Oleanna

GRADE: B-



Written by David Mamet. Directed by Doug Hughes. At the Golden Theater.

Oleanna, David Mamet's cryptically titled two-hander about class, gender and academic politics, is back and on Broadway, and while the reviews run the gamut from F+ to A, the "Ayes" currently have it. Reviewers can't help compare Doug Hughes' take with the original Off-Broadway production, directed by David Mamet and starring his wife Rebecca Pidgeon and William H. Macy. While the Times' Ben Brantley finds Hughes' more psychological take on Mamet's material deadly, others feel that the slow-burn approach creates a riveting ratcheting up in tension. The most interesting take on the show belongs to Elisabeth Vincentelli from the Post, who both recognizes the play is a completely absurd monster sprung Athena-like from the brow of Mamet's id, and also claims that it's delicious fun in the same vein as a slasher film. Matthew Murray from TalkinBroadway takes the opposite tack, he loves the play's incendiary nature but finds the fires of conflict fizzled in the actors' subtext-heavy performances. (NOTE: We did not include CurtainUp's review as it is entirely descriptive in nature, but you can read it here.)

USA Today A
(Elysa Gardner) Mamet, after all, seems less interested in condemning women or men than exploring the complicated dynamics between them, made no simpler by such modern inventions as academic equality and political correctness. Stiles' Carol, joyless and riveting, describes feelings of intellectual inferiority and refers repeatedly to a "group" informing her accusations of John. It's easy to see how this young woman could find empowerment — a favorite term of her set, no doubt — in standing up to a middle-aged man charged with determining her progress. It's just as obvious why Pullman's conflicted John is thrown by Carol, whose initial desperation likely flatters him. Watching John struggle to maintain his composure as that desperation gives way to something harder and less rational, you'll swear you can see the actor's blood pressure rising. You may feel your own going up, as well. Oleanna has lost none of its provocative power and is bound to inspire animated conversations long after the curtain falls.

Backstage A
(David Sheward) Hughes wisely paces the play slowly at first, and those unfamiliar with it may be bored. But they should stick with it, because Hughes and his actors incrementally increase the tension till it explodes. It's hard to believe the same director staged the rollicking comedy "The Royal Family," which opened just a few days earlier.... the most intense show on Broadway.

ShowShowDown A
(Patrick Lee) I found this production, directed with psychological credibility by Doug Hughes and starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, to be more visceral and provocative than the original years ago (directed by the playwright) in which William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon seemed to be playing ideas rather than characters. Despite its advertising, the play is not really a "he said she said" Rashomon which divides the audience's sympathies between the two characters - it's too stacked against the female for that. But when you believe the characters, as you do here, it riles the audience and provokes a variety of interpretations.

ThatSoundsCool A
(Aaron Riccio) Oleanna itself is as incendiary as ever, from the first scene, in which John attempts--in his unfortunately misguided self-appointed role as "paternal" teacher--to help a failing student, Carol, to the third and final scene, in which Carol--having stripped John of his chances at tenure--now presents John with her demands, and gets to teach him a lesson. For the record, I still side with John. Though Pullman manages to show the character's preening obliviousness, he still comes across as well-intentioned. Stiles, to her credit, shows a lot more emotion and vulnerability in this role than I thought either were capable of, but Carol still winds up coming across as a remorseless goad at the end. Still, it's a closer fight, and that makes it a far more engaging one to watch.

Associated Press A
(Michael Kuchwara) Oleanna is a fiendishly difficult play to pull off, but Pullman and Stiles, under the precise, careful direction of Doug Hughes, make the most of Mamet's seemingly imprecise language. The dialogue is full of starts, stops and backtracks that, bit by bit, build to an explosive climax. Pullman's open demeanor, a countenance that morphs into desperation, is just right for this professor, whose world — academic, financial and personal — is unraveling around him. And Stiles' icy demeanor is tinged with a hint of sexual awareness, a clarity of purpose despite the woman's claims that she is lost in the professor's class.

