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Created Jan 20, 2019 10:23PM PST • Edited Sep 24, 2019 01:21AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Searingly honest and comically revealing, Springsteen on Broadway is the Boss at his evocative best, notwithstanding some unintentional irony. This final performance of his 2018 one-man show (basically a live autobiography) hits the solar plexus with emotion and keen insight, more so than even in his concerts.

   First recounting his Freehold, NJ boyhood, the artist dwells in turn on several significant people in his life, among them his father, his mother, Elvis and other musical heroes, Clarence Clemons, and Patty Scialfa — first his backup singer, then his wife. There’s plenty of singing, along with some acoustic guitar and piano.

   All the promises will be broken.

   Bruce presents himself as a working-class hero. However, he reveals never having worked in a factory or even a five-day-a-week job, prior to Bruce on Broadway that is. “And I hate it.” Instead, he channeled the life of his emotionally distant father for inspiration. IOW, he made it all up, declaring “I’m just that good”.

   Those jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back. (BUT THEY ARE)

   I found it ironic to watch Springsteen on Broadway the very day that news broke about booming jobs and wages for the working-class he purports to channel, and yet Bruce reviles what is going on in America. He’s certainly correct that there’s lots of ugliness in the world today, in America, in the UK, in France and elsewhere. But one would hope that a man who became rich, famous and revered based on virtue signaling about the common man could afford at least a nod to the fact that working stiffs in America have better job prospects today than at any time since Bruce Springsteen graduated from Freehold High School in 1967.

   I was born in the USA.

   Unintended irony aside, Springsteen on Broadway is a deeply affecting show, especially for we Springsteen fans, but I imagine for everyone who grew up in the USA. His insights – about the fraught relationship he had with his father, the pride he took in his mother, the honesty he and his wife reveal – transcend pop culture, rising to the level of great American letters. Plus you can sing along. BRUUCCE!!

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Bruce Springsteen is the great American troubadour, his long and unparalleled career having elevated him above Woody Guthrie (his hero) and Bob Dylan (his oft associated predecessor). One proof point of this is The Rising, a tremendously moving ode to first responders in the wake of 9/11, and a song that he sings in Springsteen on Broadway. To write and sing that song elevates him to the realm of American hero.

   Patti Scialfa joins her husband for a couple songs, as she’s done for thousands of performances over the decades. The songs happen to be about marital discord. Their’s is an interesting marriage!

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.2

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Polite 1.0

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0