Timmy Seiferth:
This past Sunday was when we saw Gutenberg on Broadway. That was my first Broadway show experience, and I enjoyed it! I definitely want to go back, and I’m slightly surprised that I’ve never seen a Broadway show before even though I did musical theater in high school. I’ve seen loads of student performances (and been in many myself) but I’ve only seen one professional show before Gutenberg, and it was in Canada. Similar to Gutenberg, I think there were only 6 cast members in the show but many characters, so each actor had multiple proverbial hats. However, in Gutenberg, Josh and Andrew both had many literal hats, which added lots of humor.
On these terms, the show I saw before was about the 9/11 tragedy, so I didn’t totally know what to expect from a comedy. There were (inevitably) jokes that didn’t quite land for me, but other parts that I found quite funny, especially when they commented about the audience (like the lady with a fork and that one person’s alarm). I love improv and whenever actors are able to add humor and even surprise the other actors. I about died when Josh clearly went on an exaggerated stretch of improv, and Andrew kind of broke character and said “Are you ok?” so Josh responded with “I think I had a stroke.” It was really fun to see the chemistry between the two of them.
Also, the premise of the show was very unique, since their characters were playwrights putting on a presentation of their show for producers. I had to do a few double takes when they said things like “We’re only doing this show one time” and also “We hope this will someday get on broadway.” They said it so confidently that I had to remind myself that they were acting! Also, the times when they would go back and forth between presenting their show and then talking about the show added layers of complexity that I liked. It kind of reminded me of the movie Tik Tik Boom, where it goes back and forth between Jonathan Larson’s life and Jonathan Larson’s musical about his life, but then you remember that it’s actually Andrew Garfield acting as Jonathan Larson the whole time.
This layering with multiple characters really showcased Josh and Andrew’s talent, and it was especially cool to see Josh since I’ve seen him before in movies, so that was surreal. As a whole, I’m really thankful I got to see a show on Broadway, and I can’t wait to see another. Also, it was my first experience riding the train, so that was fun too =)