Race

GRADE: C


(Photo By Robert J. Saferstein)

Written and Directed by David Mamet. At the Ethel Barrymore Theater.

The bulk of the reviews land squarely in the C- zone. Critics generally agree that Race does not succeed on its own terms and grows increasingly thin as the evening goes on, leading to some poorly set up revelations at the end and another of Mamet's poorly constructed Feckless Woman parts. They still find it quite entertaining, however, and particularly focus on the performance of James Spader. The play's two unqualified positive reviews come from Matthew Murray and John Simon-- who himself has oft faced down accusations of racism and sexism.

Bloomberg A
(John Simon) Mamet, who also directs, has assembled four talented actors -- James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, Richard Thomas -- and a top-notch design team. We get a high-voltage melodrama that is unafraid to raise painful questions while dispensing prickly ideas and provocative dialogue amid steady suspense. Just as in Oleanna, Mamet latches on to a controversial issue, in this case the problem of race as it has affected American politics, jurisprudence, sexual relations and life in general. He has boldly asserted that our 230-year national experience has been a dialogue about race and that the theme of his new play is “race and the lies we tell each other on the subject.”

TalkinBroadway A
(Matthew Murray) This, then, is the most realistic play on the subject we�ve seen in a long time. It�s also a stunning return to original form for Mamet, who doesn�t abandon the show-biz savvy of his middle period (Speed-the-Plow, Oleanna) or the political awareness of his current oeuvre (School, November) while jumping headfirst in the acidic repartee of his earlier, most defining works (American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross). Race cuts deeper, and more frequently, than perhaps anything else Mamet has written.

Chicago Tribune A-
(Chris Jones) Race is wholly watchable. Gripping, actually. Don't believe anyone who argues otherwise. Granted, it is gripping within a dangerously narrow and familiar palette; Race is like a contrived composite of "Oleanna," "Speed-the-Plow" and a TV legal procedural. There are many holes in its dramatic logic. Mamet doesn't so much write plays driven by characters anymore. His shell-like characters are the whores of his ideas. And for all the dramatic provocations (and the brilliant matching of the richly contrasting Grier and Spader), there's a certain weariness that comes from watching the way that "Race" stubbornly ignores any and all differences in generational thinking and reduces its characters' loyalties to the color of their skin. It's a juicily argued reduction, sure, but also a very troubling one. Which is, of course, Mamet's point.

TheaterMania B+
(Dan Bacalzo) Admittedly, much of the first act seems like a string of talking points or jokes about race with very little character development. However, it does lay the groundwork for the terrific second act, in which things get far more personal for the lawyers. A confrontation between Jack and Susan is one of the production's most powerful scenes, and the rapid fire plot twists that develop as the play comes thundering to its conclusion are nicely handled.

New Yorker B+
(John Lahr) The plot, such as it is, demonstrates the contention of Mamet’s Times piece, that “just as personal advantage was derived by whites from the defense of slavery and its continuation as Jim Crow and segregation, so too personal advantage, political advantage and indeed expression of deeply held belief may lead nonwhites to defense of positions that . . . will eventually be revealed as untenable.” In reality, Mamet would be hard pressed to defend his weasel words; onstage, where his story turns on racial profiling by blacks, he can make it seem plausible, if not persuasive.

Village Voice B+
(Michael Feingold) More fluid than in some of his earlier directorial attempts, Mamet's staging keeps the action zipping along, and doesn't seem (as in those earlier instances) to inhibit his actors. Spader, suavely sardonic, makes a strong impression; the hint of smug mannerism that always goes with Thomas's air of injured innocence suits his role handily. The cast's weak link, not overly damaging, is Washington, who hasn't yet summoned the power to project her presence fully. (Mamet, who dislikes overt emotional display in his works, probably hasn't helped.) The evening's showpiece performance—grounded, forceful, funny, and smartly shaded—comes from Grier, swallowing unpalatable news and snapping out equally unpalatable opinions with flamboyant finesse.

USA Today B
(Elysa Gardner) Though Race can be bitingly funny, some of Lawson and Brown's comments threaten to veer into speechifying. Lawson, especially, seems at times to be venting on behalf of the playwright, whose disdain for the strictures of political correctness is well known...Mamet deserves credit for a briskly entertaining, if flawed, study. It is indeed a world full of misunderstandings, and Race offers an absorbing glimpse.

NorthJersey B
(Robert Feldberg) David Mamet has said his new play, Race, which opened Sunday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, is his contribution to the country's never-ending dialogue on the relationship between black people and white people. But although he makes several provocative points, the racial discussion is one of the least involving aspects of the evening. What's most pungent — and terrifically engaging — is the old Mamet, the creator of sharp operators, men who are cynical, profane and morally flexible.

New York Magazine C
(Scott Brown) We open with an O.J. joke—an early indicator of the mid-nineties mindset that informs Race, David Mamet’s fleet, fidgety, focused little Sudoku of a “shock” drama. The facts of the case are these: A wealthy white man, Strickland (Richard Thomas), is accused of raping a younger black woman; he seeks counsel, and perhaps a measure of absolution, at a law firm captained by senior partners Lawson (James Spader, white) and Brown (David Alan Grier, brown). Assisting them is lovely, leggy, leery Susan (Kerry Washington), who is also brown but, suspiciously, lacks a highly symbolic surname—and may or may not have been a (gasp!) affirmative-action hire. (Cherchez la femme, Mamet fans.) “Race is the most incendiary topic in our history,” we are informed early on, lest we doubt the stakes. Yet the case itself is a bluff; what little we learn of it sounds remarkably pedestrian. All Mamet really wants to do is put white guilt on trial, which he does, with gusto, deploying the familiar man-man-woman triad he used in Speed-the-Plow and elsewhere. But the boils prodded here feel pre-lanced, the flash points all too familiar: Did Strickland use the N-word? Well, of course he did! The play is called Race.

