Accent on Youth

GRADE: C+

By Samson Raphaelson. Directed by Daniel Sullivan. Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. (CLOSED)

Critics aren't exactly popping their corks over Manhattan Theatre Club's new revival of Samson Raphaelson's 1934 romantic comedy, in which David Hyde Pierce lightly limns a playwright's midlife crisis. Most critics appreciate Pierce's comic timing and single out a few other supporting performances for praise (Charles Kimbrough and Byron Jennings get some love), but are otherwise content to damn the enterprise with faint praise. At either end of the spectrum, a few are a tad more charmed and a few are much more severe, in particular the Post's Elisabeth Vincentelli, who may be the first theater critic at a major New York daily to use "emo" as an adjective.

Theater News Online A
(Jessica Branch) This wry comedy by Samson Raphanelson, better known for The Jazz Singer, still retains more vigor and charm than many more modern shows-as well as a touch of wisdom...The elaborately plotted, fast-moving play has more than its share of clever lines and witty observations, and director Daniel Sullivan makes the action run smoothly and logically despite the odd central caesura. But what ultimately makes the comedy stick with you as well as sparkle is that, while it plays with cliches of young obsessions and old love (the name of Steven's play within the play), it never reduces its characters to the stereotypes inherited from Restoration comedy.

New York A-
(Stephanie Zacharek) David Hyde Pierce has an air of nebbishy elegance that’s perfect for Samson Raphaelson’s 1934 Accent on Youth...and he brings buoyancy to Raphaelson’s Champagne-pop dialogue. The glamour quotient (not to mention the amount of lovely, lovely smoking) is high...If this production is missing one tiny thing, it’s the equivalent of the Lubitsch touch: It moves with crisp efficiency when just a little more zip and glide would be perfect. But director Daniel Sullivan and his cast come close enough, reminding us what a revival should be: awakening a sleeping beauty with the right kiss. Or by lighting her cigarette.

Bergen Record B+
(Robert Feldberg) They haven’t written debonair romantic comedies like Samson Raphaelson’s bonbon in a very long time. The play is imperfect — the characters’ motivations don’t always make sense, and the plot takes a dubious turn — but it’s amusing and charming, and effortlessly pushes our nostalgia buttons...David Hyde Pierce — witty, stylish and likeable, as always — portrays Steven Gaye, a middle-aged, extremely successful writer of Broadway comedies...Under the smart direction of Daniel Sullivan, the actors perform their roles with complete conviction, but also with a knowing little twinkle.

Bloomberg News B+
(Jeremy Gerard) It’s the kind of cream puff -- lighthearted, wistful, with just enough wit to make the viewer feel smart but no more -- that we associate with Noel Coward or, among Americans, Philip Barry and precious few others. Yet director Daniel Sullivan and a venerable ensemble led by David Hyde Pierce blow the dust off this minor gem, providing two hours of diversion from whatever you may need diverting from...Sullivan is one of the few directors around confident enough to treat such material without the standard post-modern dash of irony -- no troops marching off to war in the background or interpolations of Ponzi schemes and the like. Pierce may be a bit too youthful looking for the role, but what he lacks in facial creases he makes up for in perfect timing and suavity...There are more performances to treasure, as well. Notably Byron Jennings as a veteran actor who gives a master class in playing a drunk scene, the great Charles Kimbrough as an all-knowing butler, and Lisa Banes as an actress of a certain age and former flame of the playwright. The real find, however, is Mary Catherine Garrison. As the love-struck secretary, she makes naivete attractive.

New Yorker B+
An urbane, well-written meditation from a literate time gone by, about a successful writer who is losing the battle between his work and his women. The work goes swimmingly; the relationships with women don’t. As the morose writer, David Hyde Pierce does his droll thing, ably supported by Charles Kimbrough as his plucky butler. The casting of the women is more problematic; they make the struggle between life and art a rather easier choice than it should be. Daniel Sullivan directed this pleasant revival, which could have used more heat under it.

Nytheatre.com B+
(Michael Criscuolo) A charming time capsule-like diversion that showcases the dry, comic skills of its cast in a flattering light...Beneath Accent on Youth's 1930s glamour and sophistication, is a soft-spoken melancholy that grounds the play and gives it more substance...But there are plenty of pleasant, harmless laughs to be had, as well...Daniel Sullivan directs with a mild, no-nonsense urgency that gives the actors room to breathe...A confection that goes down smooth and easy and leaves no guilt in its wake.

Associated Press B
(Michael Kuchwara) An amiable, minor-league diversion. For one thing, the production, directed by Daniel Sullivan, has been elegantly put together: from designer John Lee Beatty's spiffy, wood-paneled Manhattan apartment to Jane Greenwood's stylish period costumes, particularly for the ladies. For another, its cast is headed by David Hyde Pierce, an actor who positively brims with likability...It's a flimsy tale, but Raphaelson has spun it out with the addition of several choice supporting characters, and Sullivan has cast them all savvily. Chief among them is Byron Jennings, one of theater's most reliable workhorses.

Lighting & Sound America B
(David Barbour) While it's hard to imagine anyone being deeply in thrall to Samson Raphelson's 1934 cocktail party, at least Sullivan's deeply assured, swankily designed production passes the time pleasantly. And he has assembled a mostly first-rate cast to help thing along. Chief among them is David Hyde Pierce...Pierce is ideally cast for this kind of understated comedy, his elegant manner and fine way with a deadpan line harvesting the maximum value out of Raphelson's dialogue...And as long as this mild, Manhattanized update of Cyrano De Bergerac is focusing on the self-serving show folk on the sidelines, it provides some pretty solid amusement...Still, the Steven-Linda romance is an awfully mechanical affair. Raphelson basically skips over the part where they get together, so we never see what might make them right for each other...Still, anyone with a fondness for this kind of period comedy will probably find Accent on Youth to be irresistible -- even if it comes in a distant second to the currently running Blithe Spirit. It's no small help that John Lee Beatty has come up with one of his most gorgeous recent designs -- a Deco sitting room with odd, yet appealing, Federal touches.

Variety B-
(David Rooney) Daniel Sullivan's spiffy production and David Hyde Pierce's effortless timing make the antiquated comedy tick by painlessly enough, but there's not much substance beneath its mild charms...Sullivan's breezy staging of the first act, with its amusing dialogue and affectionate observation of quintessential theater types, makes you wonder why this contorted May-December romance doesn't turn up more often on the regional theater docket. But the strained plotting and longueurs of the second act, in which art imitates life and vice versa, make that absence clearer. Ditto the play's half-hearted bid to uncover a melancholy note in the trials of mid-life love.

Talkin' Broadway C+
(Matthew Murray) The instant the curtain (yes, a real curtain) rises on the drawing room of superstar playwright (no, I’m serious) Steven Gaye (that’s his name), and begins its incessant meta-tweaking of theatre folk, personalities, and scripts as if none of it had ever been done before, you know you’ve been catapulted into a different era...This is good for the production, which Daniel Sullivan has directed with no shortage of spit and polish, which John Lee Beatty (sets) and Jane Greenwood (costumes) have designed with luscious period detail, and which the cast - led by the fine pair of David Hyde Pierce and Mary Catherine Garrison - acts with elegant, dust-busting abandon. But it does the 1934 play no favors, because it just reminds you of the many more involved, interesting, and inventive ways in which this device has been used over the course of the last seven and a half decades...A pleasant, if empty-headed, two hours.

