 He added, “Really, the wisp of a book is just an excuse for the song and dance.” Though Stewart gave kudos to many of the performers, he declared, “LaChanze delivers the evening's only completely sincere performance. . . . It’s only through her performance that the serious themes of life and death ever come to the fore in this mostly lighthearted romp.” The TM writer found this satisfactory, since, he offered, “We don’t go to Encores! for gut-wrenching drama; we go to hear beautiful old Broadway scores brought back to life with a full onstage orchestra, and that’s exactly what we get here.”
Matthew Murray of Talkin’ Broadway, averring of Cabin “that what’s truly on the table is the African-American spirit, and a unique culture that, in the pre-Civil Rights era, was particularly dashing, distinct, and dangerous,” adjudged that at City Center, “what should be searing is instead a snooze.” Murray confirmed, “There’s no single point of failure, no one culprit at whom all the fingers should be pointed,” even acknowledging that under Santiago-Hudson’s direction, the production “is hardly poorly executed,” praising the “fanciful sets . . . and costumes” and “playful lighting.” He went on to laud the actors, the score, and the musical performance, “But,” he laments, “there’s a shimmering, shivering ‘So what?’ quality about the proceedings that none of these 24-karat components can overcome.” The TB blogger diagnosed “a listlessness at work that keeps sparks from igniting into flames” and asserted that “there’s little meat or spice to the” main plot line so that “it’s tough to rustle up desire to follow it to the end.” Murray found Camille Brown’s dances “workmanlike and lacking in energy” and the actors “technically proficient but a bit short on house-flooding charisma.” He concluded, given what was to come of musical theater post-Oklahoma!, that “Cabin in the Sky just doesn’t feel connected at all.” BroadwayWorld’s Michael Dale declared, “Cabin in the Sky, though mildly dramatic, is more of a showcase for its stars than an attempt at serious musical theatre. At Encores!, the stars come through divinely as do Vernon Duke’s sweet, sweet melodies.”
Barry Singer of the Huffington Post confessed that, like me, “I have long wondered about Cabin in the Sky”—though he had stronger and more personal reasons for his curiosity. Unhappily, Singer found that “Cabin in the Sky at Encores! did not really settle anything for me”; he felt that the Duke-Latouche score “was not fully trusted” since it was “augmented . . with a surfeit of beautifully sung, authentic, black spirituals that went on far too long and only served to obscure Vernon Duke’s full Cabin in the Sky conception.” Even Camille Brown’s choreography, “magnificent, to a degree,. . . went on with a frenzy and a sense of overkill that seemed to cry out: ‘Look at me! Not at this show, which we all find a little embarrassing. Don't we. . . .” In the end, Singer lamented, “Something about this piece seems destined to always tempt condescension in one form or another.” Steven Suskin, on the same site a few days earlier, declared, “There’s ‘honey in the honeycomb’—and ‘jelly in the jelly-roll’ as well—at City Center this week with Cabin in the Sky,” especially noting that “the overall score itself turns out to be irrepressibly joyous.” Echoing his colleague’s caveat about the “book trouble” of pre-Oklahoma! musicals, Suskin lauded Brown’s “vibrant choreography” and the “impeccable corps of dancers,” which, he asserted, “carries the evening, which I suppose we could describe as ‘heavenly.’” Despite a “flimsy” plot, Suskin affirmed, “Cabin in the Sky is well worth a hearing, and Encores! has polished it into a honey of a show.”