AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

TheaterMania

Review: 9 to 5
Allison Janney gives a marvelously charismatic performance in this sturdy if unexceptional musical version of the film about a trio of strong-willed secretaries.
[this is my review for this one]

New York Times

Sisterhood vs. Boss, on a New Battlefield
This gaudy, empty musical feels assembled by an shopaholic who looked around at the tourist-drawing hits of the last decade and said: “I want some of that. And that. Ooh, and can I have that, too?”

New York Daily News

Dolly's tunes work in '9 to 5'
A souped-up Xerox machine sits front and center in the feminism-flavored musical cartoon "9 to 5," which is based on the 1980 film that spawned two sitcoms.

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of 9 to 5: The Musical
“9 to 5” had the potential to be a great musical comedy. And while faint hints of a crowd-pleaser occasionally occur, sitting through this faithful adaptation feels as tiresome as a long day at the office.

Newsday

Review: '9 to 5'
'9 to 5" is a female-empowerment theme-park musical - complete with a spunky Dolly Parton impersonator and lots of faceless scenery that might as well have been moving animatronics.
* Photos

New York Post

Parton's musical works
The star can barely sing or dance, the composer's never written for Broad way before -- and the whole thing's based on a 1980...

ny1

NY1 Theater Review: "9 To 5"
"9 To 5" is the workaholic of Broadway musicals, trying in every way to entertain its audience with decidedly mixed results. I kept thinking of Kander and Ebb's lyrics - "Give 'em the old razzle dazzle... give 'em act with lots of flash in it and the reaction will be passionate." As a musical, "9 To 5" is pretty flimsy stuff but credit is due to a very talented company that works overtime to sell it.

Associated Press

A Crowd-Pleasing '9 to 5' Arrives on Broadway
Durn. You kinda want ''9 to 5: The Musical'' to be better than it is.

Wall Street Journal

The End of a Long Wait
The Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of "Waiting for Godot" is beautifully simple and straightforward -- and very, very funny. [Also includes '9 to 5']

Bloomberg.com

Nathan Lane Tramps Through `Godot,' `9-5' Sings Hello, Dolly: John Simon
Capped by a memorable comic performance from Nathan Lane, the Roundabout Theatre Company has solidly revived Samuel Beckett’s seminal 1953 play, “Waiting for Godot.”

USA Today

Accessible 'Godot,' absurd '9 to 5' round out Broadway season ...

Variety

Review: 9 to 5: The Musical
...If the material showcasing the trio is an uneven cut-and-paste job that struggles to recapture the movie's giddy estrogen rush, plenty of folks will nonetheless find this a nostalgic crowd-pleaser.

Hollywood Reporter

Theater Review: 9 to 5: The Musical
Bottom Line: You'd be better off watching the movie while listening to Dolly's new album.

BackStage

9 to 5 reviewed by Erik Haagensen
Blessed with a terrific company of comic actors and led by three absolutely stellar performances, "9 to 5" is unquestionably entertaining and likely to be pleasing Broadway audiences for some time.

Chicago Tribune Theater Loop Blog

Dolly Parton on Broadway: '9 to 5' has its moments but short-changes its stars
But like many musicals spawned from movies, “9 to 5” doesn’t establish a cohesive theatrical pallet, nor does it unleash itself sufficiently from its cinematic source. It also doesn’t trust its own retro setting or embrace its own storytelling, and ultimately dissolves into a digitally enhanced and over-produced re-creation of famous scenes from the film

Talkin' Broadway

Review: 9 to 5
Can’t decide between an evening at home with Netflix and a night at the theatre? With the new musical that just opened at the Marquis, you can have both at the same time!

 

A mix of high comedy and irrepressible tragedy weaves through Samuel Beckett's landmark play Waiting for Godot. In the play, two tramps may wait endlessly on a barren plain for a character who never arrives, but as they do, their banter and physical hi-jinks call to mind a range of comedians from the early part of the twentieth century. At the same time, these characters' plights are painfully emblematic of a futility in man's day-to-day existence.