Theatermania C+
(David Finkle) Little more than mild entertainment for ticket buyers content with a passing-the-time trifle...Pierce may have made a habit of pushing the fey button when playing Niles Crane on Frasier, but here he puts the accent firmly on his romantic leading-man chops...Under Daniel Sullivan's slick direction, just about every one of the players has polished his or her role with whatever actors use as a Lemon Pledge equivalent...The exception to this perfection is Garrison, whose Linda Brown is absolutely right for the first act as Gaye's infatuated factotum. However, in act two, when Linda -- now having starred in that December-May play Gaye finished -- enters looking "extremely chic and expensive from head to toe," Garrison doesn't evoke the required theatrical savoir faire.

Village Voice C+
(Michael Feingold) No journey's easier than the amiable, wafer-thin, mildly witty one that Samson Raphaelson's 1934 comedy Accent on Youth shepherds us through. Raphaelson, who wrote some of Ernst Lubitsch's best screenplays, knows just how to spice up a standard love triangle with a dash of Pirandellian self-awareness. David Hyde Pierce and Mary Catherine Garrison, in director Daniel Sullivan's surprisingly bland production, give at least two sides of the triangle the needed sparkle, which makes for pleasantness, but not much more.

The New York Times C
(Charles Isherwood) Age has not exactly withered “Accent on Youth,” a 1934 comedy by Samson Raphaelson about the storms besetting a May-December romance in the theater world. But it has not done this personable but minor play any great favors either...Still, the Manhattan Theater Club revival...offers cozy comforts understandably prized by a significant subset of Broadway theatergoers. Namely those for whom a couple of hours of light laughs in the presence of a likable star and some ogle-worthy period scenery will suffice for an afternoon of diversion...Mr. Hyde Pierce hits his comic marks with the precision we’ve come to expect from his priceless turn on the long-running, exceptionally literate sitcom “Frasier"...The female roles are less stylishly played.

Newsday C
(Linda Winer) As Broadway's heavyweight season stampedes madly to today's official close, it would be lovely to be able to adore the breezy arrival of an unpretentious 1934 fluffball called "Accent on Youth"...Alas, it is hard to work up serious affection for the revival...The well-dressed production is more than dutiful, but less than scintillating. It's merely pleasant in the leisurely, mild-mannered style of elevated summer stock...Pierce - not particularly romantic or aged - delivers the knowing inside-theater observations with his usual pointed flair. But when Steven bellows, "To hell with the audience!," Pierce drops all pretense of the style and sticks his butt out at us. I'm going to try not to remember him like that.

American Theatre Web C
(Andy Propst) In Daniel Sullivan's graceful, but unremarkable revival that opened last night at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the show's discrete pleasures are certainly in evidence, particularly given leading man David Hyde Pierce's elegant performance, but as this show business romantic comedy spins its droll, but not terribly merry way, one can't help but wonder why the company selected this play for revival in the first place...It's comedy meant to inspire smiles, and perhaps the occasional laugh, but it's hardly uproarious stuff, and given the understated performances in the production, occasional bemusement is what theatergoers can expect from "Accent."

The Hollywood Reporter C-
(Frank Scheck) Feels like a bottle of champagne that's long lost its fizz. Not that there's anything terribly wrong with this production directed by Daniel Sullivan for the Manhattan Theatre Club. It certainly looks smashing, thanks to John Lee Beatty's gorgeous art-deco living room set, Jane Greenwood's elegant period costumes and Brian MacDevitt's caressing lighting design. And its star, David Hyde Pierce, uses his pitch-perfect comic timing, honed for so many seasons on "Frasier," to fine effect...But his efforts are not enough to prop up this decently crafted but uninspired 1934 comedy.

Entertainment Weekly C-
(Jeff Labrecque) Looks every bit its age. Tony-winning director Daniel Sullivan...opts for the original's 1930s sensibility, challenging a contemporary audience with feeble attempts at provocation and an antiquated representation of love...Minus the taboo that once accompanied a May-September romance, the characters' whiplash swoons seem irritatingly arbitrary, and the play's humor becomes more corny than clever. A less literal adaptation may have fared better, but as is, Accent on Youth is the rare romantic frolic that is all head and no heart.

Time Out NY D
(Adam Feldman) Feels distressingly aged and extraneous; you forget it even as you watch it. What is happening at MTC? The company’s website bills it as “one of the only institutions in the U.S. solely dedicated to producing new plays and musicals.” But its Samuel J. Friedman Theatre began the season with the new-in-name-only To Be or Not to Be, adapted from the 1942 film; then came a revival of 1990’s The American Plan; and now this. When did the MTC’s mission become a nostalgia trip? Are its captains asleep on the job? With productions like this one, no one could blame them.

AM New York D
(Matt Windman) The posh Manhattan apartment set design and Depression-era costumes are pretty. The cast is pretty charming. Some witty dialogue occasionally pops up. But it’s hard to not feel underwhelmed and bored by the Manhattan Theater Club’s well-meant but unnecessary and uninspired revival of what feels like a third-rate Noel Coward play...Pierce gives a sensitive and quirky performance, but it is nothing that we haven’t seen before. He appeared most comfortable not with leading lady Mary Catherine Garrison, who is pretty much at sea with her role, but Charles Kimbrough as the fun-loving butler.

Daily News D-
(Joe Dzeimianowicz) Flaccid...Whips up so little laughter it should carry a "lite" label. It is a surprising letdown, considering Raphaelson's credits - "The Jazz Singer," which became the first talkie, plus screenplays for the "The Shop Around the Corner" and "Suspicion," films that are timeless. "Youth," meanwhile, shows every one of its years, and neither Botox nor director Daniel Sullivan's game cast can erase them. Pierce, a "Frasier" favorite who won a Tony playing a singing gumshoe in "Curtains," pulls out his signature droll charm.

Backstage F+
(Erik Haagensen) It creaks, groans, and lumbers its way across the stage of the former Biltmore Theatre despite the best efforts of a talented company. Manhattan Theatre Club's production proves the danger of indiscriminate archeology and engenders incredulity at the resources lavished upon it. What's next, a revival of Glad Tidings?...Pierce summons every ounce of charm he possesses and lands his share of faded bons mots, but there's little he can do to make this antique stereotype interesting. Mary Catherine Garrison is more comfortable as the quirky secretary than she is as the Broadway star, never making the character's glamorous transformation wholly believable.

New York Post F
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Rarely have material, director and cast been as mismatched as they are in the leaden Manhattan Theatre Club production that opened last night...Unfortunately, Sullivan seems to have instructed his actors to act all emo and serious, ruining Raphaelson's effect. Adopting a slow, ponderous tone, the two leads leech all the wit out of the text...Hyde Pierce is so dour throughout that his simultaneous lifelessness is almost a relief -- it takes out some of the sting -- while Garrison, an appealing supporting performer in "Top Girls" and "Assassins," can't convincingly handle either her first-act mousy secretary or her second-act stage actress...The bummer of a set doesn't help...What irks me most is that, in the right hands, a Raphaelson script can still hit plenty of grace notes.

Theater News Online A 13; NY mag A- 12; Bergen Record B+ 11; Bloomberg B+ 11; Nytheatre.com B+ 11; NYer B+ 11; Associated Press B 10; L&SA B 10; Variety B- 9; Talkin' Broadway C+ 8; Theatermania C+ 8; VV C+ 8; The New York Times C 7; Newsday C 7; American Theatre Web C 7; The Hollywood Reporter C- 6; Entertainment Weekly C- 6; TONY D 4; AM New York D 4; Daily News D- 3; Backstage F+ 2; New York Post F 1; 169/22=7.68 (C+)

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Humor Abuse

Grade: B+/B

by Lorenzo Pisoni and Erica Schmidt. Directed by Schmidt. At Manhattan Theatre Club Stage II. (CLOSED)

While some critics feel that the divorce-and-domestic-drama story at the heart of Humor Abuse is trite (and shallowly explored), most are quite taken with Lorenzo Pisoni's one man show about growing up the good looking, not-naturally-funny child of a clown. Everyone except for Charles Isherwood at the Times is quite impressed with Pisoni's clowning abilities, and the several clowning routines he puts into the show. Adam Feldman at Time Out feels that Pisoni is too good looking for his own material.

