BETRAYAL reviews

[Kbradstein]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 7:24pm

Post em' here

[AC126748]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 7:34pm

Talkin' Broadway (Matthew Murray) is negative:
Link

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 9:51pm

Financial Times is positive: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/61b97c56-3d59-11e3-9928-00144feab7de.html#axzz2iyakSonU

AP is a rave: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/review-revival-pinters-betrayal-stunning-20698907

Chicago Tribune is positive: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/sc-betrayal-daniel-craig-broadway-review,0,6501114.column

Hollywood Reporter is positive: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/betrayal-theater-review-651132

Newsday is positive: http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/betrayal-review-daniel-craig-and-rachel-weisz-shine-1.6321091

LA Times is positive: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-betrayal-review-20131028,0,3460778.story#axzz2iyhrSIef

Bloomberg is a rave: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-10-27/craig-weisz-rafe-spall-sizzle-in-five-star-betrayal-review


(What show did these guys see...?)


AM NY is mixed with 2.5 stars: http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/theater-review-betrayal-2-5-stars-1.6328629 Updated On: 10/27/13 at 09:51 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:09pm

NY Times is negative: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/theater/reviews/daniel-craig-and-rachel-weisz-star-in-betrayal-on-broadway.html?ref=theater

NY Mag is positive (and a rather annoying read, truthfully): http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/theater-review-betrayal.html

The Guardian is mixed, with three out of five stars: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/28/betrayal-review-daniel-craig-pinter-new-york

USA Today is mixed with 2.5 out of four stars: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2013/10/27/broadway-review-betrayal/3178159/

EW is positive, with a B+: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364394_20749744,00.html

TimeOut NY's review isn't up, but they give it 3 out of 5 stars: http://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/betrayal

Variety is a rave: http://variety.com/2013/legit/reviews/broadway-review-betrayal-1200769173/

The Wrap is positive: http://www.thewrap.com/betrayal-daniel-craig-rachel-weisz Updated On: 10/27/13 at 10:09 PM

[evic]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:15pm

Note to David Cote- We call it the orchestra here in the USA- not the stalls. Get off of your high horse. No one cares that you've been to the West End.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:19pm

Isn't The Guardian a British publication though?

[FishermanBob]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:23pm

"Isn't The Guardian a British publication though?"

It is and he's writing for a British audience so I don't have a problem with the British terminology.

[Kbradstein]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:29pm

I'm baffled tgat this is getting a good amount of poitive or nicest/positive reviews...... It was so dull

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:41pm

David Cote recently had a staged reading of a play he wrote. Our neighbor saw it and said it was absolutely dreadful and he walked out on it.

Mr Cote likes to rip others because he obviously is not up to writing a play himself. Seems like a case of sour grapes David.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:43pm

...Or maybe he just wasn't crazy about the show.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 10:45pm

He ain't crazy about a lot of shows. I think of him as Ben Brantleys secret brother.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 10/27/13 at 11:18pm

A LUCKY LADY reference? Well, at least Brantley's seemingly bottomless need to compare everything to film and film stars has found more esoteric hues.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 12:02am

NY Post is positive, with three out of four stars: http://nypost.com/2013/10/27/cheaters-prosper-in-betrayal/

NY Daily News is positive, with four out of five stars: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/betrayal-theater-review-article-1.1496753

The Record is a rave: http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/theater/229493451_Theater_review___Betrayal___starring_Daniel_Craig_and_Rachel_Weisz.html?page=all Updated On: 10/28/13 at 12:02 AM

[PlayItAgain]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 1:58am

holy crap, what were these critics watching could it have changed so significantly between the 2nd preview when I saw it and opening?

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 2:25am

"I'm baffled tgat this is getting a good amount of poitive or nicest/positive reviews...... It was so dull"

1 + 1 = 2. A certainty.

Mega movie star + Mike Nichols + Harold Pinter + a dull dud of a play that leaves audiences bored and annoyed = the perfect formula for a critics' darling. No less a certainty.

Sad for our theatre.

Sadder still for our audiences!

[JayG]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 8:52am

The question seems to be: What play did Dame Brantley see?

[Joviedamian]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 9:47am

^^^ He didn't see the play, he accidentally saw an episode of ABCs' Betrayal!