Entertainment Weekly C
The shock is that the author (who previously staged a two-person dramatic tap dance about men and women, truth and lies in Oleanna) elicits little more than a shrug once all the thrusts and parries, revelations and reversals are toted up. The foursome bark out short, blunt, rhetorically provocative dialogue intended to demonstrate that black people and white people are doomed never to understand one another. But the arguments feel like moves on a game board, not words from the heart.

Time Out New York C
(Adam Feldman) For all the verve of its neo-Shavian back-and-forth, however, Race falters on its way to the finish line. Adept at articulating the play’s issues, Mamet is less successful at dramatizing them. The play is not unlike an 80-minute episode of a televised legal drama (on cable, where they can use the f-word). Its two lawyers are played well by Spader and David Alan Grier, but they have little dimension beyond their arguments; and the other two characters, who have more opportunity for development, register largely as a ciphers.

New York Times C-
(Ben Brantley) An assured craftsman, Mr. Mamet builds his structure with precision and with what feels like a certain weariness with his own facility. What’s lacking is the fusion of story, theme and character that lends bona fide suspense to his plays. In American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna (which received a less-than-exemplary Broadway production this season), the dialogue is fueled by the desperation of the characters. Much of the excitement in listening to them comes from hearing how their words, initially used as tools and weapons, become their prisons. In “Race” words accumulate less into portraits than attitudes. Obviously there’s a lot at stake for the people of Race, especially for Charles, whom Mr. Thomas portrays with a cunning air of masochistic martyrdom. But there’s only one real character in the play, a paucity you become fully aware of in the second act.

Backstage C-
(David Sheward) it's definitely a mixed bag: At times the dialogue feels like a debate between stick figures representing opposing points of view rather than real people in a situation reflective of our conflicted society. In addition, the setup is somewhat similar to earlier Mamet play[s].

Wall St. Journal C-
(Terry Teachout) The problem with Race is that it's a bit too familiar. Specifically, it plays like a cross between Mr. Mamet's "Oleanna" and his screenplay for "The Verdict." I can't say much more than that without giving away the "surprises" sprinkled throughout the plot, in which two lawyers, one white (James Spader) and one black (David Alan Grier), decide whether to defend a famous millionaire (Richard Thomas) who is accused of raping a young black woman—a decision complicated by the fact that one of their employees (Kerry Washington) is also a young black woman. But those who know Mr. Mamet's work more than casually will likely be able to guess many of the directions in which he takes this conceit, and that's a big part of what's wrong with "Race." In addition, "Race" is didactic in a way I didn't expect from a playwright like Mr. Mamet, whose normal practice is to dramatize the points he wants to make instead of embedding them in lectures delivered by his characters. "Race," by contrast, is full of lectures, most of which are delivered to the younger lawyer by her older bosses, which is logical enough but doesn't make them any less prone to slow down the play's momentum.

Variety C-
(David Rooney) As one of the characters in David Mamet's teasing faux-polemic on the subject says, "Race is the most incendiary topic in our history." The slender play that takes its terse title from that declaration seems hatched more out of an urge to inflame arguments easily triggered in the age of Obama than out of the need to tell this particular story or even to explore the issue with any real conclusiveness. This being Mamet, however, the dialogue is tasty, the confrontations spiky and the observations more than occasionally biting. Slick but hollow, Race entertains as it unfolds, but grows increasingly wobbly as it twists its way to an unsatisfying wrap-up.

NY1 C-
(Roma Torre) All the action in this play seems contrived to justify a convoluted premise. And while I can't give examples without spoiling the plot, I can tell you everyone says and does things that, from both legal and dramatic perspectives, don't make much sense. The good news is that it's very well acted... There's no denying the production under Mamet's direction is plenty entertaining and thought provoking. It's just that when you do think about it you realize, despite all the incendiary talk, they're not saying all that much.

Newsday D+
(Linda Winer) The subject, race, could not be more timely. And yet the confrontations have the urgency of pigtail-pulling provocations in the schoolyard. Are we really meant to be shocked to hear that trials are entertainment or that people of different colors get different treatment? The generalizations - blacks have shame, Jews have guilt - are as inflammatory as a routine by Jackie Mason. The real shock of this Race is that Mamet cannot take them and run.

LA Times D+
(Charles McNulty) The play somewhat misleads its audience into thinking that its plot will revolve around the discovery of Charles’ guilt or innocence. The actual story lies in the inter-office dynamics, which grow complicated (and not in a particularly involving way) when suspicions are raised about Susan’s role in the case. Unfortunately, this character — another of Mamet’s female subordinates seemingly out for retributive payback — isn’t well developed. Washington brings a cool and glamorous confidence to the part (costume designer Tom Broecker dresses her as though for a Vogue law-office spread, but there’s something contrived about her motivation.

