and predictable plot, Esparza's hardworking performance (whether for good or ill), and a bland and confused tone.
Ben Brantley of
The New York Times called the show "this season's black hole of musical comedy, sucking the energy out of anyone who gets near it." He criticized Esparza for "[seeming] to keep a chilly distance from his character", and the show in general for working in "bad faith" and "[recycling] its clichés without a shred of true conviction." Erik Haagensen of
Backstage called the "ersatz musical" "a compendium of formulaic characters and clichéd situations all too obviously cribbed from better and more original works"; and Joe Dziemianowicz of the
New York Daily News wrote that "nothing happens in this frustrating and manipulative new Broadway musical ... you don't see coming a mile away." Dziemianowicz also called Esparza's performance "big, bold and a little buggy, but ... never boring",
Scott Brown of
New York Magazine, however, called Esparza "transparently shifty" and "[seeming] to be winking at his marks at every turn", and wrote that "there's not an ounce of adequately feigned sincerity in him." Brown also described the show as "persistently confused ... in tone, content, and mood", and that "
Leap feels like the not-awful, not-wonderful product of a long series of compromises"; and
David Cote of
Time Out New York (in a 2 out of 5-star review) called the show "bland and confused", "never [finding] the right proportion of comic cynicism to wide-eyed spiritual wonder".
Terry Teachout of
The Wall Street Journal called the show "as slick as ice on Teflon", lacking in "sweat and heart" - but that "if you're looking for pure Broadway razzmatazz,
Leap of Faith delivers the goods". Some critics, however, were more positive. Vincentelli wrote that while "you can see everything coming a mile away" in the show, "[t]he only surprise is ... how ridiculously fun it is" – and that "[i]f there's a lesson in
Leap of Faith, it's that high-energy entertainment is the perfect sweetener". David Finkle of
TheaterMania described Esparza's performance as "his finest ... to date", and praised the show for having three of that Broadway seasons' best musical numbers (in "I Can Read You", "Dancin' in the Devil's Shoes" and "Are You On the Bus?"). == Awards and nominations ==