reasons to be pretty

GRADE: B

By Neil LaBute. Directed by Terry Kinney. The Lyceum. (CLOSED)

Neil LaBute gets a warmish welcome for his arguably overdue Broadway debut, with the majority of critics hailing this fraught, funny four-hander as a step in a more mature direction for the prickly playwright. Most agree that Thomas Sadoski, as a sensitive slacker reconsidering his life, carries the play in a breakout performance, and that Terry Kinney's direction is spot-on, while most of the disagreements center on comparisons between last year's Off-Broadway premiere of the play and the Broadway transfer. Meanwhile, it should be noted that a number of critics just didn't feel it; Elisabeth Vincentelli's headline at NY Post is "Many 'reasons' to be wary."

The New York Times A+
(Ben Brantley) Making his Broadway debut with a revised (and much improved) version of a play seen off Broadway last year, Mr. LaBute has exchanged misanthropy for empathy, reaping unexpected dividends...Mr. LaBute is writing some of the freshest and most illuminating American dialogue to be heard anywhere these days...I suppose that in the wrong hands reasons to be pretty could sound like a Sunday school lesson, albeit one with a most unchurchly vocabulary. But Mr. Kinney’s production, which features sets by David Gallo that convey a blue-collar bleakness in deft shorthand, never smacks of the pulpit. Even more than when I saw it last June, reasons flows with the compelling naturalness of overheard conversation.

Associated Press A+
(Michael Kuchwara) The complicated, often explosive relationships between men and women are a source of eternal, often contrary fascination for Neil LaBute, and they have been superbly realized in reasons to be pretty, his most compassionate, appealing work to date...Unquestionably, it's a highlight of the season, and in Thomas Sadoski, director Terry Kinney has found the perfect embodiment of the play's benighted hero, Greg, a blue-collar factory worker with serious woman problems. In a breakout, Tony-caliber performance, Sadoski lives and breathes this decent, down-to-earth guy...One of the special joys of "reason to be pretty" is its ambiguity, an ambiguity reflected most compellingly in LaBute's dialogue for Greg and Steph. It's particularly effective in the play's later scenes as the two tentatively try to salvage what's left of their tattered relationship. And special mention should be made of Kinney's precise direction, carefully balancing the play's considerable volatility with its quiet, rueful passages.

Talkin' Broadway A+
(Matthew Murray) Brutally beautiful...Neil LaBute has pushed aside the usual destructively dangerous he-she relations he normally documents in favor of revealing his softer-than-predicted heart. And what a dazzling trade he's made...Fueled by a star-making performance from Thomas Sadoski, [it] may be LaBute's tamest, but it's also his best...For the first time, both genders are equally matched - taking sides is not possible...The transfers of power do not cease until the last minute of the last scene - at which point it’s still not clear who the winners or losers really are. This is mature writing not just for LaBute but for anyone...You may think you’re not seeing a LaBute play, but in fact you’re seeing the most LaButian yet.

Variety A
(David Rooney) The real subject of this taut, unexpectedly affecting drama is a man forced to take a long, hard look at himself after a flippant comment about his girlfriend's appearance kills their relationship. Nobody's going to call Neil LaBute a redemptive playwright, and even in this reflective mood, he's not exactly forgiving about men's failings and women's weaknesses. But there's compassion and even tenderness running through this play that make it one of his best...LaBute makes plenty of gnawing observations about the different codes of honor among men and women. But it's when Carly -- a warehouse security guard and the one who blabbed to Steph about the incriminating comment -- turns to Greg, expecting the same degree of loyalty, that his bruising education becomes complete. The play's series of bristling confrontations and agonizing negotiations has a cumulative power...LaBute's writing also makes gains by abandoning his penchant for shocking twists, and by shifting from a cold professional sphere into a blue-collar environment.

Time Out NY A
(Adam Feldman) Insightful and absorbing...The contemptuous sneer so common to the playwright’s work yields to a more bittersweet expression: the tight-lipped, grin-and-bear-it mask of wisdom acquired too late...LaBute takes the old saw that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and gives it new teeth.

The Daily News A
(Joe Dziemianowicz) The bard of bad male behavior, Neil LaBute, is back with some ugly truths in his latest play, reasons to be pretty...In his Broadway debut, he rises above the formulaic to craft a play that's perceptive and believable. What makes this work different is that the author's main character learns something about himself...Since last year's run, the play, now a lean two hours, has had an excellent makeover. Gone are clunky and heavy-handed monologues, which puts the focus firmly on Greg. But the fierce observations, emotional fireworks and occasional thunderbolts of comic insight remain, making "reasons to be pretty" an incisive look at the tricky terrain of young relationships. Much of the accolades go to director Terry Kinney, who has deftly guided his cast through a minefield of feelings.