The Faster Times D+
(Jonathan Mandell) There are a few plot twists, which are meant to keep the audience guessing at the answer to the question “Is he guilty?” and one or two more questions, such as “Whose side is she on?” They are also meant, more grandly, to show the differing perceptions of the world from black and white. But these twists would not withstand the scrutiny of an experienced dramaturg; they don’t make much sense, and are ultimately not very interesting. In any case, much of the 90-minute play is taken up with what are little more than cynical lectures about the legal system, and observations about race relations – about double standards, about what you can say and what you can’t in polite company, about the different perspectives of black and white in America... “Race” is performed by pros — the stand-out here is David Alan Grier; James Spader seems to be playing his “Boston Legal” character minus the humorous quirkiness, but there is a reason why that show lasted on television so long. I cannot find particular fault in the way that Mamet directed “Race” — quick, to the point — just in the way he wrote it.

NY Observer D
(Jesse Oxley) It's all rendered with Mr. Mamet's expected verbal pyrotechnics, but the inherent pleasure of virtuosity aside, the fireworks fall flat. The play is reveling in its subversive political incorrectness, but political incorrectness hasn't seemed flamboyantly subversive at any point in this new century.

Financial Times D-
With this world premiere on Broadway, Mamet continues his descent into smug cynicism. The characters are representative figures rather than people with personal lives – mouthpieces for Mamet’s ideas about the nature of confession, the difference between guilt and shame, and the lies we supposedly tell ourselves about the relationship between races.

NYPost F+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) The most stunning thing about the David Mamet play that opened last night is how clunky it is. The man's written books about drama and filmmaking, so you'd think his missile against a hot-button issue would at least be well put together. But "Race," which Mamet also directed, is a bewildering muddle. Audiences might expect this type of awkwardly constructed, flailing acrimony from a 15-year-old with a Twitter account, not from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

BB A 13; TB A 13; CT A- 12; TM B+ 11; TNY B+ 11; VV B+ 11; NJ B 10; USA B 10; NYM C 7; TONY C 7; EW C 7; NYT C- 6; NY1 C- 6; WSJ C- 6; BS C- 6; V C- 6; TFT D+ 5; ND D+ 5; NYO D 4; LAT D+ 5; FT D- 4; NYPost F+ 2; TOTAL: 167/25 =6.68 (C)

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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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Two Unrelated Plays By David Mamet

Grade: B-

By David Mamet. Directed by Neil Pepe. At the Atlantic Theatre Company. (CLOSED)

Despite writing some bona-fide classics, David Mamet hasn't written a good play since The Cryptogram, devoting most of his time to creating a third-rate 24, excoriating Jews who aren't into ethnic cleansing as self-hating and-- in his essays in the Times and the Voice-- doing his borscht-belt imitation of Ann Coulter's schtick. Ah well, he has a banner season ahead of him anyway, including a revival of Oleanna (the first step in his artistic downfall) and a new play called Race, both of which open on Broadway this season. But before either of those happen, audiences get a little taste of the playwright's latest work with this double-bill of one acts at the Atlantic. Did he break his creaky streak? Critics for the most part are underwhelmed on substance but too busy laughing to care. Elisabeth Vincentelli, who has recently been on a self-described negative streak feels that if anyone other than Mamet wrote these plays, they'd never have gotten produced. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Backstage finds the plays a hilarious departure.

Backstage A
(David Sheward)Directed with perfect timing by Neil Pepe [Keep Your Pantheon] centers on a down-at-the-heels acting troupe as it chases gigs and keeps one step ahead of the landlord. The running gag is the amorous interest that almost every character -- all of them male -- takes in young Philius, the troupe's handsome but talent-free boy apprentice. This time, Mamet is not out to make points about power, greed or sex (gay or straight); he just wants to tickle the funny bone.

Associated Press B+
(Michael Kuchwara) Pantheon may be a trifle but it's nice to see Mamet willing to indulge in a bit of frivolity that has no more ambition than to amuse, which this comedy certainly does...School, a world premiere, also is a wisp of play, a work in which Mamet seems to be parodying himself. Call it a playlet, one in which McLachlan and Pankow portray teachers bantering about the absurdities that often accompany the efforts people make to go green. Here, it's a "Save the Trees" poster campaign-a campaign that destroys trees to make its point about saving trees.

Time Out New York B+
(David Cote) Slight but chuckleworthy...Performed by a lesser cast, the night would be underwhelming (and not even very “Mametian”), but director Neil Pepe has assembled a robust all-male ensemble, including Mamet veterans Jack Wallace and J.J. Johnston... Keep Your Pantheon is the main course, a breezy farce about a third-rate Roman acting troupe starved for gigs and running afoul of the army. It’s a wafer-thin diversion full of halfhearted gay jokes and anachronistic gags, proving mainly that the playwright has plowed through Livy and Tacitus. Still, the clowning is delivered with gusto and élan, and you can’t fault a great writer for skipping class and goofing off.

CurtainUp B
(Elyse Sommer) The cast overall, and Murray in particular, manage to milk this familiar old theatrical cow, the backstage comedy, for maximum laughs, with a pure Mamet closing punch line. But the cast and excellent production values notwithstanding, I would be more apt to recommend this highly if it were priced so that we could tag it with one of our bargain-flagging piggy bank icons.

