AMERICAN BUFFALO Reviews

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

BREAK A LEG, American Buffalo, you toooooooo Ruthie!

"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???

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

No, no, I haven't seen it.

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

---

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".

---

Variety is up.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939046.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

Updated On: 11/17/08 at 07:50 PM

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

---

Hahahaha

---

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?

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