USA Today A
(Elysa Gardner) It takes a tender man to make plays as tough as Neil LaBute's. No contemporary writer has more astutely captured the brutality in everyday conversation and behavior; that kind of insight requires sensitivity and soul-searching. The empathy and moral conviction behind LaBute's cutting prose has never been more obvious than it is in Reasons to Be Pretty...Thomas Sadoski's wry, earthy Greg is certainly never a bore; there isn't a false note in his heartbreaking performance. The other actors also thrive under Terry Kinney's vigorous but careful direction...The playwright asks us less to judge these people than to consider what moves them, and us, to cause and feel pain — and why some of us are better at rising above it. None of this would matter, of course, if LaBute were a less entertaining writer. Reasons to Be Pretty is hardly a feel-good play, but it will make you feel, and think, more deeply about seemingly mundane things.

The Hollywood Reporter A
(Frank Scheck) Marking the playwright's belated Broadway debut, this lacerating and extremely funny work should appeal to younger theatergoers especially...LaBute's gift for comically nasty dialogue -- especially relating to the battle between the sexes -- is very much on display here...But the playwright also displays an unusually thoughtful side in this work while providing more complex characterizations than usual for him. While each of the four characters is given surprising aspects, it's the perpetually befuddled Greg, who alternates between typically jerkish male behavior and genuine vulnerability and sensitivity, who most fascinates. Credit must especially go to Sadoski, who invests his performance with a compelling soulfulness. Director Terry Kinney, repeating his chores from the play's previous off-Broadway production, has again elicited superb performances from his ensemble.

NY1 A
(Roma Torre) Even though it's not the prettiest of shows, "Reasons To Be Pretty" is looking awfully good on Broadway..."Reasons To Be Pretty" is a small, richly-layered work with a sharp focus on our obsession with beauty and all the ways that communication and truth can fail us...Once again, Thomas Sadoski is the main attraction and he is awesome, playing the comedy and tragedy of this sad soul for all its worth. Director Terry Kinney expertly mines all the nuances and humor embedded in every line of this insightful and mature work. Bravo to Neil LaBute - like his protagonist, the playwright has finally come of age.

American Theatre Web A-
(Andy Propst) Invigorating...For this Broadway incarnation of reasons, LaBute has streamlined his script, and although the initial scene might be off-putting for those encountering the piece for the first time (Ireland's fierceness during the play's opening moments makes Steph seems psychotic), reasons ultimately delivers a resounding emotional blow.

Bloomberg News B+
(John Simon) Ferociously funny...The dialogue couldn’t be snappier and psychologically more astute, as partings prove as fraught as pairings, with the bitterest resentment harboring nostalgic yearnings for reconciliation. This requires utmost versatility and agility from the young actors, who must be able to go instantly from fireworks to waterworks, as well as display emotional ambivalences with a prestidigitator’s skill. Under Terry Kinney’s clockwork direction, the cast spiritedly obliges...The now-omitted soliloquies, which seem to me LaBute’s only real Broadway change, are not greatly missed. The sophomoric yet provocative ambiguities are plentifully present in story and dialogue.

Bergen Record B+
(Robert Feldberg) Has its bumpy moments, including a scene in which Greg and Kent have it out physically, in a clichéd reversion to the boys’ world of previous LaBute plays. Ultimately, though, the playwright delivers the goods, in a work that’s lively and compulsively watchable and that offers a fresh take on the eternal matter of achieving adulthood.

Curtain Up B+
(Elyse Sommer) All four of those actors are terrific. Mr. LaBute rather extensive reworking of the script makes Thomas Sadoski's Greg even more the central character of this coming of age story. And Sadoski, who was excellent off-Broadway is even better now...The play has not, as rumors doing rehearsals had it, been cut to an intermissionless 90 minutes. However, it IS more streamlined with the thoughts expressed via audience-addressing monologues by each character now incorporated into the characters conversations. This makes for a more natural, less stage-y play...As always, LaBute has been blessed to have his story staged by a director (Terry Kinney) sufficiently attuned to his rhythms to keep things tense and surprising.

Village Voice B
(Michael Feingold) Two things hamper LaBute, though, as his story snowballs from the misreporting of an overheard remark into private quarrels, public scenes, adulteries, separations, petty revenges, and fistfights. One is that his preoccupation with life's minutiae seems to keep him from conveying the bigger matters involved more lucidly...The story shrinks, instead of gaining resonance, under the weight of so many reasons to be petty. Line for line, though, LaBute's writing is always vivid; you can see why actors go for it, and Terry Kinney's direction has evoked sharp, convincing performances from all four of his cast members. Only the play's constant search for effectiveness at the expense of meaning vitiates its energy: You're always distracted by wondering what would happen if the character exiting didn't pause at that exact moment to say or hear exactly the wrong thing.

Backstage B
(David Sheward) Why has it taken so long for the prolific playwright to find his way to the Main Stem? Putting aside economic factors, the main reason is probably his savage tone. Generally his characters rip each other apart in the relationship wars, but here he at least attempts a reconciliation between the sexes...Off-Broadway, under Terry Kinney's hyperrealistic direction, Reasons to Be Pretty had the feel of a documentary...In the transition to Broadway, there have been cast changes and script tightening—with mixed results....Still, the play remains a compelling look at hardscrabble lives, shallow perceptions, and the struggle for maturity. There are plenty of reasons to see Reasons.