TheaterMania A
(Brian Scott Lipton) Utterly charming, absorbing, and sometimes hilarious ... the physically versatile Pisoni marvelously recreates some of his own circus routines, including a supremely silly bit in which he climbed a tall ladder in oversized fins that kept falling off. But the show's true highlight comes towards the end, when he executes his father's rather remarkable exercise in derring-do, narrowly missing sandbag after sandbag as they descend from the ceiling.

Backstage A
(Erik Haagensen) Humor Abuse, a title with nicely multifaceted meaning, is about much more than clown routines. At its heart it's an examination of a unique father-son relationship. Pisoni was his father's performance partner from age 6 to 10, and apparently he felt he knew more about Lorenzo Pickle than he did about Lawrence Pisoni. When their act is suddenly sundered by divorce, more complications ensue, some of which continue to this day. To their great credit, Schmidt, who also directed, and Pisoni address the difficulties between father and son in a clear-eyed, understated manner. Humor Abuse, which has not an ounce of fat on it, is all the more affecting for its emotional restraint.

TalkinBroadway A-
(Matthew Murray) Humor Abuse contains more clean, concentrated, and honest laughs than most any other new show this season, and that couldn't happen without a keen comic presence at its center. So what if Lorenzo is still charging his own personal star? His show comes close to being electric the more he and his father work the generator together.

Associated Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) Humor Abuse transcends the traditional show-biz saga to become a more universal tale. It becomes the heartfelt story of a son searching for what made his father tick -- and finding out he would never quite find the answer.

Variety B+
(Sam Thielman) After trying to escape from his clown family as a child, Lorenzo Pisoni wore a button reading "I belong to the circus" by order of his father. For better or worse, this appears to be true: Humor Abuse is a clown show of the highest order, but it's also Pisoni's autobiography. As the performer limns his difficult relationship with his dad, he breaks out a top-tier ladder routine, a terrifying series of falling sandbag gags and plenty of expert pratfalls. Other solo performers, take note: You can describe your troubled childhood, but can you do it with balloons?

Theater News Online B
(David Lefkowitz) At just over an hour, Humor Abuse is the rare show that runs exactly as long as it should and not a minute longer (take heed, God of Carnage, Exit the King, Marvelous Wonderettes, et al.). If anything's lacking, it's more material about Peggy Snider, Lorenzo's mother. Since the play is so personal and often concentrates on family life, it's lopsided of Pisoni and co-creator Erica Schmidt to offer such a strong sense of dad and such a vague sense of mom - especially since she, too, performed in the circus, is now an active photographer and ceramic sculptor, and lets her daughter and 11-year-old granddaughter both carry on in the circus tradition. One suspects that for all the bad times, these Pickles are never more than half-sour.

NYTimes B
(Charles Isherwood) Some of the comic routines — particularly a long bit involving goggles, flippers and a ladder that young Lorenzo performed on his own after his father left the circus — may try the patience of the clowning-allergic. And when Mr. Pisoni describes the dissolution of his parents’ marriage, the show begins to cover well-worn broken-family territory, although the sawdust backdrop provides a novel twist even for the familiar stories of familial regret, estrangement and decline. Physically, Mr. Pisoni’s performance is breathtaking.

American Theater Web B-
(Andy Propst) As successful as this and several other extended clowning segments of Humor are, though, the piece's narrative as a whole disappoints. There's something rag-tag not only about the set but the arrangement of the stories that Pisoni relates, including his father's ultimate dismissal from the circus and the performer's reconciliation with the clowning tradition into which he was born. Theoretically, there's emotional potency at to be found in "Humor," but Pisoni and Schmidt, who's also directed, have yet to fully channel the anecdotes and physical humor into what could be a devastatingly funny and moving one-man show.

Time Out C+
(Adam Feldman) This familiar distant-father scenario, which dominates the script that Pisoni has cowritten with director Erica Schmidt, is charmingly illustrated via slide projections and other diverting stage business. And Pisoni does everything he can to make the play more than a self-pitying history of life with bozo: He juggles, he tap-dances, he does standing backflips, he re-creates several old clown routines. Pisoni is likable and skilled—but you always see him working hard, Guy Smiley in a part made for Gonzo.

NY Daily News C+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Pisoni, an actor who recently wrapped a role in Equus, is a strong, punchy writer and is good at describing moments from the past, which are underscored by vintage photographs projected during the show. On the other hand, he tends to skim the surface as if to avoid details. It makes the show seem distant at times and leaves you wondering: How did an 11-year-old go on the road without a guardian - and how did that feel? What's his relationship like with his father today? How'd he get into acting?

TM A 13; BS A 13; TB A- 12; AP B+ 11; VAR B+ 11; TNO B 10; NYT B 10; ATW B- 9; TONY C+ 8; NYDN C+ 8; TOTAL 105 / 10 = 10.5 (B+/B)

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Ruined

GRADE:A-

By Lynn Nottage. Directed by Kate Whoriskey. Manhattan Theatre Club. (CLOSED)

Thanks to Lynn Nottage, people can stop referring to this as Manhattan Theatre Club's Troubled Season (To Be or Not To Be, Romantic Poetry). Critical response to Nottage's play about the ways in which the Congolese civil war has been fought on women's bodies receives overwhelmingly positive--even rapturous--reviews. The common criticism is that the play--based on interviews Nottage conducted in the Congo and on Brecht's Mother Courage--is at times too soft and that its ending may be too upbeat for a play about war, rape, and survival. As a personal aside, I'll just mention that I saw the play last week and it makes a compelling case for the enduring power and appeal of naturalism in the theatre. It's like a Graham Greene novel turned on its head so that you focus on the side characters. Really, don't miss it.

TheaterMania A+
(Patrick Lee) Lynn Nottage's emotionally devastating and spellbinding new play Ruined, now at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage I, in a co-production with Chicago's Goodman Theatre, is the rare work that succeeds spectacularly both as potent political statement and as riveting drama that should not be missed by any serious theatergoer.... Under Kate Whoriskey's clarifying and supremely confident direction, the production is remarkable for its sure command of tone and its success at honoring both the play's darkest scenes as well as its most hopeful. The acting by the entire cast is uniformly superb and unusually cohesive, with Ekulona, believably tough and resilient as Mama; Rashad, who emphasizes Sophie's resourcefulness, and Jones, who economically communicates Christian's decency, among its standout performers.

CurtainUp A
(Elyse Sommer) Whether Ruined wins any big prizes or not, it has my vote as a play that confirms live theater's ability to enlighten and enrich. Give up the pre-theater dinner if your pocket book is hurting, but don't miss seeing it.

NY1 A
(David Cote) Although there are plenty of postcolonialist and feminist politics sprinkled throughout, Lynn Nottage wisely chooses to tell a crackling thriller, with humor, plot twists and lots of humanity. Although Mama's theatrical forebear is clearly Brecht's Mother Courage, she's a more vulnerable, less didactic creation. Ruined is the kind of new play we desperately need: well-informed and unafraid of the world's brutalities... Nottage is one of our finest playwrights, a smart, empathetic and daring storyteller who tells a story audience won't expect.

