AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Updates for October 27, 2008 - 9:33AM EST

ny1

Time Out Theater Review: "To Be Or Not To Be"

Village Voice

All My Sons Gets Gimmicky, To Be or Not to Be Goes Flat, and Kindness Rides the Downbeat by Michael Feingold

Updates for October 19, 2008

New York Journal-News

Outrageous fortune among the Nazis
Based on the splendid World War II movie of the same name, "To Be Or Not to Be" skids off the tracks quickly and just gets worse. It could make your flesh crawl. Unfortunately, it purports to be a comedy

nytheatre.com

Review: To Be or Not to Be

Wall Street Journal

Miller's 'Sons,' Cruise's Wife
"All My Sons" is a windy production, in which Simon McBurney commits first-degree directorial malpractice. [also reviewed: 'To Be or Not to Be', 'Noises Off' in Cleveland]

CurtainUp

Review: To Be Or Not To Be
I couldn't help wondering what ErnstLubitsch, known for his souffle-like touch, would say if he were around to see this. My guess is that he would utter a pained "Ach, Nein" and probably be glad his name isn't mentioned in the program credits. .

Time Out New York

Review: To Be or Not to Be
You can rent the vastly superior 1942 Ernst Lubitsch movie or shell out $96.50 for this dud. Hello, Netflix?

Bloomberg.com

Nazi Goons Strut Through `To Be'; `Clay' Unveils New Talent: Jeremy Gerard
The show in rehearsal at the ``Polski Theatre'' when the curtain goes up on ``To Be or Not to Be'' is called ``A Gift From Hitler.'' The comedy is about to open, it's 1939 Warsaw, and Germany is preparing to invade.

Back Stage

To Be or Not To Be reviewed by David Sheward
Unfortunately, Manhattan Theatre Club's adaptation of the 1942 screwball comedy To Be or Not to Be literally plunks the screenplay down onstage and falls flat.

First Night Reviews

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review - To Be or Not to Be - Besting the Gestapo, Implausibly

New York Times

Greasepaint Can Be Mightier Than Pen or Sword
This walking corpse of a comedy has the spring, color and freshness of long-refrigerated celery.

New York Daily News

'To Be or Not to Be' is not the answer
Joe Dziemianowicz: Long before "The Producers" and "Hogan's Heroes" goofed on the Gestapo, Ernst Lubitsch turned the idea into screwball comedy in his 1942 film "To Be or Not to Be." Six decades later, the comedy arrives on Broadway.

amNY New York City Theater Blog

Theater Review of To Be or Not To Be

Newsday

Review: 'To Be or Not to Be' on Broadway
"To be or not to be" is not the question. Why? Now that's the question.

New York Post

Dull direction, dowdy set, and no Jack Benny
Wending my way through impenetrable Eighth Ave nue traffic the other day, I couldn't think of anything worse than missing the first 10...

Hartford Courant

New York Stage: Review Of 'To Be Or Not To Be'

Star-Ledger

'To Be or Not To Be': It's questionable

Bergen Record

Broadway review: "To Be or Not to Be"
...this shabby, pinched little production, which has more than a whiff of summer stock.

Associated Press

'To Be or Not to Be' Receives a Wan Adaptation
The fall theater season is still young, but Nick Whitby's ''To Be or Not to Be'' may turn out to be the most unnecessary Broadway production of the year.

Reuters / Hollywood Reporter

"To Be or Not to Be" should not have been

Variety

Review: To Be or Not to Be
Film critics have tried for the past 80 years or so to define the magic of the Lubitsch touch. Urbane humor, visual wit, sophistication, innuendo and charm were all factors, but subtlety was surely the key component -- that incomparable touch was unvaryingly a light one. So one of the most disheartening things about British playwright Nick Whitby's lumbering stage adaptation of "To Be or Not to Be" is the heavy hand that's been brought to bear on the 1942 comedy about a Polish theater troupe outwitting the Nazis in occupied Warsaw.

Philadelphia Inquirer

Bardly comedy and Nazi tragedy
In the amusing, feather-light To Be or Not to Be, a world-premiere comedy that opened last night on Broadway, there's a little of everything and it all adds up to a modest whole.

TheaterMania

Review: To Be or Not to Be
This new theatrical adaptation of the beloved Ernst Lubitsch film is simply inadequate.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: To Be or Not to Be
It’s one of our greatest modern ironies that the deplorable actions of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis have led to such choice comedy. Sometimes great evil, like great corruption or great political expediency, can only be exposed through humor - what better way than laughter to recover from spirit-wrenching pain? . . .