Theatermania B-
(David Finkle) A "here-we-go-again" enterprise...Fortunately, its flaws are partially redeemed by its four-person cast: Thomas Sadoski, who has deepened his already probing performance as factory worker Greg, the intensely gifted Marin Ireland, who deserves to be kissed by the producers on the hem of her late-in-play asymmetrical skirt for immersing herself in the role of Greg's aggrieved girlfriend Steph, and Piper Perabo (the show's other holdover) and Steven Pasquale as married co-workers Carly and Kent, who also warrant kudos for their committed performances under Terry Kinney's acidly biting direction...The superb Sadoski, who makes Greg's self-examination painfully palpable right up to his fade-out look, is one of the main reasons that reasons is still worth watching.

Entertainment Weekly B-
(Melissa Rose Bernardo) An unsympathetic heroine saps the energy right out of rtbp, which marks the prolific playwright's Broadway debut and his third meditation on body image/beauty obsession...Though it wants for well-rounded characters, rtbp is still laced with LaBute's trademark acidity, not to mention fine performances. Pasquale is particularly impressive, the perfect rough-around-the-edges leading man. Let's hope producers remember him when they revive Fat Pig, the best of LaBute's body-image trilogy.

Lighting & Sound America C+
(David Barbour) As long as the invective -- a LaBute specialty -- is flying, Reasons to Be Pretty has a certain comic sting...Unfortunately, LaBute is unwilling to let us leave the theatre until we've all learned a lesson. Reasons to Be Pretty is meant to be the story of Greg's moral education, but, given Steph's insane overreaction to his remark, the real moral of the story seems to be that Greg needs to meet a better class of woman...LaBute excoriates his male characters for being obsessed with looks, but he doesn't seem to notice that his women are pathologically fragile and dependent on flattery...By the way, LaBute seems determined to preempt the charge that he is patronizing his characters. Almost defensively, he adds a program note, in which he discusses his deep empathy for them and their dead-end jobs. Next time, he might notice that not all of them exist in an emotional kindergarten.

AM New York C+
(Matt Windman) If you’ve seen one Neil LaBute play, you’ve more or less seen them all. All of his relationship dramas explore the same stuff – good people doing bad things, deceit, uncontrolled anger, misogyny, and violence – as told through a nonstop barrage of curse words...On the whole, the drama still feels flat and lacking. However, it does shun the cumbersome plot twists and turns that LaBute usually depends so heavily on...It must be admitted that Steppenwolf Theatre co-founder Terry Kinney has mounted a generally convincing and well-acted production. And LaBute deserves some credit for trying to engage in a cultural dialogue about our obsession with physical beauty.

Nytheatre.com C+
(Martin Denton) The soullessness of this serious comedy reflects the aloneness of this character...LaBute paints himself into a corner rather quickly, though; with only four characters in his play, and three of them utterly unlikable, the only thing that sustains us as we watch is Greg's possible triumph over his compadres. We root for him to escape, but he takes what seems to be a very long time to do so. The dialogue is sharply written, mostly nailing the casual Anytown, America sounds and rhythms of the blue-collar characters; the crowd-pleasing jokes feel inserted, though, and sitcom-like...Terry Kinney's staging is solidly naturalistic, except that he's apparently asked set designer David Gallo to provide a literalized representation of the Greg-is-trapped-in-Costco metaphor in the form of huge floor-to-ceiling shelves at the edges of the stage filled with boxes of products.

Newsday C
(Linda Winer) Almost shockingly slight and too eager for redemption to be provocative...The play is set somewhere grim in what the program calls "the outlying suburbs" and moves in short scenes from bedroom to factory lunchroom to food court. [Director Terry Kinney] wrings unbridled violent physicality from the hardworking cast. But for a guy who reads Poe and Hawthorne on his lunch break, Greg really should be deeper than this.

Wall Street Journal C-
(Terry Teachout) A kinder, gentler Neil LaBute, one who lets his hapless protagonist partway off the hook instead of letting him twist and turn all night long. That's what makes reasons to be pretty suitable for uptown consumption. It's Mr. LaBute's first semioptimistic play -- which turns out not to be a good thing...If you've never seen any of Mr. LaBute's plays, you might well find this one fresh, but this is the sixth one I've reviewed, and I'm sorry to say that his style has hardened into a set of tricks and mannerisms that he uses to say the same things over and over again.

New York Post D+
(Elisabeth Vincentelli) Underneath the profanity, hot-button issues and general hostility lurks a fairly conventional treatment of well-trodden themes. LaBute's plays would rock only the tipsiest boat -- which says more about American theater than it does about him...[A] climactic all-out fistfight is as expected and ultimately bittersweet as the hero's deflowering in a teen movie. Sadly, the scene doesn't quite pack the necessary punch (literal and otherwise), and neither does the play as a whole...In many ways, Greg is the physical materialization of LaBute's writing. Like Greg brawling with Kent in front of their softball teammates, LaBute is engaging in a public confrontation with his own macho past.

