Some productions provoke widely differing reactions, but I have yet to see one which does so to the extent that Moscow has at this year's Fringe. Awarded a Fringe First by the Scotsman, it was lambasted by the Stage!
It's a new musical from the Playwrights' Arena of Los Angeles, where it received tremendous acclaim when it was premiered there in February. It is described in the Fringe brochure thus: "Trapped in a Satre-esque existential limbo in a deserted theatre, three gay men mount an impromptu musical version of The Three Sisters."
Musically it is - inevitably! - in the Sondheim mould, and deals with the relationships between the three very disparate men who make up the cast. I found it over-long and only one of the characters (Matt, played by Joshua Wolf Coleman) sympathetic enough to relate to. Its use of language is clever, certainly, and there are some moving moments, but there are times when the many American references make it almost unintelligible to a British audience. A Spanish reporter, sitting next to me, told me afterwards she fund it very difficult to follow and, consequently, rather boring.
I wasn't bored, but neither was I excited, nor could I share the enthusiasm of a fair proportion of the audience. It certainly isn't what I would call an "easy" show and it left me, ultimately, unsatisfied. It's worth seeing, yes, but I confess I cannot share the enthusiasm of the Scotsman reviewer.