In director Anthony Page's revival of "Godot" that opened last night at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Studio 54, the comedy of Beckett's play shines through. How could it not? The cast is led by Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, who play the tramps Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi) respectively, and they're joined by John Goodman, who plays Pozzo, a vicious, pompous and seemingly well-to-do man who crosses the plain (more of a rocky vale in Santo Loquasto's scenic design), with his cruelly maltreated servant, ironically named Lucky (John Glover).

The play allows audiences to witness two days in Didi and Gogo's lives in which the events are strangely, and sadly, similar. They meet after having spent an evening sleeping in separate places; Gogo bloodied from a beating that he received overnight. They attempt to pass the time by confirming they're in the right spot, and by attempting to come up with diversions for themselves. At one point, Gogo suggests, for instance, that they could hang themselves from the leafless tree that's amid the boulders and sand. Such is the gallows humor of "Godot."

Their reprieve from the monotony of their routine comes when the other two men arrive on the scene, but when they come during the second act, one even questions if they are not just another aspect of Didi and Gogo's seemingly eternal waiting game. It's cutting stuff, but the mixture of comedy and pathos is served up perfectly by Irwin, a champion interpreter of Beckett's plays. With an arch of an eyebrow, or a quick shift in his vocal tone, Irwin glides with precision through the play's often contradictory passages, communicating Didi's awareness of the futility of it all and thus, finding the heartbreaking core of the role and piece.

Lane, who only occasionally reverts to what might be considered his standard-issue comic shenanigans, makes for a warm, loveable Gogo. At times, even with the blood that has dried to his face, he resembles nothing more that one of the classic "sad-face" clowns that one might associate with circuses from an era gone by. But despite a simmering fury in his performance that occasionally bubbles over, Lane's Gogo never quite inspires the same sort of empathy as Irwin's Didi.

Goodman, whom costume designer Jane Greenwood dresses in an almost ludicrously bright riding outfit, makes a wonderful mockery of Pozzo's self-importance during the first act of "Godot." Later, when Pozzo, now blind, stumbles and falls into Didi and Gogo's company, Goodman's use of his hefty frame to right himself may be one of the most hysterical sights on Broadway today, and despite efforts to reveal that sadistic malevolence that drives Pozzo, Goodman's portrayal remains primarily a comic one.

It falls to Glover to deliver what might be one of the most difficult stretches of "Godot," an epic stream-of-consciousness monologue that often can simply feel like pointless ravings. In Glover's capable hands, however, this centerpiece of the first act becomes a sort of verbal volcano in which language has ceased to function, but in which abject panic, fear and utter helplessness are chillingly palpable. Ultimately, as his rantings become too much for the other men, they attempt to subdue him, and it's in this sequence, in which Lane mimes a sort of exorcism and in which Irwin executes some deft physical comedy, that the precise balance of the two tones of "Godot" is achieved.

It's a tremendously rewarding, and perhaps the most powerful, moment in this highly entertaining, but never fully satisfying "Godot."

---- Andy Propst

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Waiting for Godot plays at Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street). Performances are Tuesday through Saturday evening at 8pm; with matinees Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $36.50 - $116.50 and can be purchased by calling 212-719-1300 or by visiting www.RoundaboutTheatre.org.

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Plant your tongue firmly in your cheek and prepare to be thoroughly entertained during the zany and clever comedy Around the World in 80 Days, which has opened the 2009 Season at Westport Country Playhouse.

Mark Shanahan stars as Victorian-era gentleman Phileas Fogg who bets some of the chaps at his London club that he can make a journey around the world in 80 days in Mark Brown’s adaptation of the Jules Verne classic. Fogg is accompanied by faithful servant Passepartout (Evan Zes). Along the way he's joined by Aouda (Lauren Elise McCord), an Indian princess whose life he saves, and on his tail from the outset is police Detective Fix (Jeff Biehl), who believes Fogg is a notorious thief trying to make an escape with a hefty sum of stolen money.