The New Yorker D
(Hilton Als) [LaBute is] more interested in the relationship between the two men than in those between the couples. (His first film, “In the Company of Men,” involved a similar dynamic.) Kent is the annoying alpha male to Greg’s more compliant sidekick—at first. And if there’s a touch of homoeroticism in Kent’s bullying big-brother approach to Greg’s more nuanced thinking, then Kent is the last to know it. He is a meathead who understands that his physical strength and his resistance to thought are terribly attractive to women—or, at any rate, to women who conflate masculinity with insensitivity, and enjoy being objectified. The women in Kent’s life get turned on by their own moral superiority as much as they do by his slablike fingers slapping their fannies. He’s a cuter Andrew Dice Clay, and, the night I attended the show, women laughed as uproariously at his sexism as they did at Steph’s cluelessness. It’s as if LaBute’s—by now canned and adolescent—“transgressive” point of view were what audiences needed in order to feel anarchic, to shed the boring safety of their lives.

New York F
(Stephanie Zacharek) Ostensibly mines some rich, complex subjects: the delicate nature of women's feelings about their own looks; men's capacity for deceit and selfish cruelty, or just plain cluelessness; and the inability of men and women to bridge the gap that eternally divides them. But for LaBute, subjects take precedence over people, and they circle this play...like hungry lions in search of characters to eat. What's left, in the end, are a pile of bones and a few indigestible scraps of something that sounds an awful lot like a master's thesis. Its title might be "Male-Female Relationships: The Dark Side"...LaBute wants us to face, with bitter laughter, the uglier aspects of human nature. But he doesn't love his characters, beyond the fact that they serve his purpose. It's no wonder the performers here—directed by Terry Kinney—have trouble fleshing out those characters. They're not acting, they're delivering material; and they have no chance of outrunning the lion.

The New York Times A+ 14; Associated Press A+ 14; Talkin' Broadway A+ 14; Variety A 13; Time Out NY A 13; The Daily News A 13; USA Today A 13; The Hollywood Reporter A 13; NY1 A 13; American Theatre Web A- 12; Bloomberg News B+ 11; Bergen Record B+ 11; Curtain Up B+ 11; VV B 10; Backstage B 10; Theatermania B- 9; Entertainment Weekly B- 9; LS&A C+ 8; AM New York C+ 8; Nytheatre.com C+ 8; Newsday C 7; Wall Street Journal C- 6; New York Post D+ 5; New Yorker D 4; New York F 1; 249/25=9.96 (B)

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The Third Story

GRADE: C+

By Charles Busch. Directed by Carl Andress. MCC at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. (CLOSED)

High expectations may have set up Charles Busch's ambitious new genre- and gender-hopping romp for a fall, as many critics expected sparks to fly between the creator of Die, Mommy, Die! and certified diva Kathleen Turner. In the play's complicated three-layered structure, though, Turner plays a Midwestern screenwriter trying to make peace with her son by co-writing stories--in which Busch appears in various fantastic guises. Some loyal Busch fans warmed to the effort despite quibbles, but several other critics were openly disappointed. Meme watch: The word "crazy quilt" appeared in two (favorable) reviews.

Hartford Courant A
The actor-playwright Charles Busch has created an ingenious, laugh-packed jumble in "The Third Story," in which he doubles as "the undisputed first lady of crime" and a kindly old witch...Turner, who has become a queen of the New York stage, as an actor and director, proves a fine partner for Busch. She exhibits expert comic timing, and a persuasive realism as Peg, neatly pairing with Walker, who transforms himself instantly from the laid-back Drew into the hard-boiled, if claustrophobic Steve. As always in the drag roles he writes for himself, Busch is a pleasure to watch...But all six actors shine under the sharp direction of Andress..."The Third Story" proves a treat and throbs with heart as well.

Village Voice A-
(Michael Feingold) This is rich food; not surprisingly, palates accustomed to the thin gruel that today's theater too often serves up have grimaced at it. It's also, let's face the fact, hearty peasant cuisine—a thick stew, the chewy ingredients and peppery flavor of which may not appeal to fastidious tastes. Nor is it dished up with much elegance...The cast's likability partly makes up for these shortfalls...The main joy of The Third Story is that its foolery embodies something substantive, making its occasional unevenness easy to bear. Like that good peasant food, it sticks to your ribs. Jung says somewhere that the psychic "work" accomplished by myths and fairy tales doesn't occur on the story's realistic, psychological, or allegorical level; it's in the energy created as our minds move among the three. No wonder The Third Story feels like such an energizing event.

Bloomberg News A-
(Jeremy Gerard) ) The result is a romp with all the expected Busch ingredients: plenty of campy humor, double and triple entendres, the playwright doubling in two drag roles. As a blowsy '40s screenwriter facing obsolescence with a wink and a tumbler or four of bourbon, Turner adds earthy humor, sensational style and an undercurrent of poignancy...Under Carl Andress’s confident ringmaster direction, the excesses, fortunately and endearingly, are reserved for the actors...It’s silly to complain that the writing, too, is excessive; with Busch it’s in for a dime, in for a dollar. Carving 20 minutes from the running time would probably help, but in truth I wasn’t counting.

