Neither actor really pulls off Mamet's very difficult first act. Full of unfinished sentences and interruptions, it is very hard to play it as fast as it needs to be played and still ensure that the English audience will grasp it. But your perseverance will be rewarded after the interval when the play concentrates less on academia and dry educational approaches and more on power and both actors get into the swing.
Initially we hear jokes from Alex and Ben, quirky, off the wall and original humour, routines like for instance the difficult mirror act. Ben talks about “life in the forces” only for Alex to prick his bubble by exposing that Ben was working for Parcel Force. They use props in the travelling trunk and introduce the idea that props look smaller onstage than off.
Be More Chill the musical has been a phenomenon on Broadway after Ned Vizzini's "young adult novel" captured the imagination of American teenagers in New Jersey and beyond. For a show to be sold out in the States before it opens is remarkable. So Be More Chill comes to London with an impressive amount of downloads on Spotify and the like. There have been 350 million streams of the original cast recording.