Status Critical - A Coupla Bway Revivals

[From Movie Grouch]

With regard to the wretched Broadway Revival of ALL MY SONS: how do I hate thee? Let me not count the ways. Okay, aside from a few insightful moments from John Lithgow, an energetic adolescent turn by Michael D'Addario as Bert, and the sight of a very buff Patrick Wilson with his shirt off at the top of Act II, this must be the worst evening of impure theatre since HOME SWEET HOMER, which at least had better music. My heart ached for poor Dianne Wiest; my brain burned for the Aesthetic Police to stand director Simon McBurney against the nearest Broadway brick wall and shoot his talentless ass off. Oh gee, I almost forgot -- Mrs. Tom Cruise has the stage chops of a deviled egg left out in August humidity all day long. Arthur Miller must be so pleased that he has been dead for ages. If only I could think of a review as terrific as Arthur Bell's "Miss it with someone you love." In any case, please, please, please MISS IT!

In stark contrast to the Adoration of the Paparazzi for the despicable ALL MY SONS (there were six police cars in front of the theatre and squads of goons monitoring entrance by the lowly ticket-buying populace) is the critical coverage of the Broadway revival of A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS by Robert Bolt. The once-upon-a-time interesting if unreliable coverage by The New York Times has suffered not only from a massive exodus of readers to the Internet, but also from the self-aggrandizing blathering by Ben Brantley in his review of the play for this financially troubled publication. John Lahr, the critic we formerly relied upon to express his opinion clearly and concisely in The New Yorker, made himself into a putrefied shrimp by first demolishing the theme and structure of Bolt's play, and then shifting unaccountably into a personal attack on the performance of Frank Langella as Sir Thomas More. Langella's skillful emphasis on creation of moment-to-moment reality and other apparent “nonsense,” such as details of text, audience response to the fine points of a specific performance, and careful direction by Doug Hughes of supporting performances -- notably the sensitive and gifted actors playing both Ridge and Cromwell -- alert us to the sad loss of great critical minds such as John Simon and Harold Clurman, even when they were infuriating. The best we can expect these days from our self-styled "critical" establishment is a report on where in the house Tom Cruise sat, although even he must by now be bored by the terrible production of ALL MY SONS.