CurtainUp B+
(Simon Saltzman) Busch, in his latest opus, is not channeling the likes of Crawford, Stanwyck or Davis, but rather existing as a living repository of all their most identifiable traits, postures and expressions. These have all been extracted and absorbed into a crazy quilt that is far more ambitious in scope than such past drag-immersed works as The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and Psycho Beach Party...Simply put: Psychological profundity meets psychopathic lunacy. Now whether his aim and ambition have been translated into a good play is the fourth story. It remains in question.

Theatermania B+
(Sandy MacDonald) Even if not every element of this complex play quite holds together, this is one inventive crazy-quilt...Turner starts off strong, in fine Auntie Mame style, but quickly loses energy...Of course, the real reason anyone goes to see a Charles Busch play is to see the master himself parade a paper doll's worth of fabulous retro fashions (these are by Gregory Gale), while rattling off, with exemplary "R-less" mid-century elocution, snappy one-liners lifted from the tropes of long-forgotten films. There's plenty of that marvelous material here...In the midst of all the mayhem, though, Busch even manages to drive home some touching apercus about the turmoil that all parents -- and mentors -- must undergo as they struggle to unclench. For all its laughs, The Third Story proves to be a warm and humane work as well.

Broadway Blog B+
(Michael Dale) Buried beneath the zigzagging plot is a theme about obsessive mothers, I'm sure, but as a play with a message, The Third Story gets a little muddy. But with the playwright gracefully indulging in his expert brand of elegant movie queen spoofery, Turner landing dry one-liners with throaty panache and Scott Parkinson contributing a very funny turn as a character named Zygote - a failed cloning experiment who, among other malformations, has a rather untraditional digestive tract - it does succeed nicely as entertainment.

The New York Times B
(Ben Brantley) Often entertaining and just as often overwhelming...Brightly enacted by the entire cast...these plays-within-the-play also ponder the notion of the Dostoyevskian double, types of maternal love, the quandaries of powerful women in a man’s world and, above all, fiction as a means of arriving at the truth...The good news is that the sprawl and variety of this set-up allow Mr. Busch and company to explore and explode all sorts of vintage cinema clichés, an activity at which Mr. Busch is without peer. Unfortunately, the framing story of Peg and Drew takes its clichés more seriously—and plies them with less confidence—as mother and son learn to accept and value each other. This means that Ms. Turner, who has the least to do in the fantasy sequences, gets the short end of the stick, though she holds on to it tenaciously...Everything that is spelled out rather laboriously in the scenes with Peg and Drew is implicit in the very style of the movie fantasy sequences. Mr. Busch doesn’t need to footnote or deconstruct what he does.

American Theatre Web B
(Andy Propst) It's a rich assortment of tales that all double back to the conflicts that Peg and Drew are trying to resolve. The stories also begin to overlap as the writers' feelings about one another and their work evolve...What's unfortunate is that for all of the careful thought that's clearly gone into "Third Story," and many terrific performances, director Carl Andress' production never spirals to the point of utter hilarity nor to the point of insightful contemplation found in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, a similar sort of exercise in fractured narrative. Instead, "Story" meanders from moment to moment.

Newsday B-
(Linda Winer) Certainly there was the potential for histrionic - even historic - outrageousness in a femme-fatale smackdown between big-boned old-style Hollywood goddesses with baritone voices...Busch, the gender-illusion master of "Die Mommie Die!" and "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom," always maintains an endearing let's-put-on-a-show spirit that, even in this lesser piece, belies the meticulous craft. He plays both the "queen of the mob" (in Gregory Gale's wasp-waist accordion pleated suit) and the old witch who conjures up a perfect clone of the crippled princess (Sarah Rafferty) to woo the prince. Busch says more with a curled lip than many plays - even some of his own - say in a whole evening of talk...But the story-within-a-story-within-a-story is more dull than demented. "Let's not get too subtle," says Turner. No danger here.

Theatre News Online B-
(Bill Stevenson) Only sporadically entertaining. Busch is in fine form as a hard-boiled mob queen, employing expert timing and his patented tough-broad delivery that recalls straight-talking Hollywood dames like Barbra Stanwyck and Joan Crawford. But Busch's plot, which involves three storylines, is a convoluted mess...The result is a mishmash of genres, themes, and acting styles. Busch's ambitious concept is interesting but proves to be unwieldy. He seems to have spent too long figuring out how to interweave the stories and not enough time coming up with brisk dialogue...It's a bad sign, though, when the outfits are more amusing than most of the dialogue.

NY1 B-
(David Cote) Drag queen-playwright Charles Busch may spin out yards of flashy narrative threads in his ambitious new comedy The "Third Story," but they don't add up to a fabulous new dress - it's more like a shapeless muumuu with a bland pattern. Busch explores the ways in which storytelling conceals and reveals truth, but his scattershot approach only ensures a lot of head scratching between chuckles...I can't blame you if you can't follow the plot. The dense, ridiculous story-within-a-story approach of "The Third Story" may be deliberate, but it's exhausting...At the very least, there's plenty of high-grade camp on display in "The Third Story." Busch can get laughs from the slightest smirk or wink. But next time, I hope he'll stick to one story, and tell that one better.