TalkinBroadway B
(Matthew Murray) In both School and Keep Your Pantheon, Mamet has delivered complete and fulfilling plays that suffer primarily because of their direct comparison with each other. But even that’s acceptable - Pepe and the Atlantic obviously thought that two new “unrelated” Mamet plays were better than no new Mamet at all (at least until Race opens in December). That’s hard to argue with, regardless of where you stand on the use of recycled paper in schools.

NYTimes C+
(Ben Brantley) There’s no doubting the affection behind Keep Your Pantheon for both one of the oldest traditions of comedy and one of the oldest professions. But despite his proficiency and versatility as a Hollywood screenwriter, onstage Mr. Mamet isn’t really at home in any voice but his own. Despite the warming presence of the admirable Brian Murray, as a dirty old thespian in love with his craft and his male bimbo protégée (Michael Cassidy), Pantheon creaks with a stiff-jointed artificiality. And the rim-shot jokes — many of which center on the lust-provoking presence of Mr. Cassidy in a toga — tend to land with a thud. The essence of the play’s wit, such as it is, is in its punning title.

Variety C+
(David Rooney) The Atlantic serves up an amuse-bouche that goes down easily enough but leaves little aftertaste in the double bill Keep Your Pantheon and School. The latter, up first, is a 10-minute verbal doodle in search of a punchline; the hourlong morsel that follows sees Mamet in ancient Rome continuing to indulge his recent taste for farce after “Romance” and “November.” The one-act yields a decent share of chuckles, many of them fueled by the droll delivery of Brian Murray.

TheaterMania C
(Andy Propst) Despite the handsome physical production and the well-crafted performances -- particularly Murray, Pankow, and J.J. Johnson, who plays a hard-nosed Roman soldier with panache -- these amiable plays really only serve to whet the appetite for the more substantial Mamet plays (Oleanna and Race) being presented in New York this season.

NYpost D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) If these flimsy one-act plays weren't by David Mamet, they probably wouldn't have been produced by the Atlantic Theater Company. Both works amount to the kind of flimflam the author used to write about....Some of the gags land, and the dependable Murray displays a true mastery of the eye roll. But director Neil Pepe should have pushed his cast into a higher gear. At the end, we're left feeling that Mamet didn't try quite hard enough. Why should we bother if he doesn't?

BS A 13; AP B+ 11; TONY B+ 11; CU B 10; TB B 10; NYTimes C+ 8; Variety C+ 8; TM C 7; NYPost D+ 5; TOTAL = 83/9= 9.22 (B-)

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American Buffalo

GRADE: C+

By David Mamet. Dir. Robert Falls. Belasco Theatre. (CLOSED)

Though hardly the worst-reviewed Broadway bow of the season (hello, To Be or Not To Be), Robert Falls' star-studded, relatively subdued revival of Mamet's modern classic, suffering by comparison to the sparkling revival of Speed-the-Plow and from particularly harsh and/or disappointed reviews from many though not all of the higher-profile critics, closed after barely a week on the Main Stem. F***in' Broadway.

Philadelphia Inquirer A
(Howard Shapiro) Witnessing the perfect Broadway revival of David Mamet's terse and taut American Buffalo is like putting yourself in the middle of a locker-room towel fight...Staged with appropriate brio by Robert Falls...His knock-'em-dead interpretation of the play, which he moves along the stage like a swift current caught abruptly in an eddy, underscores its heady mix of comedy and dread, enhanced by Santo Loquasto's flamboyant junk-shop set.

Hartford Courant A
(Malcolm Johnson) With John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer as two leads, David Mamet's American Buffalo becomes a comedy, a farce that brims with laughs as staged by Robert Falls...American Buffalo stands as the seminal Mamet play, a portrait of men at war with themselves...Falls' direction mirrors the shifting lighting. At the start, absurdist comedy rules, even with Teach's sexist rant against Ruthie. But in the end, when Teach's frustration ends in mayhem and destruction, the production takes on a much darker, acrid tone.

USA Today A-
(Elysa Gardner) Director Robert Falls has done his homework. Approaching Mamet's celebrated account of three losers bound by complementary failings, Falls and his cast ease the pace and intensity of the distinctly jazzy dialogue rhythms and emphasize the underlying pathos that truly—more than the four-letter words or the sudden bursts of violence—makes this play disturbing. This isn't the most titillating American Buffalo you'll ever see, but I doubt that many productions have made the thwarted humanity of these men more accessible or moving.

Talkin' Broadway
B+
(Matthew Murray) This production, as directed by Robert Falls, turns [the cast's] potential liabilities into major strengths. Leguizamo’s borderline-annoying back-alley whine and sensuous-with-a-smack attitude are close-fitting contrasts to the little-boy-lost innocence Osment hasn’t shed in the nine years since he rose to stardom in the film thriller The Sixth Sense. Cedric the Entertainer is just the right bridge between the two...Unlike in most Mamet productions, including the revival of Speed-the-Plow at the Barrymore, the actors aren’t even trying to spit out their words trippingly down their tongues. The people they’re playing are too far gone for that...So cunningly cast are the actors, and so adept are they at wringing a touching story of redemption from these men in their own personal economic crisis...that it’s a shame to have to report the work’s grander colors are muted.

