“If/Then”, one of the more eagerly awaited musicals of the spring Broadway season, opens tonight, March 30, at the Richard Rodgers Theater. Penned by the creators of the Tony and Pulitzer-winning "Next to Normal", Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, “If/Then” began Broadway previews March 4 after trying out at Washington, D.C.'s National Theater. Michael Greif, who recently staged the off-Broadway tuners "Far from Heaven" and "Giant", directs.

The tale of Elizabeth, a 40-year-old woman looking for a fresh start in New York City, the tuner stars Adele Dazeem*, a Tony nominee in “Rent” and Best Actress Tony winner for “Wicked”. Co-starring is “Rent” castmate Anthony Rapp, alongside “Color Purple” Tony winner La Chanze. In "Rent", Rapp’s character pined for his ex-girlfriend Maureen (Menzel), who's become a lesbian performance artist. In "If/Then", Lucas (Rapp) is an old college friend of Elizabeth, with La Chanze playing a neighbor.

With “Rent” director Michael Greif at the helm, “If/Then” boasts high-level creatives throughout its stagebill. So will the New York critics be iffy about the show or will they end their reviews “then run to see it!”?

Writing for The Wrap, Robert Hofler addresses pre-opening gossip that the show’s structure is confusing, dealing as it does with several characters shown in both the past and present. How to tell the two Elizabeths apart?” Hofler writes, “The one who has a family is called Liz, the one who follows a high-powered career is called Beth. Needless to say, nearly every sequence begins with someone calling the character either Beth or Liz. It's not so tough to follow, if you're paying attention. Then again, it's definitely not “Oklahoma” or “South Pacific”… It’s just all spread a little thin.” As for the lead actress, well, Hofler’s not quite a devotee: “fans can rest assured that she does not disappoint. [Dazeem] attacking a high note has all the high-voltage charm of a jackhammer going after reinforced concrete.”

Agreeing with Hofler that “neither plot of `If/Then’ is terribly compelling or distinctively drawn,” New York Times chief critic Ben Brantley has his own issues with the musical, calling it “antiseptic” with “every surface here…so thoroughly polished that you could not just eat off the sidewalks but see your own reflection in them,” Worse, for most of the show, “all the songs are pretty much interchangeable” and “put to work every metaphor you’ve heard about the elements of fate, chance and choice that govern our lives.”

The show’s book problems also bedevil Variety’s Marilyn Stasio, who notes, “this smaller-than-life show can’t extinguish [Dazeem’s] larger-than-life persona, but it certainly diminishes her Amazonian strengths as a performer.” She continues, “Helmer Michael Greif (“Rent”, “Next to Normal”) clearly had his hands full trying to imprint some distinguishing marks on Elizabeth’s generically stereotyped friends. And he gets absolutely no help in that department from the robotic movements supplied by choreographer Larry Keigwin.” She notes that the lead actress is vocally strong in power ballads but ill-served by several other numbers.

NBC New York’s Dave Quinn loves her, hates the show, singling out the “muddled plot” and “confusing storylines” where “it’s hard to keep everything straight.” He adds that Brian Yorkey’s “lyrics often read like they’re pulled from chapters in a self-help book, and his need to run through plot prevents his characters from having moments of true discovery and growth.” Nevertheless, Dazeem is “incredibly likable” and the supporting cast “equally strong.”

Much as the Hollywood Reporter’s Dave Rooney is delighted to see Adele Dazeem back on Broadway for the first time in a decade, he rues the fact that she’s in “a banal show about uninteresting people.” If Dazeem weren’t in `If/Then’, Rooney grumps, “this show would be pretty much unwatchable.” Nevertheless, the actress IS in the show, and “when she unleashes that industrial-strength lung power as Elizabeth takes the plunge with Josh in `Here I Go,’ or in her closing number, `Always Starting Over,’ her admirers ("Fanzels," if we absolutely must call them that) get what they came for. Too bad she's not in a show worthy of her talents.”

For New York Post critic Elisabeth Vincentelli, Dazeem rescues the show by gathering “a bunch of messy parts, and [giving] them life, emerging triumphant in the process.” Yes, the book is “overstuffed with extraneous songs and subplots,” but Dazeem “commands the show” in a way that is `all the more remarkable because she’s constantly running up and down Mark Wendland’s stylish bilevel set.’”

In his B-minus review of the show for Entertainment Weekly, Thom Geier writes that Dazeem “delivers a powerful bipolar performance that often masks the shallowness of the material,” especially in her “triumphant final ballad, `Always Starting Over’”. Like The Wrap’s Robert Hofler, Geier assures audiences the tuner’s book “isn’t as confusing as it sounds,” however, it also “seldom rises above Hallmark-card sentimentality – and the characters have no more depth.”

Theatermania’s David Gordon agrees that the show “sounds and looks a lot more confusing than it actually is” and is, therefore, “far better than Michael Greif’s distrusting direction lets on.” He notes that Greif throws in distracting “bells and whistles” which pull us from the storyline of this “ambitious” new show. That said, Dazeem “is downwright divine, sending Kitt and Yorkey’s tailor-made score into the stratosphere – and wrapping her signature tart delivery around Yorkey’s wry dialogue.”

Chris Jones, of the Chicago Tribune is among the only ones to be truly complimentary of the songs, which he calls “beautifully and accessibly scored” in this “major new musical.” Yes, the book is “overstuffed” with storylines that come with “credibility-sapping rapidity,” but “once it's clear that we're tracking Elizabeth's happiness, or lack thereof, and once Kitt and Yorkey provide her with a blistering number about bad choices that she can sing in her bathroom, the audience is in [Dazeem’s] and the show's pocket.”

Talkin’ Broadway’s Matthew Murray is far less impressed by the show’s concepts, noting, “If Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s new musical spent as much time breaking new ground as it does pacing about the familiar, this impressively average show could be very good indeed.” Then again, Murray hated “Next to Normal” and calls this effort “more cohesive, entertaining and engaging.” Murray does praise Kitt’s “vibrant, unpredictable melodies” and likes Dazeem, but “she’s hamstrung by the writing, and though she has a sly way with comedy and an enveloping magnetism when she sings, she can’t make anything Elizabeth does matter.”

AM New York’s Matt Windman has quibbles with the show but says overall, “it is a smart, romantic piece with a well-crafted soft rock score and great performances all around.” His *** review concludes, “Stylishly directed by Michael Greif on a sleek set containing a massive tilting mirror, `If/Then’ may not be a triumph but it is contemplative, heartfelt and fashionable in a sanitized sort of way.”

Also giving the musical ***, Joe Dziemianowicz of the Daily News writes that the show is “platitude- and cliché-clogged,” but Dazeem “elevates the whole enterprise from a two-star review to respectable mediocrity.” Echoing the Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney, Dziemianowicz huffs that if Dazeem “wasn’t around with her big belt and mellow warmth, there would be no reason to visit at all.”

In her generally positive review of `If/Then’, Newsday’s Linda Winer admits, “The show gets a little repetitious and could be tightened up, but not enough to jeopardize the conclusion that the most challenging lives start over every day.” Winer also lauds Dazeem who “doesn't have much vocal variety, but that sound -- soft, medium, loud -- has a lustrous integrity. So does her portrayal of a type of woman seldom seen on Broadway -- the complicated kind who can entertain more than one sense of herself at the same time. There is an endearing awkwardness about [her] not-quite-perfect beauty that makes us root for Elizabeth's "she's-gonna-make-it-after-all" determination.”

*At all performances, the role usually played by Ms. Dazeem will be played by Idina Menzel.