Opening Night Reviews for American Buffalo, or: DidHeLikeIt? Not so much.

***My day was jam-packed yesterday and I didn't get a chance to post an opening night capsule for American Buffalo.

Last night marked the revival opening of David Mamet's American Buffalo at the Belasco Theatre.

Robert Falls directs Tony-nominated John Leguizamo as Walter Cole, Cedric the Entertainer as Donny Dubrow, and Haley Joel Osment as Bobby. The opening of the revival is also Cedric's and Osment's Broadway debut.

And while the reviews for that other Mamet revival currently treading the boards were mainly positive, American Buffalo seems to not be opening up to the same critical success. Here is a compilation of review capsules from DidHeLikeIt.com:


NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW: "Ssssssssst. That whooshing noise coming from the Belasco Theater is the sound of the air being let out of David Mamet's dialogue. Robert Falls's deflated revival of Mr. Mamet's American Buffalo - which opened on Monday night with the mixed-nut ensemble of John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment - evokes the woeful image of a souped-up sports car's flat tire, built for speed but going nowhere.."


USA TODAY REVIEW: "Tenderness is not the first quality one generally associates with David Mamet. But really study his characters, and you'll find that many are drawn with sympathy and even affection."






ASSOCIATED PRESS REVIEW: "The four-letter words are intact but just about everything else is amiss in the slack, unsatisfying Broadway revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo."




VARIETY REVIEW: "When American Buffalo is done right, the profane poetry of David Mamet's dialogue can be bracing and the sad desperation of its three minor-league crooks -- playing at being players -- has a poignant sting. But in the three decades since the play was first seen, the influence of its speech patterns has become increasingly pervasive in films, cable TV and imitative theater, while humanized hoodlums have turned up everywhere. Maybe that's why this starry revival sits so flatly on its impressive set. Or maybe it's the lack of a connective thread among its performers. Either way, something isn't working."




AMNY REVIEW: "Now comes American Buffalo, Mamet’s first full-length comic drama, which focuses on three petty criminals who plot to steal a rare Buffalo Nickel. Ironically, the characters view themselves as hard-working businessmen instead of hustlers."

DidHeLikeIt.com Reviews, or: Electricity seems to hold over from London for BIlly Elliot

Here is a collection of critic capsules from DidHeLikeIt.com for Billy Elliot - The Musical, which opened last night at the Imperial Theatre after starting previews October 1st.










NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW: "Your inner dancer is calling. Its voice, sweet but tough and insistent, pulses in every molecule of the new Broadway musical Billy Elliot, demanding that you wake up sleeping fantasies of slipping on tap or ballet shoes and soaring across a stage. Few people may have the gift of this show’s title character, a coal miner’s son in northern England who discovers he was born to pirouette. But the seductive, smashingly realized premise of Billy Elliot, which opened Thursday night at the Imperial Theater, is that everybody has the urge. And in exploring that urge among the population of a down-at-heels coal town suffering through the British miners’ strike of the mid-1980s, this show both artfully anatomizes and brazenly exploits the most fundamental and enduring appeal of musicals themselves."


USA TODAY REVIEW: "Sure, this adaptation of the 2000 film about a coal miner's son struggling to realize his dreams of ballet glory is already an established hit in London. There, its plot — set in Northern England in the 1980s, when those in Billy's dad's line of work were doing battle with Margaret Thatcher — resonated with audiences accustomed to a more rigid class structure and thus less likely to take social mobility for granted."




THE ASSOCIATED PRESS REVIEW: "It's not often that a musical comes along that is as ambitious as it is emotional — and then succeeds on both counts. But Billy Elliot, which opened Thursday at Broadway's Imperial Theatre, is an exceptional work that exemplifies what the best musicals are all about: collaboration. Everything comes together in this impressive, warmhearted adaptation of the 2000 British film about a North Country coal miner's young son who yearns to dance and join the Royal Ballet School in London."