Lighting & Sound America B-
(David Barbour) Never let it be said that Charles Busch, the playwright and star, doesn't challenge himself...The many plots of The Third Story are worlds apart, and yet they're mysteriously alike...Busch is aided in this bizarre story hour by a most enthusiastic and pitch-perfect cast, as directed by Carl Andress...Busch is at his comic best when he's analyzing the clichés of standard movie genres with the acuity of a Jane Goodall studying the minute details of ape behavior. But Peg's screenplay is a weird mélange of cinematic conventions that's like no film ever seen at Grauman's Chinese, or anywhere else on earth...Still, the production is stylish, thanks to that cast and a highly creative design team...The Third Story is one of Busch's most ambitious works, but it's not one of his best.

Variety C+
(David Rooney) A production headlining Kathleen Turner opposite peerless drag performer and Hollywood parodist Charles Busch might appear to offer the tantalizing promise of dueling divas in the tradition of "Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte" or "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" In Busch's structurally ambitious but muddled "The Third Story," however, the two stars barely collide or even seem to be in the same play, despite the carefully mirrored themes of its elaborate triple plot. It's always a treat to watch Busch in one of his wisecracking glamourpuss turns, but this overreaching effort is a watery cocktail trying to pass for a more potent dirty martini...In Carl Andress' lumpy, oddly tentative production, the play's multiple strands never come together into a unifying tone.

Time Out NY C+
(David Cote) Multiple narrative threads do not a fabulous frock make in Charles Busch’s ambitious but awkward new comedy...The author and costar certainly gets credit for trying to balance so busy and complicated a structure (and in heels, no less), but the outré plot contortions outweigh any human drama between Turner and Walker. If you find yourself wondering why to care, there is at least plenty of high-grade camp on display: As we know, Busch can get laughs from the merest smirk or innuendo-laden inflection. He and his zestful players spin plenty of yarn; now someone has to mend the loom.

Nytheatre.com C+
(Martin Denton) Busch does sort the muddle out, but it's not particularly persuasive or satisfying storytelling, and finally the proceedings don't seem to point to anything except a middling-good time for Busch...and the rest of the actors. Foremost among these is Kathleen Turner, who post-Virginia Woolf has learned to dominate a stage even when she's competing with the likes of a Charles Busch in his own play; she definitely steals this show, creating a rich and interesting character in Peg beyond what the script really supports...The result is an evening that's not unpleasant, but not particularly memorable and, alas, certainly not especially funny.

Just Shows To Go You C
(Patrick Lee) Kathleen Turner has rarely seemed above sending herself up. Her casting opposite Charles Busch in his new play would seem to promise a lip-smacking treat - a match made in camp heaven between a drag icon who adores Hollywood screen women and a game, one-time real-life Hollywood siren. One of The Third Story’s many disappointments is that it confines Turner almost entirely to a (relatively straight) framing story where her grand theatricality is a liability rather than an asset: her throaty voice and broad delivery are at odds with what’s needed to put over her material...The Busch scenes are more lively than the Turner ones, and the supporting cast has the right arched eyebrow style for them, but the play’s structure forbids comic momentum.

Associated Press C
(Michael Kuchwara) There's a lot of plot in "The Third Story," maybe one tale too many in Charles Busch's overstuffed mixture of mother-son soap opera, '40s film noir, science fiction and Russian folk legend...It's too bad Busch is not the total focus of attention here. This convoluted story is framed by a mother-son Hollywood scriptwriting team, played by Kathleen Turner and Jonathan Walker. The setting is Omaha, circa 1949, where the son has gone to get away from his grasping mother and start life anew as a mailman...You have to admire Busch's quick costume changes and the man certainly has an affection for old Hollywood, particularly the ladies who worked on- and off-screen. But this time around that love has been translated into an overly complicated theatrical valentine.

DC Theatre Scene C
(Richard Seff) It has so much plot that I’m still picking my way through its underbrush three days after seeing it...There are occasional laughs in this piece, but they are separated by long monologues that wander, and by unreal dialogue that seems to go on forever. Mr. Busch has more fun with the evening, for he’s in the fantasy part, and he knows how to make merry with facial expressions, gestures, and the occasional dance step that would never do in a realistic story. Poor Ms. Turner, fine actress that she is, tries to bring truth to her screenwriter Peg, but with truth comes loss of humor.

New York Post C-
(Frank Scheck) The thought of Kathleen Turner and Charles Busch onstage together incites delicious anticipation of camp heaven...Alas, "The Third Story" promises more than it delivers. When one of its characters says, "I apologize for the length of this anecdote," he might just as well be referring to Busch's latest effort, an overstuffed, overlong and underfunny parody of at least two genres too many...Busch's talent for outrageous spoofery is in little evidence here and, despite his typically entertaining dual turns, the evening is as much of a drag as his attire...While several of the performers have fun with their colorful roles, Turner is disappointingly subdued. And Busch's effort to unify his crisscrossed tales via a common theme of obsessive parental love doesn't come off.

