Face The Music (musical) - Response

Response

Brooks Atkinson, reviewing the original 1932 production for The New York Times, called the musical a "bountiful merry-go-round" of songs and "gibes", writing that it is "bold satire", but has familiar musical comedy numbers, such as the "stunning mirror dance... expressionistic Times Square ballet...and "Dear Old Crinoline Days which is guffawing burlesque."

An unnamed reviewer, quoted in the Brown biography Moss Hart, wrote "It's a worthy successor to Of Thee I Sing it doesn't entirely measure up to it. It resorts to slapstick instead of satire. It becomes merely burlesque. All of which doesn't mean that Face the Music isn't a howl. It most emphatically is."

The reviewer for "theatremania.com", in reviewing the "Musicals Tonight!" 2002 production, noted that "1932 audiences didn’t go to musicals for ingenious statire; they wanted sumptuous productions, brilliant choreography, delightful performers, and great songs." The score "boasts two classics ("Soft Lights and Sweet Music" and "Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee") and much more that’s lilting, clever, or otherwise intriguing. One real discovery is "Torch Song," a wicked send-up of Helen Morgan weepers..."Investigation," a 12-minute opera-comique finale that reprises and restates old themes, introduces new ones, wraps up the plot, and brings in a Threepenny Opera-style deus ex machina to usher in the happy ending.

According to the Curtain Up reviewer, commenting on the 2007 Encores! concert, this musical had an "influence on backstage musicals like The Producers, The Drowsy Chaperone and Curtains."