AMNY REVIEW: "Billy Elliot: The Musical is the real deal: a truly compelling and absolutely spectacular theatrical experience destined to be a smash hit. Easily the best British musical since Les Miz, it feels appropriate that it is playing at the Imperial Theatre, once home to that long running musical. Simply put, you cannot miss it."




VARIETY REVIEW: "Three-and-a-half years may seem a long time for an instantaneous London smash like Billy Elliot: The Musical to cross the Atlantic, but the delay looks to have played serendipitously into the producers' hands. With unemployment figures soaring and the economy in the dumps, the zeitgeist could hardly be more attuned to the stirring story of a Northern England miner's son liberated from bleak reality by his passion for ballet. But even without that happy accident of timing, American audiences would have no trouble connecting with the universal sentiment of this bittersweet dual celebration of community and individuality."

Billy Elliot Opening Night, or: two sides of the same blogging coin

Tonight marks the American debut of the London box-office smash Billy Elliot: The Musical. The new musical, about a working-class boy with a talent and drive for dancing while living in the slums of London, opens at the Imperial Theatre after beginning previews October 1st.

Elton John provides the score with Lee Hall supplying both lyrics and book. Peter Darling is responsible for the show's plentiful choreography and musical staging.

Stephen Daldry directs a cast lead by David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish rotating in the title role. Also featured in the cast are Haydn Gwynne, Gregory Jbara, Carole Shelley, Santino Fontana, and Leah Hocking.

Adding Machine fans will also be glad to see Mr. Zero himself, Joel Hatch, making his Broadway debut in a supporting role as the boxing coach George.

The production's official website offers this brief synopsis: "Billy Elliot is a funny, heart-warming and feel-good celebration of one young boy's dream in a gripping tale of triumph over adversity. Based on the enormously popular film, this powerful new musical is the story of a boy who discovers he has a special talent for dance, while the boys all around him are more interested in boxing."

Cancellations of some preview performances due to set complications (see also 9 to 5) have plagued the show's word of mouth. However audiences have remained large and the box-office continues to be bring in money ($980,000 during the week of Halloween).

Citing an unremarkable score along with stylistic achievements trumping creative substance, fellow theater blogger Chris was rather ho-hum in his review of the show in previews (albeit considerably more receptive to his initial viewing of the London production). And while Chris rather despised the London incarnation, Steve on Broadway quite enjoyed it when he took in a performance back in 2005; he thinks the score is "exceptional" and describes the feeling audiences receive at the show as "electricity."

Two rather different points of view from two very well regarded bloggers. We'll see what the mainstream critics have to say tomorrow.

All My Sons Opening Night, or: seminolishly classic Katie Holmes?

Opening tonight at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre is the third Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's classic American drama All My Sons, concerning a business man, his past choices and their consequences, and his family during post-World War II.

The production began previews (which have been playing to very full houses) at the Schoenfeld Sept. 18. With an official opening of Oct. 16, the limited engagement is currently scheduled to run through Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009.

The production is notable for its highly prolific cast. Tony Award winner John Lithgow (as Joe Keller), Oscar winner Dianne Weist (Kate Keller), Broadway and Hollywood actor Patrick Wilson (Chris Keller), and Mrs. Tom Cruise herself - film actress Katie Holmes (Ann Deever) in her Broadway debut co-star under the direction of Simon McBurney.

Also featured are Becky Ann Baker, Christian Camargo, Michael D'addario, Danielle Ferland, Jordan Gelber, Sherman Howard, Clark Jackson, Lizbeth MacKay, Christopher Grey Misa, Danielle Skraastad, and Damian Young.