Wall St. Journal A-
(Terry Teachout) in the first scene it feels as though the play is catching up with his twitchy, hyperactive performance as a college professor charged with sexual harassment. Once Mr. Pullman and the script get into sync, though, "Oleanna" flies to the finish line, and Julia Stiles is terrific throughout as the scared young student-accuser who morphs into a Stalinoid robot. The rest of what I said in my earlier review still goes: "Oleanna" is a brutal parable of totalitarianism in action that continues to pack a roundhouse punch 17 years after it first opened Off Broadway.

Theaterscene A-
(Simon Saltzman) Oleanna now presented in one act seems both better and worse. Pullman, whose gave laudable stage performances in Edward Albee’s The Goat and Peter and Jerry, brings a distraught, unnerving dimension to the role. His emotional unraveling seems an almost natural extension of the insecure personality that we see at the beginning of the play. While Macy’s disintegration of his more controlled exterior was effectively more stunning, Pullman draws plenty of unnerving subtext out of the professor. Stiles, who is making her Broadway debut, is extraordinarily effective and possibly more shockingly contemptible than was the cooler and more calculating Pidgeon. It may seem like a different play to those who saw the original Off Broadway production in 1992.

Lighting and Sound America B+
(David Barbour) Doug Hughes' revival is, to my mind, vastly superior to the Off Broadway original, in which Rebecca Pidgeon's whiny, passive-aggressive Carol proved no match for William H. Macy's John. Here, Julia Stiles' go-for-the-jugular hostility makes her a more-than-worthy opponent for Bill Pullman, who visibly degenerates under the pressure of constantly having to defend himself.

NYPost B
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Watching the play 17 years later is like watching something made during the Red Scare of the '50s. Oleanna speaks volumes not only about an era dominated by the shared paranoia of conservatives and lefty activists, but also about its creator's id. And what surged from Mamet's brain is the closest Broadway now has to a slasher movie...The play certainly has its problems -- the incessant calls are increasingly contrived, for instance. But at its best, Oleanna shows what happens when parallel lines are on a collision course.

Bloomberg B
(John Simon) The entire play is a clever enough piece of equivocation, allowing viewers to approve or reprehend either character according to their notions of feminism and sexism. The writing clearly and deliberately aims at provocation, at which it succeeds rather better than at credibility. The revival does profit here from good performances and apt direction.

VIllage Voice B
(Michael Feingold) Mamet adds an extra hurdle by making it clear that neither character is particularly good with language, though only language can bridge the gap between them: Their inability to articulate is the source of Oleanna's tragedy. This poses a production challenge that Hughes and his actors face gamely and often effectively. He orchestrates the dialogue's weird, crisscrossing blips with exactitude; the physical staging makes clear, as the original Off-Broadway production didn't always, that what occurs in the first scene partly justifies some of the startling allegations of the later ones. The tension, heightened by a maddening sound of metal window shades descending between scenes, is palpable. What's missing, oddly, is the sexual dynamic that underlies the whole story, the element that makes both parties keep coming back to this interview neither wants. You need to sense mutual desire to comprehend both the issues raised in Oleanna and their distressing result.

TheaterMania B
(Dan Bacalzo) Although the majority of audience members will undoubtedly focus on the gender aspects of this "He Said/She Said" debate, what also comes to the fore in this production are the class dimensions. Carol's most convincing argument is the one in which she critiques the elitism that John has shown by his talk of such things as purchasing a new house and sending his son to a private school. The emotional connection that Stiles establishes as Carol talks about what she's had to overcome just to get to the university is genuinely moving.

Variety C+
(David Rooney) Miscommunication more than gender politics is the central issue in this incendiary 1992 two-hander, and that gulf is exposed with bristling conviction by Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles. But Doug Hughes' meticulously calibrated production can't correct the imbalance of a manipulative play that only feigns impartiality...The dynamic is certainly unsettling, and its investigation of the susceptibility of language and behavior to perceptions that can distort truth and shift power is compelling. But while Pullman makes John's undoing a harrowing spectacle, the sheer acrimony of Mamet's stance against Carol blunts the confrontation.

Time Out New York C-
(David Cote) As in the also misconceived revival of American Buffalo last season, Oleanna has a cast that cannot achieve the balance between vocal crispness and behavioral semi-opacity that good Mamet acting requires. The text is still compelling at times, but you miss its full impact. Bill Pullman’s hypocritical, complacent college prof John yanks at his hair, squirms, and slurs his syllables. Julia Stiles’s voice has a tinny, rehearsed timbre and her flat, petulant affect stints Carol’s progression from insecure, self-lacerating undergrad to feminist avenging angel.