New York C-
(Scott Brown) A messy excess that sets the stage for more messy excesses, [Third Story] features not one but two famous female impersonators: Busch himself and Kathleen Turner, nature’s drag queen...Turns out Turner and Busch don’t double so much as crowd each other: Dame Kathleen’s sleepy-grumpy, kiss-my-ass irascibility clashes with Lady Charles’s fringe-y brio. In fact, there’s at least one too many of everything in The Third Story: too many stories, too many themes, too many declarations of purpose in this herniated interrogation of the writing process (and, Q.E.D., Busch’s failure to make that process work this time around).

Talkin' Broadway D+
(Matthew Murray) Of the four stories that collide here like a four-car freeway pileup, none merits even so much as momentary rubbernecking. That Busch, the reigning monarch of elegant Off-Broadway camp, could derive such dreariness from such a potentially juicy subject as Hollywood's obsession with treacly family topics shoehorned into any genre is as unfortunate as it is unexpected...Even when Drew and Peg's relationship becomes the evening's dramatic anchor, the play is never moving. And because, unlike much of Busch's frothier work, the characters aren't developed past the storyboard stage, the play is almost never funny. Busch's unblinking, camera-fellating takes are, as always, good for a chuckle or two...Everyone else comes across more eggy than they do hard-boiled.

Daily News D+
(Joe Dziemianowicz) A labored affair by Busch about mother love and letting go. There are laughs and jazzy designs, but the play, composed of three overlapping tales, is too complicated for the payoff and at 2½ hours is as padded as the shoulders on a '40s frock...Comedy fares best when it's streamlined. Here though, the three parallel stories don't build upon each other, but flabbily restate what's already been covered.

Talk Entertainment D
(Oscar E. Moore) When Charles Busch is good he is very, very good, but when he’s bad–yes I know it should read–he’s even better. But in this case he is unfortunately not. I am still convalescing over my disappointment with Mr. Busch’s latest effort – “The Third Story”. It’s complicated, convoluted, too long and not up to his high comic standards. Both in his writing and in his performance. Do I dare say it’s boring?

The Record D
(Robert Feldberg) Succeeds neither as high-spirited burlesque nor as a camp-classic take on a familiar film genre. The old wit and comic magic are missing, and even the presence of Kathleen Turner, who might seem a natural stage adversary, doesn't help...As these plots connect and collide, with lots of talk, but little that's funny, the evening begins to have a numbing effect. Busch the writer's attempts to say something psychologically fresh about parent-child relationships are especially dreary. Busch the actor provides what comic pleasure there is, through his inimitable performing style of exaggerated grimaces, stately poses and ripe line readings.

New Yorker D
A convoluted bore...The parallel plots bounce similar motifs off alternating fun-house mirrors, but the effect, rather than revelatory, is simply repetitive; no amount of clever doubling can compensate for the thinness of the emotional through-line.

Hartford Courant A 13; Village Voice A- 12; Bloomberg News A- 12; CurtainUp B+ 11; Theatermania B+ 11; The New York Times B 10; American Theatre Web B 10; Broadway Blog B 10; Newsday B- 9; TNO B- 9; NY1 B- 9; L&SA B- 9; Variety C+ 8; TONY C+ 8; Nytheatre.com C+ 8; Just Shows To Go You C 7; Associated Press C 7; DC Theatre Scene C 7; New York Post C- 6; Ne York C- 6; Talkin' Broadway D+ 5; Daily News D+ 5; Talk Entertainment D 4; The Record D 4; New Yorker D 4; 204/25=8.16 (C+)

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Fifty Words

GRADE: B-

By Michael Weller. Dir. Austin Pendleton. MCC at the Lucille Lortel. (CLOSED)

Weller's new marital scrimmage drew raves for actors Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz, as an increasingly unhappy couple spending a long night's journey into day. But even critics who rated the production and actors highly were less sure about the play's merits, and some found it, as Daily News' Joe Dziemianowicz memorably put it, less a "roller coaster" than a "roller jerker."

AP A
(Michael Kuchwara) It's the fierce way this combative couple fight that propels Fifty Words, Michael Weller's blistering, highly theatrical examination of a husband and wife seeking to sort out and make sense of their life together. That theatricality is heightened by the casting of Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel as the vituperative partners. They are a pair of superb actors willing to take intense emotional and physical leaps into scary, take-no-prisoners territory.

Variety A-
(David Rooney) Marriage is no walk in the park in Fifty Words, Michael Weller's incisive closeup of the emotional battleground of contemporary relationships, in which most audiences with any experience of cohabitation—and any shred of honesty—will recognize themselves in either one or the other or perhaps both of the people who make up the couple onstage...Austin Pendleton's taut production for MCC referees gladiatorial performances from Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel that make it impossible to look away.

Talkin' Broadway B+
(Matthew Murray) Under other circumstances the nonstop fighting and making up by making out might grow dangerously repetitive. But Weller's slashing writing reveals these characters' hot-blooded insides in a way that defuses familiarity, even when the issues between Jan and Adam take a sharper-than-ideal turn toward the prosaic.

Time Out NY B+
(Adam Feldman) Although the dance-of-death setup is familiar by now...Weller's crisp, candid dialogue is an effective conflict-delivery system for Fifty Words's dynamic cast of two...Both actors clearly love their jobs. And it is this love, more than any other onstage, that keeps us engaged through Weller's 95 minutes of wedded blitz.