The production's official website offers this synopsis: "As timely today as the day it was written, the play was inspired by a true story about a successful businessman who knowingly sold the government defective airplane parts during World War II. A middle-class couple, Joe and Kate Keller, have lost their younger son in the war, but Kate cannot give up believing that he is still alive. Chris, their surviving son, falls in love with his brother's fiancée Ann and brings her home to tell them of their new relationship and their plans to marry. In the confrontations that follow, cracks begin to appear in everyone's stories, lies are exposed, and a secret is revealed that could destroy them all."

Chris saw the show early in previews and was not impressed, citing premature direction, lots of screaming, and an ugly set. My good friend Byrd (read his Little House on the Prairie review here) just saw the show last night and said it was fantastic, and that Katie Holmes was surprisingly good. He said he was swept up in the high melodrama and was emotionally engaged.

Perhaps the show has tightened up and really benefited from previews. If only To Be Or Not To Be would have done the same...

DidHeLikeIt.com Reviews, or: No he most certainly did not! (To Be Or Not To Be)

To Be Or Not To Be, written by Nick Whitby and directed by Casey Nicholaw, opened last night at the at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Here is an assessment of reviews compiled from DidHeLikeIt.com:







NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW: "If the producers of the walking corpse of a comedy To Be or Not to Be are feeling unappreciated this morning — and it’s a safe bet that they are — here’s a consoling thought for them. It took years for the Ernst Lubitsch film that inspired this play to get any respect."




ASSOCIATED PRESS REVIEW: "The fall theater season is still young, but Nick Whitby's To Be or Not to Be may turn out to be the most unnecessary Broadway production of the year."





VARIETY REVIEW: "Film critics have tried for the past 80 years or so to define the magic of the Lubitsch touch. Urbane humor, visual wit, sophistication, innuendo and charm were all factors, but subtlety was surely the key component -- that incomparable touch was unvaryingly a light one. So one of the most disheartening things about British playwright Nick Whitby's lumbering stage adaptation of To Be or Not to Be is the heavy hand that's been brought to bear on the 1942 comedy about a Polish theater troupe outwitting the Nazis in occupied Warsaw."

THEATERMANIA REVIEW: "In the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of To Be Or Not to Be, now at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, ham actor-turned-reluctant hero Josef Tura exclaims: "There is nothing an actor can not do! For the actor, everything is possible!" I hate to differ -- but there is at least one thing actors can not do. They cannot pull Nick Whitby's inadequate adaptation of the beloved 1942 Ernst Lubitsch-directed film out of the fire."


NY DAILY NEWS REVIEW: "Long before The Producers and Hogan's Heroes goofed on the Gestapo, Ernst Lubitsch turned the idea into screwball comedy in his 1942 film To Be or Not to Be. Six decades later, the comedy about plucky Polish actors who outwit Hitler's honchos arrives on Broadway in a Manhattan Theatre Club production. Unfortunately, most of the laughs seem lost in translation in the adaptation by British playwright Nick Whitby. Though the play strives to be fluffy, it's about as airy as cement pierogi - and a late turn toward heart-tugging feels tacked on."

To Be or Not To Be Opening Night, or: do we really need another movie remake?

To Be or Not To Be, the new stage version of Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 film comedy about Polish theatre troupers trying to outsmart the Nazis, opens tonight on Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (formerly the Biltmore).

The production, which was originally scheduled to begin previews on Sept. 11, and then Sept. 13, began previews Sept. 16. The limited engagement plays to Nov. 23. There were two principal cast changes since rehearsals began, necessitating extra rehearsal time.

Nick Whitby has provided the stage adaptation for the Casey Nicholaw directed play which features Peter Benson, Robert Dorfman, Steve Kazee, Peter Maloney, Jan Maxwell, Michael McCarty, Kristine Nielsen, Brandon Perler, David Rasche, Rocco Sisto, Jimmy Smagula, Marina Squerciati, and Mark J. Sullivan.