[Mark-o]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 10:57am

I thought it was terrible.

Bring back Kristin Scott Thomas!

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 6:26pm

After Eight--

I totally get how one can call the play "dull" (Pinter isn't for everyone), but a "dud"? It's considered a classic on both sides of the Atlantic, has been revived on Broadway twice, turned into a movie, and has received countless productions regionally over the past three decades. A dud is a play that flops and is hardly ever seen again. This is not one of those cases.

I'd also like to add that what is really sad for our theatre is people who can't appreciate language-based plays that depend on subtlety not on flash, and which satisfy our heads as much as our hearts.

I won't be able to see this production, but based on all reviews but Brantley's, it sounds like it's a very solid interpretation of a work that, while not the best play ever written, is a well-crafted and memorable piece by one of the most important playwrights of the past half-century.

Just my two cents.

[After Eight]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 6:34pm

DB,

There are many clothesless emperors who have been trumpeted for decades for their raiment.

That doesn't make them any more clothed.

It's too bad people are afraid to say as much.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 8:37pm

Well, I like the play, personally. Wish I could see this version.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/28/13 at 8:44pm

Unfortunately, your opinion doesn't matter to After Eight because it's different than his, which makes it wrong in his mind.

[aaronb]

Posted: 11/23/13 at 11:02pm

I was disappointed with this--BETRAYAL is my favorite play and I think they messed it up.

"Betrayal is a story told in reverse (beginning in 1977 and ending in 1968 ) about the love between Robert (Daniel Craig) and his best friend Jerry (Rafe Spall) but is disguised as a story about Jerry’s affair with Robert’s wife, Emma (Rachel Weisz). Therefore, its most heartbreaking moments do not come from the apparent eponymous betrayal but from the more subtle one: for example, when Robert discovers a letter from Jerry to Emma, he asks, while needling her for a confession but in a moment of weakness, 'Was there any message for me, in his letter? … No message? Not even his love?' A few minutes later, ostensibly as a joke, he says to her, 'I’ve always liked Jerry. To be honest, I’ve always liked him rather more than I’ve liked you. Maybe I should have had an affair with him myself.' Robert’s primary anger, then, does not come from Emma sleeping with Jerry, but from Emma stealing Jerry’s affection. But Mr. Nichols directs it as if it were another suburban adultery narrative, perhaps something that could have been written by John Updike. And the way Mr. Craig plays this scene, we get none of the tenderness that is present in the text. Choking down whiskey, he screams at Emma, which I found, in the words of Ford Madox Ford, not 'quite English good form.' What should be reserved and psychologically aggressive is instead made demonstrative and verbally aggressive, both in this scene and in most others. Mr. Spall fares a little better, though he doesn’t seem to have much of a connection with either of his fellow actors, and Ms. Weisz, playing the play’s most thankless part, never convinces us why either of these men would get so much joy and pain out of this woman."




My review of BETRAYAL Updated On: 11/23/13 at 11:02 PM

[mgldan]

Posted: 12/29/13 at 9:07pm

I saw it for the first time today. It appeared on TKTS yesterday matinee and tonight as well, so if you were on the fence about seeing it, you might be able to get it in before it closes next week.

Frankly, I liked it. I am not familiar with the movie or any of the other productions, and I'm not a Pinter fanatic, but rather a Broadway enthusiast. The actors (Spall very much included) play many of the lines for laughs, but that just makes the evident wounds in the relationships between each of the characters much more searing as they do come up. It's a sharp look at the way that we put on faces for each other, even among those who are nominally our closest friends, and it effectively portrays how difficult it can be to escape the lives that we form for ourselves as adults.

With that in mind, let me tell you that Sunday's matinee performance was the worst Broadway audience I've ever been a part of. I've been to well over a dozen performances in 1.5 years. Someone sitting in the orchestra triggered Siri during Scene 3, and I heard it all the way in the lower mezz. The woman in the row in front of me would not turn off her phone until I asked her to, and when her phone went off during the play (of COURSE) she didn't even realize it was hers. During Daniel Craig's very first scene, he interrupted himself mid-sentence to point and call out an audience member--couldn't see what they were doing from the mezz, but I assume they were taking a photo.

With seats approaching $500 for the orchestra, I had hoped that some of these inconsiderate morons would be weeded out.