TheaterMania B+
(David Finkle) An effective if not explosive revival...Requirements for the actors are complex, particularly for anyone playing the sinister but ultimately lame Teach, who's a prime example of how superb Mamet is at representing an illogical male mind at work. Leguizamo, abetted by a swipe of a mustache, gets the non sequiturs exactly right; but he misses the balance of sinister behavior masking no substance. Opposite him, the big-bellied, determinedly thoughtful Cedric and jittery, side-glancing Osment give fully-dimensional performances, which capably help raise the script to a high level.

Newsday B+
(Linda Winer) Enjoyable if not revelatory...There is less hot news here. On the other hand, this one has an exhilarating performance by John Leguizamo, who careens off Mamet's essence with a joy I missed in the oddly constricted [Speed-the-Plow]. Robert Falls...isn't blowing the lid off Mamet tradition in this straightforward production. From the start, Mamet's plays have been at least as much performance as plot. So not much happens, except the gorgeous patter profanity, the pulse-thumping stylized rhythms and mercilessly fantastical street-lumpen satire.

The Record B+
(Robert Feldberg) Under the direction of Robert Falls, the play is more balanced, funnier and more humane than the Broadway revival of 25 years ago. Al Pacino, who played Teach, gave that production more intensity, and a greater sense of danger. While less menacing, Leguizamo is very effective in his own style...Cedric the Entertainer, in his stage debut, gives a very good, quietly confident portrayal of the most rational of the threesome...In the least defined role, Osment does a decent job as Bobby...The surprising degree of warmth in this American Buffalo comes, in part, I think, from the diversity of the casting.

Time Out NY B
(David Cote) This brutally clownish paean to petty criminals and their pretzel morality doesn’t deliver the same shock as when it coldcocked Chicago and New York in 1976...Today, this intensely musical and bitterly comic play is still great fun to hear—and quote back to friends...Given that none of the actors—save possibly Leguizamo—are ideally cast, it says a lot about the play and Robert Falls’s staging that the evening is so enjoyable. Cedric is too monotonous as the softhearted Donny, and Osment—while looking every inch a dope—could use a dash of guile. Fortunately, Leguizamo’s facility with motormouthed verbiage comes in handy for Teach’s bilious riffs, though he is less effective in his moments of despair.

The Wall Street Journal B
(Terry Teachout) This isn't a perfect production, but it's worthy and definitely ought to be seen...Robert Falls, the director, should have prodded his cast to speed it up a bit. They're driving 55 in a 70 mph zone, and the first act sags in the middle as a result. But Santo Loquasto's junk-shop set, whose towering shelves look like prison walls, is just right, while Mamet's play is an ugly beauty, a hard-nosed piece of foul-mouthed poetry that hasn't aged a second since it first opened in 1975.

NY1 B-
(Roma Torre) It was original and raw 30 years ago. But now, unlike the buffalo nickel in its title, the play's value over time seems to have diminished...The casting is quite possibly the most interesting part of this production, which features two celebrities making Broadway debuts. Cedric the Entertainer and young Haley Joel Osment of Sixth Sense fame hold their own quite nicely alongside the stellar veteran John Leguizamo...Credit Robert Falls highly-professional production, with its rainbow casting to preserve some universality in a work that is clearly past its prime.

Total Theater B-
(Richmond Shepard) All shock value in Mamet’s naturalistic dialogue is absent, and the story of three losers planning to steal a coin collection, despite some funny phraseology, is reduced to rambling banter with emotional outbursts. John Leguizamo is exciting—a dynamo let loose, Cedric the Entertainer is an adequate junkstore owner, and Haley Joel Osment, an actor who is vivid on screen or television, playing the apprentice thief, is invisible—no impact...The physical staging by director Robert Falls keeps the play active and dynamic, the junk-filled set by Santo Loquasto is spectacular.

Chicago Tribune B-
(Chris Jones) Falls' production certainly does not lack for an emotional subtext. The play's act of violence is unusually shocking. C the E, who intentionally underplays, reveals a sense of loss of striking depth. Osment's Bobby wears his scrappy little heart on his snotty little sleeve. And Leguizamo, whose exciting verbosity more than matches anything Mamet can unleash, fires away on all cylinders...I feel a certain sense of loss when Mamet's early plays are removed so thoroughly from their original Chicago milieu and so unloosed from the actual language and behavior of the kind of low-ambition characters on whom they were modeled...Some of that prevails amid all the bravura and emotionalism of this revival.

Village Voice C+
(Michael Feingold) This classic study of crooks undone by their competing ideas of successful business should still have seemed the best play on Broadway. This was not its best production, though: In director Robert Falls's oddly mismatched cast, only Cedric the Entertainer, as pawnbroker and fence Donny Dubrow, conveyed the weight of potential menace that should infuse every minute. He deserved to be challenged by a far-scarier Teach than John Leguizamo's bright, almost perky reading of this extraordinary role provided. Like Haley Joel Osment's clean-cut Bobby, everything in Mamet's dangerous pawnshop suddenly became far too tidy.

Curtain Up C+
(Elyse Sommer) Leguizamo's dynamic physicality and cocky style...makes for an eminently watchable Teach. New to the stage TV celebrity Cedric the Entertainer is a credible Don; and TV and and film actor Haley Joel Osment, another stage newbie, actually intensifies Bobby's dim-wittedness to the point where we pity him. So why does this latest American Buffalo come off as competently staged and performed but lacking the snap, crackle and pop of this season's other Mamet revival, Speed-the-Plow? The problem is that the usually infallible director Robert Fall's has aimed for a naturalism that...for too much of the time translates the staccato Mamet-speak into plain-speak.

