"The Great Comet of 1812" Starring Josh Groban - Not so Great

I'm an ardent support of liteary plays (I was never going to read War & Peace anyways.)  I find nothing sacrosanct with turning a classic into a musical.   Casting multi-platinum recording artist Josh Groban was cast in the lead was a brilliant coupe.  Nevertheless, the production was a mess.  Pierre (Josh Groban) plays the kind hearted dullard whose enebriated & miserable til the end of this flashy, trashy & discordant adaption of Tolstoy's classic.   The staging is an emersion theater; i.e. small center stage surrounded by seating, an ensemble continuously running up & down the aisle & jumping on raised platforms & comedic interaction with audience members.  The cabaret set complete with functioning  bar has worked in "Cabaret," "Billie Holiday"and "Once."  Only this time the gimmick made a mockery of the story.   In the "Great Comet" the staging was all smoke & mirrors, blinding lights & thunderous singing.   Marya D (Grace McClean in her Bwy debut) performed at piercing pitch.  This may mark her 1st & only Bwy role.  Natasha (Denee Benton) made a memorable Bwy debut.  Benton's singing was beautiful and her performance bequiling.  The problem with this production was it's frenzy & thunderous musical numbers that were mind numbing.  The ensemble pranced & gyrated in goth like costuming proved a distraction.  The convuluted & literary context got watered down to an insipid love triangle.  Anatole (Lucas Steele) whose starred with Alan Cumming on Bwy was electric as the loathsome lothario although his stentorian singing became grating.  The one respite from the mayhem came from Sonya (Brittain Ashford) who performed the only solo with nuance & ethos.  "The Great Comet of 1812" was a cataclysmic eruption that was an excruciating flash.