According to MTC,

At the Polski Theatre in 1939 Warsaw, Josef (Rasche) and Maria Tura (Maxwell) are about to open yet another smash with their theatrical troupe. As the German invasion gets underway, the theatre is closed by the censors, forcing the troupe to face desperate times. But when a handsome young bomber pilot enlists their help to catch a spy, what is a group of actors to do? This hilarious black comedy is an ingenious commentary on the World War II era and an inspired tribute to the timeless joys of the theatre.

Early reports have not been good for the production. Citing everything from bad writing, bad acting, and bad directing, Michael Riedel has some disheartening insider talk over at his column for the NY Post.

The film starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard is a complex and timely satire. Lubitsch is known for providing charming characters throughout all of his films. The approach lends itself well to his comedies and is known in film circles as "the Lubitsch touch."

This is particularly evident in his 1940 romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. This film is of special interest to musical theatre fans as it provides the first adaptation to the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, which in return provided the story for the wonderfully perfect musical comedy She Loves Me.

In the book Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, Lubitsch called this film "the best picture I ever made in my life."

DidHeLikeIt.com Reviews, or: A Man for All Seasons Some Tastes

The first ever revival of Rober Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, starring consummate actor Frank Langella, arrived on the Great White Way last night. Here is an assessment of reviews compiled from DidHeLikeIt.com:






NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW: "Is it heresay to whisper that the sainted Thomas More is a bit of a bore? Even Frank Langella, an actor who can be counted on to put the pepper in mashed-potato parts, doesn't find much variety in the monolithic goodness of the title character of A Man For All Seasons."


AMNY REVIEW: "Decapitation: it's the fad of the fall of Broadway! Just as Sydney Carton mounts the guillotine in A Tale of Two Cities, Sir Thomas More is similarly led up the stairs to meet the axeman. But as it turns out, losing your head is not the equivalent of good theater."



NEWSDAY REVIEW: "With Broadway's first revival of A Man for All Seasons since its 1961 premiere, the Roundabout Theatre Company has tossed the hungry acting giant a big chunk of juicy sustenance. And Langella's gratitude becomes our own."



ASSOCIATED PRESS REVIEW: "Now, in the play's first Broadway revival, Frank Langella has assumed the mantle of Sir Thomas More, and it's a natural fit. With a strong, even mesmerizing physical presence, Langella slips easily into costume drama. And his fluid, mellifluous voice is perfect for the series of moral arguments he puts forth to justify his obedience to God, a duty that goes beyond his allegiance to King Henry VIII. The play itself doesn't wear as well in this stately, slow-paced revival, that the Roundabout Theatre Company opened Tuesday at its American Airlines Theatre."

VARIETY REVIEW: "The word "maverick" has been so thoroughly co-opted as a catchall credential by the Republican presidential campaign that it may be forever tied to that context. But for a true illustration of a staunchly independent dissenter worthy of that label, history is a better place to look -- for instance, to Robert Bolt's depiction of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. The 1961 drama about the martyrdom of the chancellor of England under Henry VIII is not without windy preachiness. But the Roundabout staging becomes more gripping as it proceeds, driven by a performance from Frank Langella as measured and naturalistic as it is majestic."

A Man for All Seasons Opening Night, or: Frankie is at it again

Tonight the curtain rises on the very first revival of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons after starting previews September 12th.

The new Roundabout Theatre Company production at the American Airlines Theatre stars Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon, Fortune's Fool, Seascape, Dracula) as Sir Thomas More, the anti-Protestant Lord Chancellor of England during the time when King Henry — desperate for a male heir — sought to extricate himself from Queen Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn. The action of the two-act play is 1529-1535.

According to Roundabout, A Man for All Seasons "is a timeless exploration of politics, religion and power. Robert Bolt's classic drama is based on the fascinating true story of English Chancellor Sir Thomas More and his moral objection to King Henry VIII's plan to leave the Catholic Church."


The production will run through December 7th.

Frank Langella seems to be a busy man, what with this revival and his upcoming film version of Frost/Nixon. I hope he has a great end of the year.