Village Voice A
(Michael Feingold) Nottage's feat, achieved in close collaboration with director Kate Whoriskey, has been to capture, simultaneously, both the place's drifty, unresisting atmosphere and the deep underlying agonies left behind by the violence that abruptly shoots through it. Seemingly laconic and often placid, Ruined in fact rolls on implacably, building tension that marks and changes its characters. It has the density of lived experience, rare in plays of any era. Whoriskey's staging, abetted particularly by Derek McLane's set and Dominic Kanza's music, builds on the writing's richness. All the performances are excellent: Boothe, brashly authoritative, is a revelation; Ekulona, a powerhouse triumph; and Rashad, whose musical and emotional command seem to spring unbidden from her delicate presence, is a major discovery.

Newsday A
(Linda Winer) Beautiful, hideous and unpretentiously important...Nottage doesn't always resist the sentimental impulse. In a way, that's valuable, too. She pays homage to the universal mercilessness of Bertolt Brecht's antiwar pageant, Mother Courage, but lets in a sliver of humanity's light.

AM New York A
(Matt Windman) While one can certainly hope that Ruined will raise cultural awareness over the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where nine out of ten women have been raped in many villages, the play stands on its own feet as a layered drama of soaring humanity and painstaking character detail.

American Theater Web A
(Andy Propst) Playwright Lynn Nottage takes theatergoers on a compelling, often emotionally devastating, and sometimes genuinely surprising trip to a small mining town in the Democratic Republic of Congo.... Ekulona, who's rapidly distinguishing herself in a wide variety of roles at theaters around the city, makes for a commanding and fascinatingly mercurial Mama. When Ekulona smiles, it does indeed seem to light up the stage, and those around Mama know all is well. However, when Mama's crossed or feels her back against the wall, Ekulona's performance takes on a powerful fierceness...It's a galvanizing performance at the center of a compelling drama that haunts well after its final climactic, and yes, surprising moments.

Backstage A
(David Sheward) Rarely does a play take you to a corner of the world you hardly ever think about and force you to care fiercely for the people in it. Lynn Nottage's shattering work Ruined, presented by Manhattan Theatre Club in a co-production with Chicago's Goodman Theatre after a successful run there, does just that.

Wall Street Journal A-
(Terry Teachout) Leaves no doubt that the author of "Intimate Apparel" and "Crumbs From the Table of Joy" is one of the best playwrights that we have...All this is tough and truthful stuff, and it is to Ms. Nottage's infinite credit that she does not present it as an illustrated lecture but instead uses the terrible realities of Congolese life as the raw material of an immensely compelling human drama about the lives and hopes of her characters, each of whom is portrayed not as a political cartoon but as a recognizable person...Staged with tightly controlled force by Kate Whoriskey..This is a play you must see.

DC Theatre Scene A-
(Richard Seff) Theatre can be, and in this case, is illuminating, even when it’s a bit lumpy and overwrought. I learned a lot and was gripped almost all the way through by this very worthy venture. For some reason, Shaw’s Saint Joan and its haunting last line came to mind as I moved slowly out of the theatre,: “Oh God, that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?”

Associated Press A-
(Michael Kuchwara) A harrowing tale set against the backdrop of an African civil war, the play... creates a parade of memorable portraits, people surviving — or not — in the most brutal of environments....Nottage, author of such accomplished and diverse works as "Intimate Apparel" and "Fabulation," walks a fine line here. She never allows the drama to veer into soap opera or sermonette. Her dialogue is direct, yet oddly poetic. She's helped by director Kate Whoriskey's vivid, music-driven production.

Edge A-
(Joseph Pisano) Still, setting aside its problematic ending, Ruined is an extraordinary accomplishment, the type of serious-minded and disquieting play that forces you to grapple with your existential blind spots. Perhaps the most telling evidence of the play’s effectiveness was the lack of chatter as people left the theater; normally, of course, even after the warmest curtain call, theatergoers soon begin discussing where to eat or their initial impressions of the play. But "Ruined" apparently shocked most of the audience into silent thoughtfulness. Obviously, though, for women like Salima and Sophie, thought is not enough.

Variety A-
(David Rooney) Under Whoriskey's gentle guiding hand, these characters and their relationships take shape fluidly in the leisurely first act, frequently energized by Dominic Kanza's soukous music and the entreating mellifluousness of Rashad's singing. The second act is more uneven, stacking up too many speechy monologues that serve to recount the characters' experiences, spell out their philosophies or state their positions. But it's a testament to the play, to the production's integrity and to the cast's impassioned commitment that the drama's power is never sacrificed. The plight of Salima, in particular, is devastating, related by Bernstine in all its distressing detail yet elevated by this misused girl's resilient spirit and her ability to recall still the beauty of a vine of ripe tomatoes on a perfect sunny day. The rain-soaked vigil of her penitent husband Fortune (Chike Johnson) further deepens the emotional pull of this plot strand, embodying countless humble farmers and workers with guns thrust into their hands.

Lighting and Sound America A-
(David Barbour) It's Nottage's particular achievement -- aided by Kate Whoriskey's flawless staging -- to fully realize a world that few audience members have ever attempted to imagine. Ruined has the urgency of a bulletin from one of the world's darkest corners, yet it is also an elegantly constructed drama peopled by vividly drawn characters... It's all the more dismaying then that Nottage stumbles so badly in the final scene, in which she raises the possibility of a healing romantic relationship between two major characters... this tin-eared closer is the most upsetting thing of all about Ruined. She also leaves the fates of several key characters dangling, adding to one's sense of frustration. Still for 90% of its running time, Ruined is a swift, urgent, and cannily plotted melodrama, a work that bravely leaps beyond the navel-gazing identity politics of so much modern American playwriting. It also provides several under-recognized actors with sterling opportunities for making an indelible impression.

Time Out New York A-
(Adam Feldman) The subject matter gives Ruined undeniable weight, and Kate Whoriskey’s admirable actors carry it unflaggingly... A more unconventional dramaturgy than Ruined’s—less carefully arranged and melodramatically spring-loaded—might have been even more effective in conveying the terrible reality of the Congo morass. But there’s truth enough here to scorch you.

Bloomberg News A-
(Jeremy Gerard) Powerful... Nottage creates a world as lushly dangerous as the dense forest surrounding Mama Nadi’s place. Unlike Brecht, Nottage is a sentimentalist and her play’s pat ending betrays the tougher spirit of the harrowing earlier parts. Until then, a superb ensemble under Kate Whoriskey’s energetic yet sensitive direction creates some of the most memorable characters you’ll see anywhere this season.

NY Post A- In the hands of this talented playwright, what might have been a predictable political polemic instead emerges as a richly stirring and complex drama that even includes generous doses of humor. Director Kate Whoriskey's vibrant and superbly acted production fully conveys the violence-tinged atmosphere of the setting, with the occasional interludes of rousing African music and dance adding to the sultry effect.

NY Daily News B+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Kate Whoriskey’s vibrant staging leaps to life at Manhattan Theatre Club... Despite the troubling subject and looming threat of violence, there are flickers of humor and warmth. When Sophie performs songs (by Nottage and Dominic Kanza) at Mama’s, there’s an almost wild exuberance out-of-sync with the grim surroundings. If the specter of Mother Courage, Brecht’s battlefield profiteer, hangs over “Ruined,” the whorehouse setting and shoot-em-up anarchy recalls classic American westerns. The reference seems apt since the script sometimes carries cinematic gloss and melodramatic moments not at home here. There’s that subplot about an uncut diamond and a daring escape. And when Mama says “Congratulations! You’re the first girl bold enough to steal from me” to Sophie, it’s a flashy line that just rings false. That doesn’t diminish the play’s power, persuasiveness and first-rate performances.

New York Times B+
(Ben Brantley) Ruined which opened Tuesday night in a vivid production directed by Kate Whoriskey, is a comfortable, old-fashioned drama about an uncomfortable of-the-moment subject. But whereas Mama, a latter-day variation on Brecht’s Mother Courage... uses hominess and familiarity to shut out the terrors of war in Congo, “Ruined” craftily creates the same atmosphere to bring those same terrors to our attention.