NYTimes C-
(Ben Brantley) Even when things get physical between John and Carol, Mr. Pullman and Ms. Stiles never seem to connect, or even to inhabit the same universe. Each has found a personal and unorthodox way of dealing with Mr. Mamet’s fierce, fragmented language. Ms. Stiles speaks with a stiff, ladylike crispness, while Mr. Pullman gives what may be the most naturalistic line readings I’ve ever heard in a Mamet play. Neither approach is entirely appropriate to Mamet-speak, though it would help if both performances were on the same stylistic page...With Mr. Mamet, the words really do come first. As this production demonstrates, interpreters who try to sidestep this cardinal rule do so at their peril.

NY Daily News D+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) David Mamet at his most manipulative. Written 17 years ago in response to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill he-said-she-said circus, the compact drama is back to push buttons. Sitcoms are built for laughs. Oleanna is made to enrage — it's a sitbomb...Stiles and Pullman give fine performances. She's got a blank face and permanent frown perfect for a Mamet female — the nonentity with more to her. Pullman emits a fitting bookishness of a middle-aged Everyman. The actors get somewhat upstaged by director Doug Hughes' uncharacteristically misjudged production

The New Yorker D
(Unsigned) As directed by Doug Hughes, the complete lack of sexual tension between Pullman and Stiles renders Carol’s accusations hysterical and unfounded, and reduces what could have been a nuanced, credible power struggle to an unfair fight between an inexplicably vindictive she-monster and a pitiful man.

TalkinBroadway D-
(Matthew Murray) Who’s the victim? Who’s the aggressor? Who cares? All three questions, in roughly equal proportions, flood Doug Hughes’s new revival of Oleanna at the John Golden, making this Broadway bow of David Mamet’s most controversial and viscerally exciting play into a pedestrian mess. Until the play’s final minute, which somehow remains a nuclear explosion, you’d never know from watching Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles plow through the script that this is one of the most radioactive male-female confrontations ever committed to the stage...This play needs nothing more than its actors to speak quickly, precisely, and forcefully so its story will tell itself, and it has not gotten that here. Laden with shrill pauses, dialogue that should overlap but doesn’t, and an overall murky malaise, it feels more about the struggle of a father and his estranged daughter arguing about where to have dinner than about dissecting male hegemony and female repression in the era of political correctness.

Newsday F+
(Linda Winer) Is there a more bogus female character in modern theater than Carol, the college student in David Mamet's "Oleanna?" Has there ever been less a credible drama disguised as social and literary dynamite than the one that Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles are trying so hard to make real now on Broadway?...since Pullman and Stiles are more nuanced and compelling than the heavily stylized William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon in the original, Doug Hughes' production has turned a pseudo-serious play into a more serious betrayal. We are seduced more completely into believing there might be a character behind Stiles' [Carol]... by the time she reports him to the tenure committee for elitism and sexism and worse, we don't know if she's a psycho, a monster or a dupe of the politically incorrect brigade. She could be all of the above, but she certainly isn't a credible half of an even fight.

SSD A 13; TSC A 13l USA A 13;BS A 13; AP A 13; WSJ A- 12; TS A- 12; LSA B+ 11; VV B 10; NYP B 10; BB B 10; TM B 10; V C+ 8; TONY C- 7; NYT C- 6; NYDN D+ 5; TNY D 4; TB D- 3; F+ 2; TOTAL: 161 / 18 = 8.94 (B-)

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Farragut North

GRADE: B

By Beau Willimon. Dir. Doug Hughes. Atlantic Theatre. (CLOSED)

Critics are mostly positive (if not overwhelmingly so) about Beau Willimon's take on political back-room dealing amidst the Iowa caucuses. Many reviewers reference the play's cinematic quality, either positively or not, and note that it gets a bit bogged down in its second act. All of the actors, including Law and Order's Chris Noth and The Wire's Isaiah Whitlock get praise, but it is Tony winner John Gallagher who rakes in the hosannas. The big outlier is Talkin' Broadway's Matthew Murray from Talkin' Broadway, who positively loathed the play and most of the performances.