All of the cast members, except for Shanahan, play anywhere from two to 15 characters. Director Michael Evan Haney deftly guides them through their paces to create a very entertaining production that relies on skilled physical comedy and timing. Actors bounce, sway and move in sync to simulate transportation on trains, ships and even an elephant, all created with minimalist props within scenic designer Joseph P. Tilford’s columned frame. Passpartout’s efforts to serve a formal tea on the bouncing elephant are particularly amusing.

Highlighting the adventure are two foley artists, Mark Parenti and Elizabeth Helitzer, who use numerous musical instruments and devices to perform Parenti’s original music as well as endless sound effects from upstage behind the action. They also bounce in time to the rhythm of a train or boat to nicely give theatergoers a complete sense of locomotion.

Haney’s skillfully and successfully stops the action at times to have one or more of the characters involved in the current scene step out to share thoughts directly with the audience. When they finish, they step back into the action, and often the return to the play is funnier than the aside itself.

Zes displays acumen both with physical clowning and comedic delivery of lines, often embellishing his French accent to tell us the heirloom watch on which he keeps time for the group as they try to beat the 80-day deadline is a perfect “tom piss.”

Shanahan is dashing as the unfeeling bachelor governed by the rules of mathematics and logic who finds his emotions turned upside down by the beautiful and smart Aouda. McCord, bedecked in David Kay Mickelsen’s beautifully detailed and sumptuous costumes, does a nice job of combining Aouda’s feminine charms with intellectual depth.

Depending on the composition of the audience on any given night, theatergoers may find that laughs can be found from those around them: children who cannot stop giggling at the antics. And why not? Such an adventure and production should appeal to the child in us all.

---- Lauren Yarger

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Around the World in 80 Days plays at the Westport Country Playhouse (25 Powers Court, Westport, CT) through May 9. Performance times are Tuesdays at 8pm, Wednesdays at 2pm and 8pm, Thursday and Friday at 8pm, Saturdays at 4pm and 8pm and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are $30-$55 and can be purchased by calling 203-227-4177 (toll free 1-888-927-7529) or by visiting www.westportplayhouse.org. Student and educator discounts are available.

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Additions, midday, April 30, 2009:

Bloomberg.com

Hyde Pierce Restores Comic Gem of Depression-Era Broadway: Jeremy Gerard
Like you, no doubt, I’d never heard of Samson Raphaelson. Until last night, when his 1934 “Accent on Youth” opened in a sparkling Broadway revival by the Manhattan Theater Club.

New York Daily News

'Accent on Youth' hasn't aged well
Evidence is the flaccid revival of the 75-year-old creaker, starring David Hyde Pierce, which whips up so little laughter it should carry a "lite" label

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AmericanTheaterWeb

Review: Accent on Youth
1930's Showbiz Comedy Mildly Amuses

New York Times

Too Old to Be Hot? Not This Guy
Age has not exactly withered this 1934 comedy about a May-December romance in the theater world. But it has not done it any great favors either.

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of Accent on Youth
What’s it like attending “Accent on Youth”? Well, the posh Manhattan apartment set design and Depression-era costumes are pretty. The cast is pretty charming. Some witty dialogue occasionally pops up. But it’s hard to not feel underwhelmed and bored by the Manhattan Theater Club’s well-meant but unnecessary and uninspired revival of what feels like a third-rate Noel Coward play.

Newsday

'Accent on Youth' starring David Hyde Pierce

New York Post

'Youth' is wasted
Only hard-core TCM geeks may recognize Samson Raphael son's name these days. A shame, since he wrote or adapted some of the best com edies of the 1930s and '40s for Ernst Lubitsch, including "Trouble in Paradise," "The Shop Around the Corner" and "Heaven Can Wait." Put any of these movies at the top of...

Hartford Courant

New York Stage: David Hyde Pierce Shines In 'Accent On Youth'
...With David Hyde Pierce giving a finely measured display of wit and sophistication as playwright Steven Gaye, Daniel Sullivan's production largely succeeds in restoring Raphaelson's reputation.