Curtain Up B+
(Elyse Sommer) With the divorce rate continuing to rise as fast as the national debt the subject of dysfunctional marriages is ever relevant, but that's not what makes Fifty Words a fresh and intense theatrical experience. The reason to see the MCC production is that Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel are sheer dynamite as the latest pair of battling spouses to veer from loving to biting conversation, from tender to more violent embraces, from mutual admiration to hurtful putdowns.

Theater News Online B+
(Matt Windman) Even if you find that Weller's text descends into melodrama or a traditional battle of the sexes, Austin Pendleton has staged a gripping production with two nuanced, naturalistic, occasionally violent performances by Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel.

New York Times B
(Ben Brantley) If Fifty Words is limited in scope, it also has a gimlet eye, providing meticulously chosen, artfully integrated details that let us understand why its characters so love and loathe each other...I don't know how engrossing I would have found this protracted apache dance if it hadn't been brought to such authentic and unsparing life by [Norbert Leo] Butz, [Elizabeth] Marvel and Mr. Pendleton.

NY Press B
(Mark Peikert) Elizabeth Marvel [is] having a ball on stage and dripping with venom and vulnerability as Jan in Michael Weller's new two-hander. Lobbing insults and projectiles at Norbert Leo Butz as her architect husband, Marvel's Jan grows from an overworked wife and mother into a woman exuding the cruel power of a heroine in a Greek tragedy.

Newsday B-
(Linda Winer) This is the sort of two-character acting display called a 'two-fister,' and in Michael Weller's 95-minute marriage tragedy, there really are fists...The actors are stupendous at delineating big and delicate mood swings. The problem is that, despite Marvel's courageous subtleties, Weller has stacked the deck against his female character. Everyone may be pretending that this is an even fight, but, as written, the wife is hateful.

Theatermania C+
(David Finkle) Were Elizabeth Marvel and Leo Norbert Butz [sic] not so fearless and Austin Pendleton's direction less ferocious, there would be little to say for MCC Theater's production...Weller writes convincing dialogue for two smart and accomplished people who know each other so well they can quickly locate every pushable button. But convincing dialogue doesn't necessarily equate with a convincing play. Underlying the vicious verbal and physical exchanges is the persistent but inaccurate belief that what constitutes a truly profound connection between a man and a woman is their ability to fight productively.

NY Post C
(Frank Scheck) The play never quite convinces, due to endless, quicksilver tonal shifts: This is one couple that can veer from post-coital bliss to brutal attacks within seconds. Under Austin Pendleton's sturdy direction, both actors deliver fiercely passionate and highly physical performances that go a long way toward overcoming the writing's rough patches, even though all that roughhousing makes you fear for their safety.

Back Stage C
(Gwen Orel) By turns truthful, bittersweet, and compelling, it's also flat, unsurprising, and not theatrical, except for an extended topless scene with elements of farce. For some, merely watching two characters played with commitment and courage by two fine actors battle it out, leaving no holds barred, will be more than enough. Others will demand a little bit more theatricality in the drama.

Village Voice C-
(Michael Feingold) Elizabeth Marvel and Norbert Leo Butz work in seemingly opposite ways...but their dueling approaches make this aesthetic sparring match far more riveting than the one in Weller's chronicle of one worst-case night in a failed marriage. Though, as usual, some of the scenic detours in his dialogue are intriguing, Weller's script is basically just another spousal-recrimination fiesta; you might describe it as the all-biped remake of Albee's The Goat—a work in which Marvel and Butz might get juicier results.

NJ Star-Ledger C-
(Michael Sommers) Believably navigating the drama's physical and emotional demands, Marvel and Butz skillfully illuminate their characters' contrasting senses of misery. Yet for all of the conversational ease of Weller's dialogue, the play's situation and development look contrived. Perhaps worse, the characters—particularly the madly ambivalent Janine—are basically dreary people whom viewers are unlikely to root for.

Daily News D
(Joe Dzeimianowicz) You could call the performance a roller coaster, but that suggests an exhilarating experience. This is a roller jerker, lurching from one emotion to the next over the course of 95 minutes, doubling back, negating what's just been said or done. If it's meant to be a slice of realism, a smog of artificiality constantly hangs over the play...Butz and Marvel are excellent actors, but are ultimately hamstrung by the material.

Bloomberg News F
(John Simon) Why do two accomplished actors and one multitalented director...go for this stuff? Because it lends itself to an unbridled display of acting and directing exercises...If histrionics were drama, Fifty Words could run forever.

AP A 13; Variety A- 12; Talkin' Broadway B+ 11; Time Out NY B+ 11; Curtain Up B+ 11; Theater News Online B+ 11; New York Times B 10; NY Press B 10; Newsday B- 9; Theatermania C+ 8; NY Post C 7; Back Stage C 7; Village Voice C- 6; NJ Star-Ledger C- 6; Daily News D 4; Bloomberg News F 1; TOTAL: 137 / 16 = 8.56 (B-)

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