The Journal News A
(Jacques Le Sourd) Gallagher...is a wondrous talent...And Noth gives a performance of profound depth as the political operative who has seen more than a few campaigns, and values loyalty above all else...The characters caught up in this dense political brew are hardly new and they're hardly news. But Willimon makes it seem gripping and as fresh as your next text-message.

TheaterMania A
(David Finkle) You might think post-election euphoria would make Beau Willimon's presidential-campaign drama Farragut North, now at the Atlantic Theatre, hit the ground as if it were out of step with the times. But the drama is so well-conceived and persuasively written that nothing will stop the cynicism seeping over the edge of the stage like spilled acid from jarring audiences into shock and awe. And director Doug Hughes has taken expert care to bring out the scary implication of every one of Willimon's characters' nuances, nasty plot turns, and lines of barbed-wire dialogue.

Variety A-
(David Rooney) Juicy entertainment... At the center of all this, Gallagher bounces from brash overconfidence to cold-sweat discomfort and, finally, to desperate bids for self-preservation and revenge. It's no stretch to believe this wunderkind, "the best media mind in the country," can charm the vulture-like press even while playing them. And it's fun to watch the wheels of his strategist's mind turning even after defeat as he weighs the political usefulness of a waiter's hard-luck story (Otto Sanchez, doubling as a Los Angeles Times reporter).

Time Out NY A-
(Adam Feldman) Doug Hughes’s dynamic production at the Atlantic mines Willimon’s who’s-zooming-who plot for all it’s worth. Gallagher, one of our best young actors, gives a first-class performance in the central role, nailing Stephen’s cocky charm as well as the emptiness beneath it, which becomes clearer during his precipitous slide from grace. Olivia Thirlby is equally impressive as Molly, a 19-year-old intern who is both preternaturally self-possessed and eager to give herself away.

CurtainUp A-
(Elyse Sommer) The fast-paced drama that showcases all this acting talent, both individually and as a tightly meshed ensemble was penned by Beau Williimon, an up and coming young playwright and screen writer who's previously displayed a leaning towards current events (last season's Lower Ninth at the off-off-Broadway Flea Theater was about the Katrina disaster). Because Willimon's emphasis is on the staffers who are responsible for dealing with their candidates' ups and downs, getting positive and headline worthy press coverage and nabbing important endorsements, the candidates themselves are never seen. They are nevertheless a constant presence in the snappy dialogue.

Associated Press A-
(Michael Kuchwara) The playwright doesn't have a very high opinion of those who operate in the political arena. Everyone uses everyone else to get what they want, and the players not only include people in high and low campaign positions, but members of the press, eager for a story. Willimon's dialogue is slick and rat-tat-tat punchy, almost cinematic in its fast-forwarding, as is Doug Hughes' fluid direction. Of course, a movie version already is in the works.

NY Daily News A-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) You'd think that after just finishing an election, political fatigue would have set in. So it's to Willimon's credit that he crafted such an intriguing play, one that's smart, unbiased and told with an insider's eye.

AMNY B
(Matt Windman) The timely play, which is clearly inspired by Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, acts and moves like a film. In fact, Willimon is currently writing the screenplay for Warner Brothers. Though many of his scenes are stretched a bit too long, Willimon manages to keep the audience hooked and happy and occasionally surprised.

NYPost B
(Frank Scheck) While Farragut North never quite achieves the pungent urgency to which it aspires - one can only imagine what a playwright like Mamet could have done with it - it works well enough. Director Doug Hughes has provided a fast-paced, well-acted production that compensates for the play's more contrived elements.

The Record B
(Robert Feldberg)Gallagher is very persuasive as both a boyishly appealing young man and as a snake, but trying to make Stephen something akin to a tragic figure doesn’t work. The play, the character and the performance all lack the heft to bolster that interpretation. Take Farragut North as a well-crafted tale of mischief, manipulation and misdeeds, all in the cause of winning. Machiavelli would have approved.