Entertainment Weekly C
(Gregory Kirschling) The problem with the current revival of American Buffalo, now playing on Broadway, is not only that there's nothing especially startling about the play anymore; what really hurts is the listless execution, which doesn't tap into the ugly beauties of the work. The three actors make up one of the stranger trios you'll ever see assembled on the New York stage...Three decades later, Buffalo is still an uneasy drama that queasily draws us in as dumb guys hatch a dumb plot, but these actors never find an exciting rhythm, and they leave us instead with an uneasy question: What's the point?

Back Stage C
(David Sheward) Director Robert Falls provides a solid, straightforward framework for Mamet's deceptively simple story. Unfortunately, his actors are not as perfectly balanced as the material. John Leguizamo lacks the demonic power Robert Duvall brought to Teach...Cedric the Entertainer['s] lack of theatre training is evident in his failure to provide a through-line for his character...As Bobby, the junkie junior partner of this sorry team, the former child star Haley Joel Osment...is clearer in his intentions and therefore a weightier presence...How much richer this American Buffalo would have been had two-thirds of the cast concentrated on connections rather than comedy.

Bloomberg News C
(John Simon) Skillfully directed by Robert Falls, who has choreographed some arresting movements and imposed fascinating changes in tempo and dynamics. The actors squeeze everything possible out of their parts, Cedric, for example, managing to say “No” in peculiarly layered ways. There is even a vocal trio in the interplay of Cedric’s rumbling bass, Leguizamo’s whining, high-pitched tenor and Osment’s overeager or anxious countertenor. But put it all together and it spells blather of the peculiarly Mametian brand, in which obscenity and scatology sprout like mushrooms in damp, shady ground.

The Journal News C
(Jacques Le Sourd) For all the effort, what Falls doesn't quite pull off is the creation of a true acting ensemble, for what should be a fine-tuned acting trio. The casting approaches a stunt, and the stunt doesn't quite work.

AM New York C-
(Matt Windman) To our surprise, Robert Falls’ disappointing revival is undercooked and lifeless...It’s not clear whether the cast couldn’t handle the script or if Falls purposely slowed down the dialogue. As a result, Mamet’s exploration of desperate ambition and failed friendship feels underwhelming.

Variety C-
(David Rooney) Robert Falls' production drains much of the humor, urgency and anxiety from the piece, letting it amble along like an inflated actors' exercise in sustaining atmosphere without action...His naturalistic approach is not suited to Mamet's muscularly theatrical language. The actors too rarely get under their characters' skins to expose the bitter insecurity lurking there.

LA Times C-
(Charles McNulty) Robert Falls’ production, which opened Monday at the Belasco Theatre, doesn’t have much success offering new insights into the relationships of these small-time hoods who have a quaint moral code all their own. The cast...works hard to contain Mamet’s verbal vitriol with a realistic style that might be better suited to TV than the stage. The result is disappointingly juiceless, although there’s no denying that the characters’ collective desire to stretch the meaning of “free enterprise” could hardly be more timely.

New York C-
(Dan Kois) Despite Santo Loquasto’s incongruously majestic junk-shop set and an energetic second act, this is a mostly forgettable production of a play that’s a less scathing critique of capitalism than you might recall. Days later, all that sticks is the show’s cheeky first words: As the lights go down, a piped-in voice announces, “The cast, in accordance with Mr. Mamet, ask that you please turn off your fucking cell phones.”

Daily News D+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) Despite a starry cast...the tepid two-hour two-act, directed by Robert Falls, makes the story seem very slight, with all the danger and combustibility of a book of soggy matches...Because the story is so simply told, pitch-perfect casting is essential. Actors need to bring something truly special to these parts. In the showy role of the incendiary Teach...Leguizamo...makes the character his own with a one-two wallop of scary-funny. Osment...has the right vacancy behind his droopy eyes and enough twitchiness to make his character click. Though he's an appealing actor, Cedric the Entertainer is so sitcom-cuddly and cute, he simply lacks the needed edge to convince as Don.

NY Post D
(Barbara Hoffman) American Buffalo has all the profanity and none of the poetry. As directed by the usually estimable Robert Falls, with John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment, it's flatter than a cow plop...Just before a recent preview, I met a 5-year-old girl in the ladies' restroom. "I'm seeing American Buffalo," she announced, to the shocked faces around her. Did she know what it's about? "Hunting!" she said.

NY Times D
(Ben Brantley) Ssssssssst. That whooshing noise coming from the Belasco Theater is the sound of the air being let out of David Mamet’s dialogue. Robert Falls’s deflated revival of Mr. Mamet’s American Buffalo...evokes the woeful image of a souped-up sports car’s flat tire, built for speed but going nowhere...If you’re choosing only one play by Mr. Mamet to see this season, Speed-the-Plow wins hands down.

AP D
(Michael Kuchwara) The four-letter words are intact but just about everything else is amiss in the slack, unsatisfying Broadway revival...The production...shrinks a play that already was small to begin with.

