In his review in The New York Times, Frank Rich said, This is the kind of musical that sends you out of the theater humming every score other than the one you've just heard .
The show's book manages to miss the human comedy, the tears and even the point of Dickens's novel.
This is no longer the story of a boy's hard-won growth to emotional manhood, but a clunky, often incoherently told melodrama in which all the villains literally wear black .
it could be argued that Copperfield might be entertaining for young children, whose innocent minds aren't sullied by memories of the superior shows that this one dimly recalls.
But it's hard to imagine what parent - short of an evil Dickensian one - would take the family to the ANTA when Annie, Barnum and The Pirates of Penzance are in town.