Bergen Record

’30s revival pushes nostalgia buttons
“Accent on Youth,” which opened in a revival Wednesday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, has something going for it that it didn’t have when it debuted on Broadway in 1934: It’s exotic.

Associated Press

'Youth' Examines a May-December Romance
Older man. Younger woman. Boy, have playwrights been here before.

Variety

Review: Accent on Youth
David Hyde Pierce's effortless timing makes this antiquated comedy tick by painlessly enough.

Hollywood Reporter

Theater Review: Accent on Youth
Bottom Line: This vintage drawing-room comedy is showing its age.

BackStage

Accent on Youth reviewed by Erik Haagensen
After 19 comedies, his latest play is a "tragedy," as it is all about an affair between an older man and a much younger woman.

TheaterMania

Review: Accent on Youth
David Hyde Pierce leads an adept cast in Samson Raphaelson's mildly entertaining if dated comedy about theater folk.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: Accent on Youth
Have you ever feared that someday you’d gain access to a time machine, use it, and discover the past isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? That’s the basic premise behind the Manhattan Theatre Club’s unfortunately faithful revival of Samson Raphaelson’s Accent on Youth, which just opened at the Friedman. .

 

Samson Raphaelson's comedy Accent on Youth enjoyed a healthy run on Broadway when it debuted in 1934. In Daniel Sullivan's graceful, but unremarkable revival that opened last night at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the show's discrete pleasures are certainly in evidence, particularly given leading man David Hyde Pierce's elegant performance, but as this show business romantic comedy spins its droll, but not terribly merry way, one can't help but wonder why the company selected this play for revival in the first place.

"Accent" unfolds in the posh drawing room (a gorgeously appointed interior from scenic designer John Lee Beatty) in an apartment belonging to playwright Steve Gaye. He's just finished a new play that he hopes will take Broadway by storm. It's a departure for him – rather than a comedy, he's written a tragedy about an older man who chucks his wife for a younger woman. The actors who have descended on Gaye's home have trouble understanding the departure, but once Gaye's secretary, Linda (Mary Catherine Garrison), has explained it to them, they fawn over the man they will be working with.

Interestingly, Gaye has concerns of his own, and it's not until Linda, much younger than Gaye has professed her undying love for him, that he understands what rewrites need to be done. He also decides that she, and not Genevieve Lang (a formidable Rosie Benton), a former lover of his, should play the central role in this new piece.

When the action flashes forward in the second half of "Accent," Gaye's play has enjoyed a substantial run on Broadway, and is about to go out on tour. Gaye and Linda have become lovers, much to the consternation of Dickie (David Furr), the actor who plays the younger man she jilts in Gaye's play. Soon, life is imitating art as Linda is torn between the older Gaye and the younger Dickie, and Gaye, noble to the end, acts as a kind of Cyrano for his rival.

It's comedy meant to inspire smiles, and perhaps the occasional laugh, but it's hardly uproarious stuff, and given the understated performances in the production, occasional bemusement is what theatergoers can expect from "Accent." Pierce delivers a fine performance as Gaye, one that will certainly please fans of his work on television's "Frasier." Gaye's dry urbane wit and laidback demeanor is certainly reminiscent of Pierce's character on this long-running hit.

Showier turns come from Benton, who looks particularly smashing in one of Jane Greenwood's many terrific period gowns, and from Charles Kimbrough, playing Gaye's proper British butler, and from Byron Jennings, the actor who plays the older cad in Gaye's play. As the young couple who may prove that the accent for love is truly on youth, Garrison and Furr are both solid, perhaps too much so: rarely do theatergoers feel that there's a rush of heady lustfulness that pulls them together.

"Accent" ends on a decidedly wry and ambiguous note for Gaye and Linda, and although one suspects that perhaps Raphaelson's intent is to inspire theatergoers to contemplate what their future may hold, the question lingers only briefly before the piece evaporates, like a momentary infatuation, into the spring air.

---- Andy Propst

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Accent on Youth plays at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street). Tickets are $56.50 - $96.50 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting www.Telecharge.com, where a complete performances schedule is available. Additional information is also available at: www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com.

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