Philadelphia Inquirer A 13; Hartford Courant A 13; USA Today A- 12; Talkin' Broadway B+ 11; TheaterMania B+ 11; Newsday B+ 11; The Record B+ 11; TONY B 10; WSJ B 10; NY1 B- 9; Total Theater B- 9; Chicago Tribune B- 9; Village Voice C+ 8; Curtain Up C+ 8; Entertainment Weekly C 7; Back Stage C 7; Bloomberg News C 7; The Journal News C 7; New York C- 6; AM New York C- 6; Variety C- 6; LA Times C- 6; Daily News D+ 5; NY Post D 4; NY Times D 4; AP D 4; TOTAL: 214 / 26 = 8.23 (C+)

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Speed-the-Plow

GRADE: B+

By David Mamet, Directed by Neil Pepe. The Barrymore Theatre. (CLOSED)

Critics mostly go gaga for David Mamet's cynical poisoned valentine to Hollywood. Raul Esparza gets a lot of the kudos, but Jeremy Piven, the biggest star in the show, gets most of the ink (NOTE: Piven bowed out of the role Dec. 17, to be replaced by Norbert Leo Butz and then William H. Macy; new reviews are reckoned, though not graded, here). Critics are more divided about Elisabeth Moss, some love her and some (Terry Teachout and John Simon amongst them) decidedly don't. Raul Esparza has his partisans, too.

TalkingBroadway A
(Matthew Murray) Watching this production is like watching what John McCain and Barack Obama's presidential debates should have been: two men admitting the acidic rules of operation, but exhibiting the myriad ways they can still work within those strictures to win the day. Neither Bobby Gould (Piven), the new head of production for a major studio, nor the producer Charlie Fox (Esparza), is vying for a country—at stake for them is the surefire blockbuster Charlie has attached a star to, provided he gets his answer immediately. But at these levels, Mamet argues, Big Business and Big Politics are one and the same.

The New York Times A
(Ben Brantley) Speed-the-Plow has no business feeling so fresh. There was novelty in Mr. Mamet's acid-etched portrait of greedy, foulmouthed Hollywood players when it opened in 1988. But since then the dirty business of film production has become the stuff of daily business pages, nightly telecasts, snarky Web sites and a slew of self-flagellating movies about movies...Yet this production is, for me at least, even more vital than the original...What makes Speed-the-Plow so exciting is its power to define and destroy an entire self-contained world through the tools and weapons of spoken words, expertly wielded by a very live cast.

NYPost A
(Clive Barnes) Now, 20 years after its premiere—in which Madonna took much of the initial limelight—the beautifully played revival that opened last night establishes the play as a modern classic. The cast—Jeremy Piven as a freshly anointed Hollywood producer, Bobby Gould; Raul Esparza as Charlie Fox, Bobby's best friend, mailroom buddy and underling; and Elisabeth Moss, Bobby's new temp—are all superb, but this time around, it's Neil Pepe's smooth-as-silk direction and the play itself that hold the stage.

Talkin' Broadway A
(Barbara & Scott Siegel) The play itself is a good, solid work of black comedy, but in this revival it's all about the acting...The current production offers Raúl Esparza giving a performance that is, in a word, sensational. There are other reasons to see this play: it's smart, riveting, and entertaining. As for the other two stars, Jeremy Piven is a solid foil and Elisabeth Moss is perfectly cast. But you'll come out of the theater simply raving about Esparza.

USA Today A-
(Elysa Gardner) It's a measure of the blossoming triumph of commerce over art—not just in the movie business, but in television, music and, dare I say it, print and online media—that Speed-the-Plow seems even more topical today than when David Mamet introduced it.

The NJ Star-Ledger A-
(Michael Sommers) A seasoned hand at Mamet's works, Atlantic Theater Company artistic director Neil Pepe fields an assured show dominated by Esparza's forceful presence as nervy Charlie, especially so when his character melts down into explosive rage. By turns jaunty, confused and shaken, Piven believably portrays Bobby as a smarty-pants undone by passion. Playing enigmatic Karen—the character is noticeably underwritten, perhaps deliberately so—Moss exudes deep sincerity, which is as valid an approach as any to a problematic role.

Philadelphia Inquirer A-
(Toby Zinman) Mamet, the wizard of obscenity, seems, by contemporary standards, less obscene; the venomous misogynist seems, by contemporary standards, just a reporter. If there is danger here, it is that wild satire has become depraved and funny realism.

amNew York A-

(Unsigned Review) Piven and Esparza practically explode with high-powered male aggression. While Esparza indulges in excessive eccentricity and Piven sincerely portrays his character's change of heart as a religious rebirth, Moss is seductively low-key. Her character is a seemingly pure, delicate flower who nearly destroys her boss's career with her high art ambition of making a real human connection.

The Washington PostA-
(Peter Marks) The play, over in a 90-minute blink, might not be an achievement on the high plateau with Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet's last word on the dog-eat-dog ethos of the American salesman. Although written later, Speed-the-Plow feels as if it were a forerunner of Glengarry. Compared with the full-blown theatrical rush supplied by that earlier, Pulitzer-winning comedy-drama, Speed provides only a pungent buzz.

Associate Press A-
(Michael Kuchwara) To really explode, Speed-The-Plow must star actors of equal intensity. With Piven and Esparza, this revival has found the perfect theatrically combustible pair.

