AMERICAN BUFFALO Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 1:51am

Hey All -

Happy Monday! With this, the beginning of our work week, let's take a moment to welcome the official opening of David Mamet's masterwork, AMERICAN BUFFALO - Playing the Belasco on 44th. Having caught this past Saturday's (11.15) matinee, I can proudly attest to this being one of the finest pieces I've ever witnessed onstage. Sure, scoff if you wish. I know that this one didn't start-off 'solid' (according to previous posts), but at my performance, it showed that the three actors had worked at it, and worked at it, and truly deliver something wonderful. The set was VERY befitting (I loved it), the lighting was fine and dandy (served the show well), but the chemistry betwixt the three is what really did it for me (more specifically Leguizamo and Cedric) - I was glued to the action, the onslaught, the mayhem, and madness. In my humble opinion, it's well worth the price of admission, and I hope that others are able to experience what I did through this piece.

For any and all attending and/or have access to the papers, please post all reviews here. Let's welcome 'Teach', 'Don' and 'Bobby' accordingly! To the three gents bringing it down, I say "Break legs!" - To Ruthie ... That's another story!

Best,
- Mike
Updated On: 11/17/08 at 01:51 AM

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 6:36am

This sucker (and I use the word purposely) doesn't open until tomorrow, you're a tad early.

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:49am

Opening night performance IS tonight.

[kooky]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 9:37am

BREAK A LEG, American Buffalo, you toooooooo Ruthie!

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 9:47am

No offense, Limelight, but do you not like anything?

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 10:40am

"Having caught this past Saturday's (11.15) matinee, I can proudly attest to this being one of the finest pieces I've ever witnessed onstage."

Have you lost your mind???

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 10:43am

I echo Yankee's thoughts.

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 2:45pm

Okay, okay -- Maybe the positive sentiments toward the acting came-off a little TOO strong: Was it mindblowing acting all around? Hardly. Was it enjoyable? Yes. To better clarify, the 'one of the finest pieces' line was referencing the text itself. It's a classic for a reason, and it was my first time seeing it. RE: frongs_fan, it does indeed open tonight with a 6:45 performance...
Updated On: 11/17/08 at 02:45 PM

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 3:00pm

For those of you who saw it in early previews *coughYANKEEcough* the acting has come together a lot more. Is it perfect, not at all, but there is one great performance (Cedric, surprisingly), one good performance (John Leguizamo), and one decent performance (the washed up child actor who continually plays the same role).

I would say it is worth seeing this play just to see the absolutely incredible set and to witness just how good of an actor Cedric the Entertainer is, I was floored. I would also suggest NOT paying full price, or half even (I will acknowledge that I had a comp, and that that might be why I enjoyed it as much as I did).

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 3:16pm

No, no, I haven't seen it.

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 3:42pm

My apologies, for some reason I thought you had seen the first preview. Thank you for clearing that up.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 3:44pm

AM New York gives the show 2 Stars out of 4:

To our surprise, Robert Falls’ disappointing revival is undercooked and lifeless. Whereas the cast of “Speed-the-Plow” completely mastered Mamet’s rapid-fire, rat-a-tat, foul-mouthed language, that same verbal style falls flat in “American Buffalo.”

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 it finally erupts in a huge blast of violence.

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/stage/blog/2008/11/theater_review_of_american_buf.html

[thetinymagic2]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 3:47pm

thanks for the review lImelight! I hope i'm not on UI next wk?!
i like the play, too.
"****in Rutie, ****in Rutie...****in...RUTIE!!"
Updated On: 11/17/08 at 03:47 PM

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 3:53pm

AM NEW YORK said what I have been telling all of my friends, this is a Mamet play directed in a very un-Mamet like way (there is no way it was just the cast, it was easy to see it was a director's choice). I think the finished product is great (maybe even better than "traditional Mamet" direction, at least with this cast), as long as you don't go in expecting to see something akin to "Speed-the-Plow".

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 4:18pm

tiny, I kept my eyes and ears open for you Saturday.
I was seated via aisle 2 - just missed ya!
Just so y'know - Haha! - Us Scaryotypes gotta stick together!

Updated On: 11/17/08 at 04:18 PM

[perfectliar]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 7:50pm

Variety is up.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939046.html?categoryid=33&cs=1
Updated On: 11/17/08 at 07:50 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 7:57pm

Variety is Very Negative:

Falls has proven himself repeatedly to be an exceptional director with actors. But while he gets capable work out of all three cast members on the surface, 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. If Don, Teach and Bobby don't have at least some nagging sense of the hopelessness of their lives and the impossibility of their big dreams: bye-bye pathos.