NYTimes B-
(Charles Isherwood) Mr. Willimon writes convincing dialogue in the statistic-laden, obscenity-peppered argot of his campaign workers and the reporters they try to manipulate. And he’s good at suggesting the self-mythologizing streak in such people, the sentimentality that coexists within the cutthroat coldness. But he doesn’t stylize a trade language into transporting theatrical poetry the way that, say, David Mamet does with the movie-industry-speak of Speed-the-Plow (currently in revival on Broadway). And Mr. Hughes... fails to sustain the aggressive momentum that might make us forget how schematic and familiar this story ultimately is.

Backstage C+
(David A. Rosenberg) Farragut North is a shallow play given an absorbing production... the play's various personal strands don't mesh with the political ones. The wrong turns taken seem miniscule and unimportant. Separated from the action, the candidates themselves are ciphers, merely a frame around petty incidents.

Newday C
(Linda Winer) As Beau Willimon's plot-heavy piece continues, however, the up-to-the-minute thrills feel like yesterday's news - or like a misplaced movie script. The serious comedy, which Mike Nichols was originally rumored to be staging on Broadway before the election, opened instead at Off-Broadway's Atlantic Theatre Company as a spy-versus-spy-versus-spy shaggy-campaign story whose timeliness has passed.

TalkinBroadway D
(Matthew Murray) It's... unconvincing that this sublimely smart young man could ever be as supremely stupid as Stephen must be for the plot to cohere. Willing suspension of disbelief is one thing, but willing suspension of sanity is something else entirely, and that's too hefty a demand for Willimon to make in a work positioning itself as this real and this cynical.

Journal News A 13; TheaterMania A 13; Variety A- 12; AP A- 12; CurtainUp A- 12; NYDN A- 12; TONY A- 12; AMNY B 10; NYPost B 10; The Record B 10; NYTimes B- 9; Backstage C+ 8;Newsday C 7; TB D 4; TOTAL = 144 / 14 = 10.29 = B

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A Man For All Seasons

GRADE: B-

By Robert Bolt. Dir. Doug Hughes. Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theater. (CLOSED)

Critics are divided about Robert Bolt's classic chronicle of the undoing of Sir Thomas More and not particularly complimentary of Dough Hughes' staging. But their enthusiasm for its star, three time Tony-Award Winning actor Frank Langella, is hard to overstate. Many critics agree that Doug Hughes' decision to cut the Brechtian "Common Man" device from the play (a sort of narrator who also assumes multiple roles in the show) was a mistake that flattens the play.

The Journal News A+
(Jacques Le Sourd) Like a big, juicy dinner from the days before anybody worried about fat, or knew about cholesterol. It stars the grand and wonderful Frank Langella as Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who defied King Henry VIII and lost his head doing it...It's three hours long, and it deserves to be...All played in a stately kind of slow-motion that seems utterly appropriate.

CurtainUp A+
(Simon Saltzman) Splendid...The play, an accounting of one great man's unexpectedly steadfast dedication to conscience, country, and church, remains one of the 20th century's most lauded plays. As directed by Doug Hughes and starring Frank Langella as the titular Sir Thomas More, this production also speaks well of the indestructibility of Bolt's text, as well for the indistinguishable force of its theme.

Philadelphia Inquirer A
(Toby Zinman) Despite our knowing how it will all turn out, who the good guys and the bad guys were, the play remains deeply engrossing, full of impassioned language, clever legal arguments, and some terrific acting.

Wall Street Journal A-
(Terry Teachout) Mr. Langella's version of St. Thomas is all his own: urbane, world-weary, more public than that of his great predecessor, which makes it all the more moving when he collapses in fear and desperation...Better than Scofield? No—but just as good...Doug Hughes's staging...takes significant liberties with Bolt's original script...Taken on its own terms, though, the Roundabout's Man for All Seasons is an excellent and persuasive piece of work, in large part because the play itself is so masterly a piece of storytelling.

Theatermania: A-
(Brian Scott Lipton) Langella takes his artistry to new heights—and could easily earn his fourth Tony—with his consummate portrayal of Sir Thomas More in Doug Hughes' sturdy revival...This nearly-three hour talkfest can admittedly be tough sledding for some, as it favors intellectual debate over action and philosophical discussion over swordfighting. Yet, while certain scenes initially seem superfluous, most pay off in Bolt's careful construction, and despite a slight overabundance of words, many of them not only demand to be heard—but have gained relevance in these politically troubled times.

