“Big Fish,” a new musical directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman (“Contact”, “The Scottsboro Boys”) and featuring Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz, opened last night, Oct. 6, at Broadway’s Neil Simon Theater. Based on a 1998 novel by Daniel Wallace and the 2003 Tim Burton film, “Big Fish” tells of a dying father known for spinning tall tales all his life, but now he’s trying to reestablish a relationship with his estranged son. The stage version, with a score by Andrew Lippa and a book by screenwriter John August (“Frankenweenie”), stars Butz as the dad and Tony nominee Bobby Steggert (the 2010 “Ragtime”) as his son, Will.

Actor Butz told Broadway.com, "There’s nothing cynical or ironic about `Big Fish'. It’s lush and super-romantic and gorgeous to look at and gorgeous to listen to. I’m really, really proud to be a part of it.”

But did the New York critics feel the same way about the show?

Variety’s Marilyn Stasio frets that the show, which she mostly liked, might seem a bit lukewarm to Broadway crowds but would be quite appealing to regional theaters. She also chuffs a bit at what she sees as the musical’s message: “that all-American, character-undermining fantasy that you can be anyone and have anything you desire, just by wishing and wanting it so.” However, she follows that caveat up by saying, “the show has its enchantments [which are] largely the gifts of helmer-choreographer-magician Stroman, who brings genuine wit to her technically ingenious stagecraft… Invention, not excess, seems to be the dominant house rule.”

Zachary Stewart of Theatermania is even more positive: “By no means groundbreaking,” he writes, “`Big Fish’ is a thoroughly entertaining musical, overflowing with heart and delivered with dazzling showmanship.” He also lauds the design and production elements and a cast that performs with “unflappable gusto.” He adds that, “composer Andrew Lippa offers a distinctly American pastiche of a score. While not exactly memorable, the melodies are affective when matched his uncomplicated and clear lyrics. During Edward's final number, `How It Ends,’ try not to get choked up. I dare you.”

Writing for the Associated Press, Mark Kennedy echoes the sentiment that act two’s sentimental streak goes a long way towards making up for “a hyperkinetic, messy spectacle” in the first. He finds Norbert Leo Butz “perfectly cast,” Bobby Steggert “great” and Kate Baldwin “lovely.” “Stroman keeps the action flowing flawlessly,” he writes, but he’s relieved when “many of the toys are put away” and act two’s emotional songs, “Fight the Dragon” and “I Don’t Need a Roof”, hit home.

In his three-star review, the Daily News’ Joe Dziemianowicz is more ambivalent, noting that “`Big Fish’ is a singing version of catch-and-release. It hooks you, then loses you – all night.” Unlike Stewart and Kennedy, he is not moved by the show and finds the dances “polished but a bit pedestrian.” Saving the evening for him is Butz, who “is at his lovable and elastic-legged best.”

Newsday’s Linda Winer loves Butz, too, for his “exuberance that never feels even slightly dishonest and an intelligence that refuses to condescend to his most outrageous characters.” She’s less thrilled with the show, which she calls “ambitious” with “many pleasures” but also “disappointing.” To her, the “old-time throwback” score is melodic but merely “serviceable” and with “obvious rhymes.” She also opines that “Fish” is “too subtle to be a family show and too toothless for grownups.”

Talkin’ Broadway’s Matthew Murray has similar issues, writing: “No one has decided… who the main character is supposed to be. Edward and Will furiously trade focus throughout the evening, so we’re scarcely able to spend sufficient time with either.” Unlike pretty much every other reviewer, Murray finds Butz “incredibly miscast.” Butz is “likable throughout,” says Murray, but “he seems only to be playing.” As do several other critics, Murray finds the son’s role (Bobby Steggert) underwritten and a bit “thankless.” Ultimately, Murray complains that for all the imaginative whimsy Susan Stroman brings to the musical’s production, serious, emotional human drama is not her strong suit, and the show suffers for it.

Even more negative is AM New York’s Matt Windman, whose two star review wonders how a show with so much potential could go so wrong. He then answers his own question: “poor-quality songs, a slow pace, excessive sentimentality, one-liners that consistently fail to land, a clumsy structure and an ugly set.” He doesn’t even find Butz – who deserves “credit for throwing himself so fully into the show” – believable.

Ben Brantley, chief critic of the New York Times, concurs, writing, “`Big Fish’ fails to forge the crucial connection between its characters and their fantasies.” Despite “a whole lot of spectacular eye candy” and “plenty of theatrical cleverness,” Brantley feels these elements feel loaded onto the show rather than springing from the mind of its protagonist (Butz), as they should. He also guts Andrew Lippa’s score, with “melodies [that] evoke cowboy-TV-show theme music…with lyrics by Hallmark.”

And yet, Jeremy Gerard, critiquing for Bloomberg.com, raves! In his four-star review, he calls Butz “irresistible,” lauds the show’s “one knockout dance number after another” and gushes, “I doubt Broadway has ever seen a prettier, more sensuously kinetic musical.” Like AP’s Mark Kennedy, he also found the act-two ballad, “I Don’t Need a Roof”, “genuinely touching.”

Less enthralled but still strongly positive, Chicago Tribune scribe Chris Jones pegs "Big Fish" as “an earnest, family-friendly, heart-warming and mostly successful new American musical [that is] modestly and movingly scored.” He grumbles that John August’s book sticks too closely to his own screenplay, with Stro and the designers sometimes working too hard with projections to rush the multi-location story forward. Still, Jones had seen “Big Fish’s” try-out in Chicago and feels the Broadway version has “improved in leaps and bounds,” with Butz driving the show with his “vulnerability, likability and boyish enthusiasm.”

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