LA Times A-
(Charles McNulty) Left me feeling as though I had just received the theatrical equivalent of a plasma infusion. Thrillingly acted by the unbeatable trio of Jeremy Piven, Raúl Esparza and Elisabeth Moss, this taut tale of Hollywood power-mongering and manipulation could just as well be set in our era were it not for the fashion choices of these would-be movie moguls, which continually remind us that the play takes place in the garishly grasping 1980s...One of the fall season’s major bright spots.

Backstage B+
(David Sheward) Now a new generation of young stars is tackling Mamet's dark screed against movie land — and by extension all of our popular culture. This revival, directed with an emphasis on the first word of the title by Neil Pepe, features a more evenly balanced cast, and the play is now an exciting and deadly game of three-handed poker.

The Journal News B+
(Jaques Le Sourd) Happily, Speed-the-Plow hasn't aged by one minute. Indeed it seems somehow more timely, with its repeated references to the most traditional characters being "mavericks"—that earns a loud laugh—and its thematic concerns with the collapse of the economy and the end of the world.

The Hollywood Reporter B
(Frank Scheck) Although the play never quite convinces in terms of its situations and characterizations, Mamet's razor-sharp comic dialogue makes its 90 minutes breeze by. And his observations about the movie business—in which the credo is, "Make the thing that everybody made last year"—are even more relevant today than when it was written.

TheaterMania B
(David Finkle) While director Neil Pepe and his cast meet most of the script's demands, the production never quite reaches the same fully explosive possibilities as Matthew Warchus' recent London production, starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum.

The Record B
(Robert Feldberg) Speed-the-Plow isn't major Mamet, but it's diverting, entertaining and happily confirms our worst thoughts about life in Hollywood.

Variety B
(David Rooney) The play may be 20 years old but David Mamet's astringent observations on the supremacy of commerce over art in Hollywood are still as fresh as last night's rushes...Speed-the-Plow remains on-target in its sardonic skewering of an industry run by self-confessed whores and driven by the public's appetite for mindless escapism. Despite a weak midsection, Neil Pepe's taut Broadway revival keeps the verbal sniper fire swift and scathing, while the three accomplished actors make the air between them crackle with tension.

New Yorker B
(Hilton Als) Piven is a very good comedic actor, and this is his show...[He] doesn't take up as much room here as he does on television, which is as it should be. Acting big on camera, Piven pulls back onstage, and the subtleties in his performance are transfixing...Both Esparza and Moss are perfect in their parts...but being perfect in their parts requires a certain superficiality...In Speed-the-Plow, one of his lesser plays, Mamet maintains his distance from his characters, mocking their silly needs and their foolish talk...Piven's solid artistry deserves a deeper Mamet.

NY Daily News B
(Joe Dziemianowicz) David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow is back on Broadway for another go-round of behind-the-scenes greed and movieland maneuvering. That theme has been covered extensively in the 20 years since the play's first run (think The Player or Entourage), and if this compact, 85-minute comedy isn't Mamet at his deepest, Neil Pepe's fine-tuned revival makes for an entertaining ride.

The Wall Street Journal B-
(Terry Teachout) In a Mamet play, the dialogue must sound like an Uzi being fired at a big brass bell, and Mr. Piven, despite his extensive stage experience, is a bit too soft around the edges to keep the bell ringing. As for Ms. Moss, she gives an unconvincingly mousy one-note performance as Karen, the seemingly idealistic young woman who gets under Mr. Piven's skin. I last saw Speed-the-Plow a year and a half ago in a much better-balanced staging at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in which Alicia Silverstone played Karen. Would that that version — or the recent London production that starred Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum — had come to Broadway in place of this interesting but uneven revival.

Bloomberg B-
(John Simon) If you are impervious to all this, you may speculate about the meaning of the title. "Speed the plow'' is an old English expression of encouragement and was, indeed, the title of an obscure 1800 play by Thomas Morton. Mamet, who can always go the obvious one better, adds a couple of hyphens to the title by way of orthographic mystification.

New York C+
(Dan Kois) Esparza so nails the particular aggressiveness of Mamet's Hollywood phony that resentment and ego transform even Charlie's thank-yous and apologies into thrusts and slashes...Too bad his co-stars are so hopelessly overmatched, playing characters who are dull 2/4 riffs on the 5/4 weirdness of their respective television roles...Speed-the-Plow's view of Hollywood...is simplistic even for satire.

Newsday C-
(Linda Winer) Pepe is artistic director of the Atlantic Theater Company, Mamet's Off-Broadway home base. The playwright, famously loyal, went with this production instead of transferring a London smash starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum. In the play, the do-gooders probably are as corrupt as—and more foolish than—the do-badders. Alas, the decent impulse is not rewarded here, either.

TalkinBroadway A 13; NYTimes A 13; Talkin' Broadway A 13; NYPost A 13; USAToday A- 12; NJ Star Ledger A- 12; Philadelphia Inquirer A- 12; AP A- 12; WaPo A- 12; AMNY A- 12; LA Times A- 12; Backstage B+ 11; The Journal News B+ 11; New Yorker B 10; Hollywood Reporter B 10; TheaterMania B 10; The Record B 10; Variety B 10; NY Daily News B 10; Wall St. Journal B- 9; Bloomberg B- 9; New York C+ 8; Newsday C- 6; TOTAL: 250 / 23 = 10.87 B+

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