Theater News Online B+
(Bill Stevenson) Rather miraculously, Langella is nearly as good as he was in Frost/Nixon and inhabits the part as comfortably as Scofield did. Although the other cast members and the production as a whole don't reach Langella's lofty level, the Roundabout can be proud of this sturdy revival.

The Record B
(Robert Feldberg) Like a monthly dinner date with an old friend. You know it'll be comfortable, but excitement isn't in the cards.

USAToday B
(Elysa Gardner) Aside from More and, briefly, Henry, none of these characters appear on stage; had Bolt included them, his work might have had less of an arid, academic air. Instead, two long and hardly brisk acts are devoted largely to having More explain and defend his intellectual and moral philosophy to those who support, challenge and betray him. It's thought-provoking stuff but not always the most compelling drama.

Newsday B
(Linda Winer) Without the [Common Man] device, the play becomes a story of conscience and heroism and the break with the Catholic Church that led to the Church of England. The story is handsomely cast, lucidly delineated and extremely well-told. Without Brechtian distance, however, it is just an informative philosophical costume drama about how Thomas More, chancellor of England, failed to stop King Henry VIII (a joyously irresponsible Patrick Page) from defying the Catholic Church by taking yet another wife.

The Washington Post B 
(Peter Marks) The narrative in this production more closely resembles the structure of the acclaimed 1966 movie version (also written by Bolt) in detailing More's resistance to Henry's demand: that he recognize the king's right to divorce his queen and marry Anne Boleyn. I'd never seen the stage version before, so it's hard to gauge what's been gained—or lost. If anything, the piece asserts itself as a lesser follow-up to Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

Hartford Courant B
(Malcolm Johnson) For much of Act I, Robert Bolt's celebrated drama of the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More fails to assert itself as a play for all seasons. Even with the superb Frank Langella in the title role, the Roundabout Theatre Company's production too often feels like a turgid pageant...The liveliest moments...come when Langella's More, now chancellor, meets briefly with King Henry VIII. As acted by Patrick Page, the much-married monarch is a lively dictator who warns More against writing or speaking against his plan to shed Catherine of Aragon and to wed Anne Boleyn.

New Jersey Star-Ledger:B
(Michael Sommers) Fortunately, the imposing old-school sweep of Langella's beautifully-spoken performance relieves the repetitive drama's tendency toward stodginess. Initially depicting More as an urbane intellectual, Langella believably reveals the man's essential grace under increasing pressure and degradation.

Variety B
(David Rooney) Langella's performance, however, is sufficiently commanding to overcome the role's limited dimension. The actor's effortless authority is softened by a playful sense of irony that makes it seem only natural he would toss off a cutting remark even while being sentenced to die. Humility is not a major asset in Langella's arsenal, but a shot of arrogance adds color to his More, and the penetrating assessments he makes of both friends and foe come through loud and clear, often without words.

New York Post B-
(Frank Scheck) While its theme of individual conscience clashing with the demands of the state remains all too relevant, the drama is a somewhat static, talky affair that is only intermittently compelling. Fortunately, Langella is so mesmerizing in the lead role that he single-handedly overcomes the evening's more tedious passages.

Bloomberg B-
(John Simon) Yet with all this unevenness, this is still a play that is both literate and theatrical, and able to hold our interest. There remains an arresting clash of ideas, as well as More's gripping attempt to make his rigorous silence, as opposed to voiced disapproval, protect him within the law, a law his enemies manage to twist to their purpose.

Associated Press B-
(Michael Kuchwara) 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. The production, directed by Doug Hughes is Masterpiece Theatre reverential...Even with Langella gloriously emoting...Roundabout's A Man for All Seasons can't quite shake a sermonlike feeling.

Backstage B-
(David Sheward) This usually precise director, who has brought fire and ice to such memorable productions as Doubt and Frozen, is guilty here of "plodding," as one character describes More's approach to statesmanship. The stakes of private conscience versus public duty are never made entirely clear and vital until that final trial. Perhaps it's because Hughes has cut Bolt's Common Man character, a narrator figure who assumes multiple roles....Without the Common Man casting the light of historical context and raising the question of what More's stance means outside Tudor England, Bolt's script loses much of its impact.