(see link above)

Updated On: 11/17/08 at 07:57 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:00pm

Talkin' Broadway is Mixed-to-Positive:

Mamet’s language is, and has always been, part and parcel of this fringe world. When the play premiered in 1975, it stunned, captivated, and in some cases outraged audiences who wanted to believe even the dregs could do, and speak, better. It’s not just that the words are coarse - often of four letters, practically never of four (or, for that matter, three) syllables - but that they outline a coarseness it’s easier to pretend doesn’t exist. Seldom before had the use of the plucked-hair underbelly of the popular vernacular elevated people straight into the gutter.

It’s a style so common today, we no longer think about it. But Falls and his actors obviously have, and their solution is itself almost revelatory: Pay no attention to it whatsoever. 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. They can’t deliver - they can only exist.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/AmBuffalo.html

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:03pm

The Associated Press is Very Negative:

...Osment, too, displays a tentativeness on stage, but it fits in more with the character of Bobby, a dimwitted, baby-faced ragamuffin whose future undoubtedly will be as bleak as his present. And Osment generates some sympathy for the lad, a quality that is hard to come by in Mamet's hard-boiled plot.

Yet these three are victims as much as they are victimizers. There is a desperation to their antics, a sense of impotence at being locked out of the American Dream. Their frustration is fierce and their inability to find a solution ever fiercer. But it's that anger that is missing from this lackluster revival of "American Buffalo."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/17/entertainment/e161021S39.DTL

Updated On: 11/17/08 at 08:03 PM

[B3TA07]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:06pm

Hahahaha

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:07pm

Word of Mouth is Mixed to Negative:

FRED: "I kept waiting for something to happen and it just never did...I would not recommend this. If you wanna see Mamet on Broadway, go see SPEED THE PLOW"

DEANNA: "I would tell my straight guy friends to see this. The two (of them)."

MICHAEL: "I'm not sure that I would recommend it...there were good aspects of it but it wasn't a plot that I really got into or chracters that I found sympathetic."

http://www.broadway.com/American-Buffalo/broadway_reviews/5015628




I really like Fred. For once I like one of the panelists...

[willep]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:21pm

the Word of Mouth people seem to have more of a problem with the plot of the show than anything else...which seems to be the opposite of what everyone on here says..or am i wrong?

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 8:29pm

USA Today gives the show 3 Stars out of 4:

Tenderness is not the first quality one generally associates with David Mamet. But really study his characters, and you'll find that many are drawn with sympathy and even affection.

For the new Broadway revival of American Buffalo... which opened Monday at the Belasco Theatre, 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.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2008-11-17-american-buffalo_N.htm

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 10:26pm

Ben Brantley at the New York Times is a Pan:

'...Mr. Leguizamo has already established himself as an electric, tirelessly mutable stage performer playing an assortment of roles in plays of his own creation, including “Freak” and “Sexaholix ... A Love Story.” His raging energy in those shows, channeled into varied, surprisingly complete-feeling characterizations of fraught lives on the margins of society, would seem to make him a natural for the role of Walter Cole (known as Teach), the logorrheic, strutting schemer who dodges the fear that he’s a very little man by talking big and nonstop. (Robert Duvall and Al Pacino have scrawled indelible signatures on the part.)

Yet it’s when Mr. Leguizamo’s Teach makes his entrance into the densely cluttered junk shop run by Donny Dubrow (Cedric) that you realize that this “American Buffalo” is bound to sag. Teach’s arrival is heralded by a clattering overture of stomping and knocking, and the noise disrupts the drowsiness of its opening minutes, listlessly occupied by Donny and his young protégé and sometime assistant, Bobby (Mr. Osment). “Ah,” you think, “here come the fireworks.”

Yet this Teach is a sodden squib from the get-go. As Mr. Leguizamo plays him, he’s an uncertain, unsteady figure, spouting his macho, know-it-all talk without even the illusion of self-belief. His outsize nervous gestures, including perpetual gum chewing, register as mere space-fillers. The gaping silences in his speech fight against his ruling the room, as he must. (It didn’t help that Mr. Leguizamo didn’t seem entirely on top of his lines at the preview I attended.) And it’s hard to credit that Donny would let the robbery he’s been plotting with Bobby be taken over by Teach...

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/theater/reviews/18buff.html?scp=1&sq=American+Buffalo&st=nyt

Updated On: 11/18/08 at 10:26 PM

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 11/17/08 at 11:37pm

Ben Brantley got it right...take *that* LimelightMike!