NYMag B
(Scott Brown) Mama’s grim blend of mercy, pragmatism, and profit disturbs us perhaps not quite as much as it should, but then Ruined, galvanic and unflinching as it often is, still has a touch of the tourist about it. Nottage, with her lyrical ear, picks out the music of suffering with such ease that she occasionally lets us get a tad too comfortable in Mama’s juke joint.

TM A+ 14; CU A 13; TONY A 13; VV A 13; ND A 13; AMNY A 13; ATW A 13; BS A 13; EDGE A- 12; LASA A- 12; WSJ A- 12; AP A- 12; Variety A- 12; TONY A- 12; Bloomberg A- 12; DCTS A- 12; NYPost A- 12; NYDN B+ 11; NYTimes B+ 11; NYMAG B 10; TOTAL = 235 / 20 = 11.75 (A-)

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The American Plan

GRADE: B

By Richard Greenberg, Directed by David Grindley. Produced by Manhattan Theatre Club. At the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. (CLOSED)

It seems to come down to this: Critics say this is a very good production. As to the script, some go for Richard Greenberg's play about a budding 1960 romance in the Catskills and the mother who interferes; some don't. Several (Brantley at the Times, Windman at AMNY, Teachout at WSJ) have strong opinions about both writer and material going into the show. Everyone has high praise for Lily Rabe specifically and the rest of the cast (including Mercedes Ruehl) in general.

The New Yorker A
(John Lahr) From [its] somewhat incredible beginning, with its glib exposition that smacks of romantic comedy, Greenberg reverses our narrative expectations and spins a psychologically astute, compelling study of narcissistic delusion—his version of “The Heiress,” in which the payoff is not revenge but revelation about the stranglehold of symbiosis. The title, “The American Plan,” is an ironic reference to the hotel’s eating arrangements, which include three square meals a day. The play, however, is about greed of an altogether different kind: financial, psychic, and sexual.

TheaterMania A
(Andy Probst) Theatergoers would be hard-pressed these days to find a play as emotionally and thematically complex as Richard Greenberg's The American Plan, now being given an excellent revival by Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater under David Grindley's taut direction. Indeed, the title alone has three different meanings.

NYTimes A
(Ben Brantley) What this production brings out so beautifully is how Mr. Greenberg — unlike James, who longed for and never achieved success as a playwright — combines novelistic nuance with theatrical flash. There probably isn’t a more consciously literary play on the boards in Manhattan now (well, from the past century, anyway) than The American Plan, which is as precisely patterned as a sonnet by Milton. Yet Mr. Grindley and his cast make the play as engaging as a potboiling soap opera.

NYTheatre A-
(Martin Denton) Back in 1960, when Richard Greenberg's The American Plan takes place, Broadway theatre-going was still a habit for a large segment of the public; frothy, engaging, but ultimately inconsequential entertainments were very much the rule, distinguished more by sparkly dialogue and stars than by their content. Appropriately enough, The American Plan is precisely this sort of theatre experience, and though seeing a piece of this ilk is hardly habitual nowadays, it makes for a pleasing enough diversion even at the luxury prices that the best seats at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre command. Thanks, particularly, to Mercedes Ruehl and Lily Rabe, who give terrific, larger-than-life performances as the mother and daughter at the center of this play, The American Plan emerges as one of the season's most substantial hits thus far.

Hartford Courant A-
(Malcolm Johnson) Grindley's production subtly emphasizes the underlying tensions between Rabe's winsome girl and Ruehl's hard-edged, all-knowing mother. In a theater world where most conflicts pit father and son against each other, Greenberg has portrayed the adversarial relationship of mother and daughter in a telling and fascinating early play from the eloquent writer of "Take Me Out" and "Three Days of Rain."

USA Today A-
(Elysa Gardner) Though Greenberg's breezy facility with language can run the risk of being mistaken for glibness, Plan deals unflinchingly with some dense, bitter truths: the selfishness of a mother's love, the convenience of lies and half-truths, the cruelly arbitrary nature of catastrophic events.

TalkinBroadway A-
(Matthew Murray) [The] balance is tricky to maintain, especially in a play that’s alternately angry and forlorn, optimistic and hopeless, and caustic but tentative. Yet if Greenberg’s play, which MTC premiered Off-Broadway in 1990, is often as schizophrenic as its two central characters, the daughter-mother anti-team of Lili and Eva Adler, you’ll see no evidence of this from Grindley. He approaches this precise dramatic muddling of sex, romance, and rebellion in the 1960 Catskills as to highlight both its inner totalitarian terribleness and the latent humanity beneath that promises better things down the line.

The Philadelphia Inquirer A-
(Howard Shapiro)
Lily Rabe's portrayal keeps the daughter shrouded in mystery - is she mentally ill or does she bear the scars of a domineering mom who must control her in order to keep her? Kieran Campion (Journey's End) is the young man under her spell. Campion has an endearing stage innocence, and he uses it to outstanding effect in building his wily character. Austin Lysy portrays another guest from the resort, whose appearance in Act 2 adds a new dimension to the way the characters push and pull one another. Under David Grindley's direction, Ruehl - who has a Tony for Lost in Yonkers and an Oscar for The Fisher King - sets the tone for the subtle battles the play depicts. Her accent is weaponry; the words come out intensely, nonchalantly delivered to cover a monumental audacity. She moves her head sharply, then focuses with riveting eyes, like an owl seeking prey.

Curtain Up B+
(Elyse Sommer) While not a great play, Greenberg's dialogue still resonates with wit. With the magnificent Mercedes Ruehl as the mother and Lily Rabe as her daughter, this revival should help Manhattan Theatre Club patrons to forget and forgive their recent To Be or Not to Be and Romantic Poetry.

Variety B+
(David Rooney) If the play's themes don't crystallize as swiftly or satisfyingly as they should, it's nonetheless an absorbing reflection on relationships carved out of disappointment and resignation in an era immediately before nonconformity became a more available option.

Time Out NY B+
(David Cote) The “plan” of the title (it’s a dietary program at the resort) could be interpreted as the American tendency to rise socially by any means, or to slip the shackles of the Old World. Whether or not Greenberg’s protagonists achieve freedom, their struggle is always wittily transfixing.


Backstage B+ Grindley does not call attention to Greenberg's points but allows them to seep into the audience's consciousness. Similarly, the precise performances don't telegraph the author's intentions but slyly suggest them. Lily Rabe carefully builds Lily's defensive edifice of irrational behavior against a world of disappointment and what she sees as her mother's oppressive love. In the final scene, which takes place 10 years after the main event, Lily has created another protective shell — this one of mature politeness. When confronted with a repentant Nick, her protection shatters for a harrowing moment, and she dissolves in tears. But then she holds up a hand, and the armor snaps back into place. The transformation is just as terrifying as the breakdown.

Financial Times B+
(Brendan Lemmon) Once again we are in postwar, pre-hippie America, where anti-Semitism, homophobia and various other regressive attitudes are in bloom. Unlike Mad Men and Revolutionary Road, Richard Greenberg’s evocative play The American Plan, now in a Broadway revival from Manhattan Theatre Club, evokes the era without a whiff of retro chic. The only ethos this drama might be accused of is nostalgia.