Talking Broadway C+
(Matthew Murray) Can a radiant star compensate for a swelling black hole? If the star in question is Frank Langella, the answer is almost, even when he's up against the destructive gravitational pull present—or, perhaps more accurately, absent—in the Roundabout's new revival.

The Daily News C
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Doug Hughes...a Tony-winning director with a proven track record, seems at a loss for fresh ways to make Bolt's wordy warhorse feel urgent...Langella gives a characteristically intelligent and sensitive performance, but while we see More's plight, we don't feel it—largely a result of Bolt's script. Only during a final, emotional jail scene with his wife (Maryann Plunkett) and daughter (Hannah Cabell) does the price of More's steadfast honor register.

The Hollywood Reporter C
(Alexis Greene) The production that surrounds Langella is not up to the star's charismatic performance. Bolt's drama won the Tony for best play in 1962, but these days the piece, while relevant, feels a bit thin. It needs more than a star turn, and it also needs deft direction and a supporting cast that lends heft to characters that are mostly one-dimensional.

The New York Times C-
(Ben Brantley) Starlight needs to flicker and sputter if a complex character is to emerge from all that radiance. And Mr. Bolt's script—which clearly and intelligently outlines Henry VIII's epochal war with the Roman Catholic Church over matters marital—neglects to include several essential ingredients for a compelling dramatic hero. Like conflict, doubt, vacillation and change.

AM New York C-
(Matt Windman) Sure, it's nice to have Frank Langella back on Broadway less than two years since his Tony-winning performance in Frost/Nixon...Langella delivers a solid, committed performance as Sir Thomas More...But to be frank, Doug Hughes' straightforward production is as dull and lifeless as it is altogether unnecessary.

Time Out NY C-
(David Cote) I'd rather watch a tough-minded mounting of Brecht's Galileo: Now there's a complex treatment of authority and personal morality. Alas, what we get is the ethics weepie A Man For All Seasons, starring grand, elegant Frank Langella. There are really only a handful of scenes worth seeing.

The New Yorker C-
(John Lahr) As More, Frank Langella lets virtuosity substitute for humanity. More's love is for his soul ("A man's soul is his self," he says); Langella's love is for his sound. He cants, he booms, he confides. It's a seductive, even imposing, display, whose command rushes the audience swiftly past any ideas. More had gravitas; Langella has grandiosity. With his external playing, he can't connect to More's scrupulous internal rigor. Whether he's inspecting a silver goblet, holding his cuffs to slip into his robe, or fiddling with his fingers as he reads a book, Langella's decorative filigrees of gesture telegraph vanity, not spirituality, making him, more precisely, a ham for all seasons.

New York Magazine D
(Scott Brown) The first thing you notice about Doug Hughes's production of A Man for All Seasons is the pitilessly rectilinear set: great mission-minded timbers from the pages of Architectural Digest, lit like a high-end McMansion. Turns out design is destiny: This Man, like its carpentry, is square, sterile, and wooden—a cigar-store Indian with a painted tear.

Village Voice D
(Michael Feingold) Doug Hughes's heavy-handed production seems determined to enshrine its title character, Sir Thomas More (Frank Langella), as a Romantic-era hero-martyr, Sydney Carton in a Tudor doublet...Hughes omits [the Common Man] character, which is roughly like doing Threepenny Opera without the songs...Lacking him, [the play] feels shabby, pompous, and monochrome.

The Journal News: A+ 14; CurtainUp: A+ 14; Philadelphia Inquirer: A 13; WSJ A- 12; Theatermania: A- 12; Theater News Online B+ 11; The Record: B 10; USAToday: B 10; Newsday: B 10; The Washington Post: B 10; Hartford Courant: B 10; New Jersey Star-Ledger: B 10; Variety: B 10; New York Post: B- 9; Bloomberg: B- 9; Associated Press: B- 9; Backstage: B- 9; Talkin' Broadway: C+ 8; The Daily News: C 7; The Hollywood Reporter: C 7; The New York Times: C- 6; AM New York: C- 6; Time Out NY: C- 6; The New Yorker C- 6; Village Voice D 4; New York Magazine D 4 TOTAL: 236 / 26 = 9.1 (B-)

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