NYMag B+
(Scott Brown) Richard Greenberg’s plays are made of very fine, filigreed dialogue designed to be declaimed, then disclaimed, then reclaimed, in a restless shuffle of philosophical and psychological rummy. There’s a hyperverbal autism to the Greenberg oeuvre (best displayed in Take Me Out, where aphasic pitchers squared off against logorrheic hitters). His characters do not converse so much as declare things, as if they’re all competing to be the quippiest elegist at Noël Coward’s funeral... All of this can easily defeat a lesser production... but Plan is light on its feet, thanks to the delicate direction of David Grindley (Journey’s End).

Associated Press B
(Michael Kuchwara)The chatter goes on too long, but director David Grindley manages to minimize the aimlessness. He gives the evening a stylish sense of movement with a series of swirling curtains that divide the scenes. Most of them are played out on designer Jonathan Fensom's atmospheric woodsy setting with a pier jutting into the lake. Another plus: The production is fortunate to have Lily Rabe playing the daughter. This lovely actress exudes an appealing vulnerability even when Lily is being her most obstinate. And Lily is a willful young woman, in a way just as controlling in a passive-aggressive way as her formidable mother.

NYPress B-
(Leonard Jacobs) Greenberg’s characters serve dual functions: to entertain and to distract. That’s why it’s not hard to be seduced by, for example, Ruehl’s pitch-perfect accent or how Grindley implies in his staging that something other than an employer-employee relationship may exist between Eva and Olivia.This is a play that telegraphs its twists if you know how to read the code... It’s the way Gil acts on their secrets, history and truth that sustains us, not the story itself. Indeed, the holes in the play and the mystifyingly staged final scene aside, the critical mistake of this revival—and it pains me to say it—is the miscast Rabe.

NY Daily News B-
(Joe Dziemianowicz)
David Grindley (“Journey’s End”) directs for Manhattan Theatre Club, which mounted the play Off-Broadway in 1990. His staging is straightforward and clear, but repetitive. After each scene, the dock rotates behind a sweeping curtain. The constant “here we spin again” gets dull. The performances, fortunately, never do. Campion, Pressley and a particularly fine Lysy bring nuance to their roles. In presence and performance, Tony- and Oscar-winner Ruehl is big and bold (that goes double for her accent) as Eva, whose skepticism is systemic. She believes what she’s told Lili since her infancy: “Happiness ... is for other people.”

AMNY B-
(Matt Windman) In our opinion, there are far too many great American playwrights whose work is overlooked to justify the lavish treatment thrown upon Richard Greenberg by New York’s major not-for-profit theaters. But The American Plan, in spite of its thin plot and problematic second half, is one of Greenberg’s most sincere plays, especially in its delicate exploration of personal identity... David Grindley’s quiet, intimate production benefits from an excellent five-actor ensemble led by Mercedes Ruehl as mother Eva and Lily Rabe as daughter Lily.

Newday B-
(Linda Winer) Watching The American Plan is a bit like reading a mysterious short story about people you don't quite believe, though you still need to know what happens to them. The Manhattan Theatre Club first produced Richard Greenberg's character study Off-Broadway in 1990, and has revived it in the company's Broadway venue as a vehicle for the compulsively watchable Mercedes Ruehl and Lily Rabe.

The Observer C+
(John Helipern) The current revival at the Manhattan Theatre Club of Thwe American Plan [sic] (1990) provides a vivid example of his prodigious articulacy. Whereas the unpretentious Mr. Friel is a natural poet, Mr. Greenberg’s self-conscious literary dramas always strike me as on the verge. The American Plan—inspired by Henry James’ Washington Square, along with a splash of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie—is archly poetic. It’s scattershot and overwritten, striving for effect. You sense too much that Mr. Greenberg is making it up as he goes along.

Hollywood Reporter C+
(Frank Schenck) It's strange that the Manhattan Theatre Club would have chosen to once again sign on for The American Plan. This play by Richard Greenberg was given an intimate off-Broadway production by the company nearly 20 years ago, and it proves no less problematic in this uneven Broadway revival.

NY1 C+
(Roma Torre) Despite some fine performances, in the end "The American Plan" fails to live up to its intriguing premise... It's fine to raise questions, but Greenberg's script is too ambiguous for its own good. The characters, who sound more like mouthpieces for the author, ring false. The performances, however - the two leads in particular - couldn't be more honest. Lily Rabe is once again acing a difficult role, turning the hyper-intelligent Lili into an endearing neurotic, and Mercedes Ruehl is simply astonishing, using impeccable technique to make the intimidating, old world Eva all too real. You can practically smell her overpowering perfume.

NYPost C+
(Barbara Hoffman) Greenberg's at his best when his characters float on a stream of their own musings - it's how Take Me Out took off, how The Dazzle dazzled. Here, in this earlier effort, they're more stunted: It's hard to believe anyone, even a writer for Time, would use the verb "purpled."... there's too much talk, too little action. It made me long to swim across the lake and party with the Kahksteins.

NorthJersey.com C-
(Robert Feldberg) The Manhattan Theatre Club first presented Richard Greenberg's The American Plan 19 years ago. Its revival of the play, which opened Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, is a much more compelling production. What hasn't changed is the play itself; it isn't any more persuasive than it was before. Greenberg, who went on to write Three Days of Rain and Take Me Out, has a provocative premise, but it's undercut by characters who are rather hard to swallow.

DC Theatre Scene C-
(Richard Seff) If my tone seems mocking, I apologize, for clearly Richard Greenberg was trying to write a serious play about some complicated people, each bringing pain to their loved ones when they only meant to bring comfort and joy. But he was just beginning when he wrote this, and the 19 years between productions have not been kind to it...I don’t mean the production should be dismissed out of hand; it was well produced, but only Ms. Ruehl as Momma and Kieran Campion and Austin Lypsy as the WASP friends who drop in on the ladies in the Catskills seemed happy up there. Lily Rabe, a fine actress, was not helped much by her playwright for Lili in the writing seems at times autistic, temperamental, or afflicted with bipolar disorder. That’s not an easy task for an actress especially when she must also be charming, likable and a leading lady in a romantic comedy with a twist. Brenda Pressley, a lovely actress, is playing a black maid who has the kind of relationship with her white boss lady that can only be conceived in the mind of a writer. I won’t call is miscasting - I call it miswriting. Ms. Pressley was in another play, one in which her simple cardigan sweater and pearls would have been more appropriate.

Total Theater C-
(Simon Saltzman) Currently represented on Broadway with his excellent revision of the book for the musical Pal Joey, Greenberg has written a number of plays, including Eastern Standard, Take Me Out, The Dazzle and Three Days of Rain, that support the consensus that he is a darn good playwright. All his plays are known for intriguing dramatic content, clever dialogue and their elements of mystery – not a bad combo. The American Plan, in particular, has a darkly romanticized edge that makes it unique in his canon. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that goes seriously wrong in David Grindley’s staging, but it has partly to do with the way the entire production seems to unravel incrementally as it progresses. The cast is strong, but the production/scenic design by Jonathan Fensom is annoyingly distracting.

Wall St. Journal F
(Terry Teachout) Richard Greenberg is back on Broadway yet again, this time with a revival of "The American Plan," the 1990 play that put him on the map. It is, like all his other plays, repellently glib, and seeing it in tandem with "Six Degrees of Separation" also suggests that it is . . . oh, let's be nice and call it derivative...Other people like Mr. Greenberg's stuff, so it may be that I'm temperamentally deaf to his charms -- but I doubt it. Just because Broadway audiences laugh at a play doesn't make it funny. Or smart. Or good.

TM A 13; NYT A 13; ; TNY A 13; NYTR A- 12; PI A- 12; HC A- 12; USA A- 12; TB A- 12; NYMAG B+ 11; CU B+ 11; TONY B+ 11; Variety B+ 11; BS B+ 11; FT B+ 11; AP B 10; NYDN B- 9; AMNY B- 9; ND B- 9; NYPR b- 9; HR C+ 8; NY1 C+ 8; TO C+ 8; NYP C+ 8; NJC C- 6; DCTS C- 6; TT c- 6; WSJ F 1; TOTAL = 262/ 27 =9.70 = B

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Back Back Back

GRADE: B+

By Itamar Moses. Dir. Daniel Aukin. Manhattan Theatre Club Stage II. (CLOSED)

While the first batch of reviews suggested that Itamar Moses' new play about the steroid scandal that plagued America's favorite pastime was a walk at best, if not a total strikeout (its first grade was a B-), there's been a fairly steady stream of reviews since with little but praise for its form and incisive wit, and for Daniel Aukin's sleek, subtext-heavy direction. Those who were left cold cited its distancing insider lingo, among other faults, but its supporters--many of them admitted non-sports fans--say they had no trouble following the play, and besides, it's not just a baseball play, anyway. BONUS POINT: to Daily News for sending Steve Kettman, a sportswriter who ghost-wrote Jose Canseco's notorious Juiced, to pen his own take on the play (which, if we had graded it, it looks like it would have been an A).

Time Out NY A
(Rob Weinert-Kendt) Moses’s taut, beautifully modulated three-hander about steroid use among pro baseballers, feels like a homecoming...The play’s brief against steroids slow-cooks from the 1984 Olympics to the 2005 congressional hearings. Outrage eventually emerges—like every other telling emotion in Back Back Back—with the bewildering force of a curveball pitch. Daniel Aukin’s direction, clean as a line drive, accentuates what feels like a fresh insight from Moses: the razor’s edge between the confidence to keep quiet and the terrible loneliness of not knowing what to say.

Wall Street Journal A
(Terry Teachout)I am delighted to report that it is a very superior piece of work, one of the best new American plays to come my way in 2008... Back Back Back never feels like a docudrama, much less a polemic. Instead Mr. Moses has given us a taut, touchingly elegiac study of friendship and betrayal, one whose three characters (all perfectly played by Jeremy Davidson, James Martinez and Michael Mosley) are creatures of flesh and blood, not historical sock puppets.

NY1 A
(David Cote) Besides the sheer fun of hearing these guys banter and trash talk, there is an undertow of melancholy to Itamar Moses' pitch-perfect script...Steroid use for these guys is a way to avoid the messy complexities of life, to keep chasing that fly ball. This spare production is tightly staged by Daniel Aukin, who ran downtown's SoHo Rep Theater in the 1990s. Not only is it great to see Manhattan Theatre Club continuing to support a canny young writer such as Moses, but hiring a director with his own stylish spin on the ball.

New Yorker A
A nine-inning drama about professional baseball players who risk their reputations and that of the national pastime by doing steroids sounds like a strikeout but is, in fact, a hit. Spare, fast-paced, entertaining, and superbly acted, Itamar Moses’s new play takes place between 1984 and 2005. Two athletes at the top of their games (Jeremy Davidson and James Martinez) are American heroes, but that’s not enough—they want to be physical supermen, and they don’t mind cheating to get there. Things get more complicated when an innocent young rookie (Michael Mosley), playing only for the love of the game, invites himself into their inner circle. Well directed by Daniel Aukin.

Lighting & Sound America A
(David Barbour) In each of his works -- including Bach at Leipzig and The Four of Us -- Moses' great subject is ambition and how it wrecks men's friendships. What's remarkable is how he manages to reframe this conflict in fresh and dramatically engaging ways...Under Daniel Aukin's taut direction, each scene crackles us with unexpressed feelings and accusations, forcing you to constantly re-examine your assumptions about Moses' characters as the hard truths and betrayals start to pile up.

Newsday A
(Linda Winer) Even the least sport-savvy of theatergoers should have fun, in a wistful way, filling in the names in this engrossing and deftly written 100-minute play about three players and chemical enhancements, from 1984 to the congressional hearings in 2005...Moses writes enormously watchable, unpredictable and unpretentiously serious comedies about guys in crises with their own egos and ethics...In Daniel Aukin's small but imaginative production, the stories of injuries, trades and relationships unfold with lively thoughtfulness.

Talkin' Broadway B+
(Matthew Murray) A thoughtful and accomplished dissection of the drive to achieve as viewed through the lens of Major League Baseball's ongoing steroid scandal, though it's sometimes hard to hear to because of all the eggshells it walks on...Moses's best-yet work in New York, Back Back Back sheds the gimmicky artifice of the playwright's 2005 Bach at Leipzig and last season's The Four of Us in favor of a reality-based rumination on the prices we pay for taking the easy way out—and the prices we pay for not. Directed by Daniel Aukin as a taut and trembling but unbiased bio, it even manages to make this well-worn subject relevant again.

Associated Press B+
(Jennifer Farrar) Clubhouse ambiance is nicely indicated by David Zinn's spare set and simple costumes, aided by David Weiner's lighting...This dark play is primarily a riveting spectacle of idolized figures who taint their sport through their own pride and greed.

CurtainUp B+
(Elyse Sommer) Like Itamar Moses two previous plays, Back Back Back is entertaining and involving, with dialogue that...sparkles with quick wit. However, despite its beneath the surface subtext, this is ultimately less a memorably major league play than one memorably performed by Jeremy Davidson, James Martinez and Michael Mosley; and effectively staged by Daniel Aukin, the former artistic director of Soho Rep.

Theatermania B+
(Patrick Lee) An intimate, well-observed take on baseball's recent steroid scandal, credibly depicting an increasingly paranoid environment where teammate distrusts teammate...Daniel Aukin's direction avoids a heavy moral hand in presenting the characters and guides the actors to fine, effective performances. What could have been a lecture in lesser hands instead becomes a compelling work of theater thanks to Moses, Aukin, and the cast.

Variety B
(Sam Thielman) Although Moses tries for (and fails at) a lot of pseudo-intellectual dazzle about tradition, history and morality, his real interest is the bounds of friendship, and that's where his play shines.

AM New York C+
(Matt Windman) Though it takes on some admittedly juicy current events, Back Back Back remains too undeveloped and devoid of action. The characters essentially remain mouthpieces to frame a debate about competition, loyalty and ethics. David Aikin [sic] stages the play with careful ease, allowing all three actors to shine with effective performances. But as far as baseball lingo goes, Back Back Back is not a homerun, but not exactly a strikeout either. Let’s call it a bunt.

The New York Times C
(Charles Isherwood) Back Back Back, a new play by Itamar Moses about baseball’s steroids scandal, could actually use a little juicing itself. Mr. Moses’ disappointingly drama-free drama does little more than skim the surface...Despite effective performances from all three actors, the play’s characters never come across as fully imagined people but as off-the-rack exemplars of various attitudes toward the use of juice.

NY Post C
(Frank Scheck) While the subject's rife with dramatic potential, Moses' talky drama is largely inconsequential, featuring copious amounts of aimless dialogue and a plotline that doesn't successfully cohere...Director Daniel Aukin draws fine performances from his hard-bodied cast. But for a play about steroids, Back Back Back contains surprisingly little juice.

Backstage C-
(David R. Rosenberg) More bunt than home run. The first half of Itamar Moses' play about a true-life scandal might as well be written in code. When he gets to the second half, however, Moses' instinct for portraying individuals instead of generalizations kicks in and the evening takes flight. But the damage has been done, and this insider look at players who take steroids before publicly regretting their use and then ratting on their teammates is a fitful enterprise.

The Daily News D
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Although the Manhattan Theatre Club production is smoothly staged by Daniel Aukin and cleanly performed by actors who convince as athletes, the story isn’t all that illuminating and too often is documentary-dry.

Time Out NY A 13; Wall St. Journal A 13; NY1 A 13; L&SA A 13; New Yorker A 13; Newsday A 13; Talkin' Broadway B+ 11; CurtainUp B+ 11; AP B+ 11; Theatermania B+ 11; Variety B 10; AM New York C+ 8; The New York Times C 7; NY Post C 7; Backstage C- 6; The Daily News D 4; TOTAL: 164 / 15 = 10.93 (B+)

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Romantic Poetry

GRADE: D

Book & Lyrics by John Patrick Shanley, Music by Henry Krieger, Directed by John Patrick Shanley. (CLOSED)

(Critic-O-Metered by Isaac Butler)

MTC's troubled season continues with Romantic Poetry. Multiple reviewers call the play a "train wreck" with most of the blame heaped at writer/director John Patrick Shanley's feet. Critics deride the play's logic, lack of characters, plot and lyrics. Time Out NY gives it its first ever zero-star review. Yeesh. Hopefully the Itamar Moses penned, Daniel Aukin helmed Back Back Back can lift MTC's season out of its 0-2 slump.

Back Stage B-
(Adam R. Perlman) Elsewhere Shanley has shown awareness that love can feel epic without stretching stage time to epic lengths, but here battles are fought and re-fought with diminishing emotional returns. The intermission—and everything that comes after—could be easily excised...Shanley has an ideal collaborator in Krieger, who has crafted a score both full-throated and playful...Judging from the tuner's many moments of delightful abandon, Shanley may ultimately find himself at home in the world of musical theatre. But for now, his mess runneth over. The troubadour could use an assist from the craftsman.

New Yorker C
(John Lahr) A reckless, flabbergasting spectacle, like watching soldiers go into battle with popguns...For the audience, there is no one to care for and nothing to believe in; there is only the sound of Shanley's self-congratulatory voice...Every word, every rhyme, every theatrical conceit seems to delight him: the show is positively agog at its own cleverness...Henry Krieger, who wrote the music for Dreamgirls, provides some genial melodies to back up Shanley's folly.

NJ Star-Ledger C-
(Michael Sommers) Shanley's libretto...strains to be playful. With nothing to ground its doings into some semblance of reality, however, the whimsically motivated tale comes across as a flimsy, even nonsensical, two hours. Allied to Shanley's lyrics, which sport humorous glints...Krieger composes 25 usually brief songs in a variety of modes, including tango, gospel and jazz. If the pleasant songs scarcely cling to the ear, August Eriksmoen's orchestrations for a five-member onstage ensemble sound sweet and supple.

New York C-
(Stephanie Zacharek) A musical comedy of modest ambitions, and it doesn't meet any of them...Shanley...tries to weld the perceived innocence of the thirties musical to the self-aware cluelessness of early-21st-century coupling, perhaps as a way of showing that not all that much has changed...At a certain point a production's simplicity—spare set, modest costumes—only reinforces how threadbare the material is. Nothing says "desperation" like asking a performer to sing a half-cooked melody, packed with wearying punny lyrics, against a sparkly curtain.

TheaterMania C-
(Dan Bacalzo) The large number of songs in the show also results in diminishing returns. Many of the sung sections would be more effective as spoken dialogue, as there's no real call for them to be musicalized. It seems as if Shanley incorporates so much singing to emphasize the whimsical aspects of the script, but too often Romantic Poetry fails to achieve the proper tone.

TalkinBroadway D+
(Matthew Murray) If there's an upside to Romantic Poetry, it's that it will fortify New York relationships for decades to come: If a couple survives this, they can survive anything. In every other way, this is the kind of date play you might take an ex to on April Fool's Day. This show's pusillanimously prankish atmosphere, though, is rarely a laughing matter.

NYTimes D+
(Ben Brantley) You certainly can't say that the show isn't of a piece. But that piece is made of ingredients that were meant to be consumed in small amounts. Only people who can make a meal out of marshmallows and marzipan are likely to find Romantic Poetry digestible.

Variety D+
(Steven Suskin) "Oh, somebody fix this!" cries one of the characters late in the first act. Producers should have heeded that suggestion. Shanley is known for keeping a tight rein over his material, but a little helpful guidance—or a lot—might have been in order for his first time tackling book, lyrics and direction of a musical. The talented writer presumably has something on his mind here, but the message is mighty cloudy. Romantic poetry it ain't.

NYPost D
(Frank Scheck) The show's level of humor is typified by the recurring gag in which there's a loud burst of thunder whenever someone mentions Long Island's Five Towns. But his lyrics are even worse: "The distance between us/A boy looks at Venus/His ache it is heinous/He touches his penis."

Hartford Courant D
(Malcolm Johnson) Shanley, who perhaps should have opted for another director, never really pulls his musical grab bag together in an evening that is rarely either romantic or poetic.

AP D
(Michael Kuchwara) Love—or maybe just ruminating on love—can drive a person to do wild, crazy and sometimes foolish things, such as write a musical. How else to explain Romantic Poetry, the bewildering collaboration of John Patrick Shanley (book, lyrics and heavy-handed direction) and Henry Krieger (music) that opened Tuesday off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage I.

Wall Street Journal D
(Terry Teachout) It's about a cellphone salesman from Newark who longs to be a poet, which tells you just about all you need to know about the plot, in which—are you sitting down?—love conquers all. Henry Krieger of Dreamgirls wrote the music, which is as pedestrian and anonymous as Mr. Shanley's lyrics are slack and amateurish. The cabaret-style set is gorgeous, the actors excellent, except that they insist on speaking their lines.

Hollywood Reporter D-
(Alexis Greene) May Romantic Poetry pass quietly and quickly into theatrical lore.

NY Daily News D-
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Poetry is proof that even talented writers can veer off track, as well as evidence that gifted performers are only as good as the material.

Newsday F
(Linda Winer) Shanley has never before written the lyrics and book for a musical. We now know why. Romantic Poetry, which Manhattan Theatre Club opened last night at the same space where "Doubt" had its premiere, is a terrible show—incoherent, forced and jauntily oblivious to the depths of its awfulness. If not for the Shanley brand and the equally bizarre disappointment of the derivative score by Henry Krieger, who composed Dreamgirls, the decent impulse would be to tiptoe away without calling attention to the show's baffling presence.

AMNY F
(Matt Windman) Reeking of desperate cutesiness, Romantic Poetry offers a nonsensical story with forgettable songs, dry one-liners and random silliness. In other words, it is a poor man's version of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.

Bloomberg F-
(John Simon) John Patrick Shanley, author of the spellbinding Doubt, and Henry Krieger, composer of the captivating Dreamgirls, have banded together to concoct one of the most incongruous, foolish and pretentious musicals ever inflicted on an audience.

Time Out NY F-
(Adam Feldman) I have sometimes wondered just how bad a show would have to be to merit a zero-star rating. Now I know, and it is a terrible knowledge. John Patrick Shanley and Henry Krieger's ludicrous new musical, Romantic Poetry, is a garish failure on every level. I will not bore you with details of Shanley's inane and incoherent story, since I have already been bored enough for the both of us. I will not describe the supremely tacky set, except to note that it has a shiny white ramp and a dash of zebra print. Nor will I name the floundering actors, out of consideration for them and their families.

Back Stage B- 9; New Yorker C 7; NJ Star-Ledger C- 6; New York C- 6; TheaterMania C- 6; Talkin Broadway D+ 5; NYTimes D+ 5; Variety D+ 5; AP D 4; Hartford Courant D 4; NYPost D 4; WSJ D 4; Hollywood Reporter D- 3; NY Daily News D- 3; Newsday F 1; AMNY F 1; TONY F- 0; Bloomberg F- 0; TOTAL = 73 / 18 = 4.05 D

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