Caine Mutiny Reviews- Page 2

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 5/8/06 at 3:01am

It does seem like a rather boring show.

There use to be musical numbers? Seriously? (Excuse my ignornace, I'm rather young, so I don't know that much about the show)

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 5/8/06 at 8:55am

No, Rentboy, there were no musical numbers :)

And I love Zeljko too.

I do feel bad for David Schwimmer, because he worked his ass off for this show and I feel he can do better with a more appropriate director. It irritates me that many reviewers dismiss him as just playing Ross from Friends, but he's really not.
Updated On: 5/8/06 at 08:55 AM

[ShuQ]

Posted: 5/8/06 at 9:34am

It looks to me like it's Schwimmer that's having trouble dismising Ross from friends, not the critics.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 5/8/06 at 2:28pm

As I said, he's really not.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 5/8/06 at 2:48pm

Daily News is Mixed-to-Negative:

"Now that TV and movie stars are frequent visitors to Broadway, perhaps we could set up a welcoming committee to help them make the transition.

The committee, for example, would surely have cautioned Julia Roberts against "Three Days of Rain" and urged her to do "His Girl Friday," which she was apparently considering.

Similarly, the committee could have been of great help to David Schwimmer, who is starring in Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial."

As one of the few living Americans who has never seen "Friends" (I work nights), I have no idea what kind of character he played on the show. What he projects on stage is a likable palooka, which is totally wrong for Barney Green­wald, the role he plays in "Caine Mutiny."

Greenwald is a street-smart Jew working as a naval lawyer during World War II. His knowledge of his obligations as a lawyer are at odds with his awareness of what the war means to him as a Jew. Schwimmer conveys none of this complexity.

But then the production itself, directed by Jerry Zaks, seldom gets below the surface.

The major exception is Zeljko Ivanek, who plays Capt. Queeg, the commander of the U.S.S. Caine, whose crew rebels against him on a crucial day in the war in the Pacific.
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A few of the other performances are effective. Terry Beaver gives the judge a deep humanity, getting more from his reactions than most of the actors do from their lines. Tom Nelis and Brian Reddy are funny as a pair of psychiatrists. Murphy Guyer is also strong.

Often one has the sense the actors have been directed to get through the play as quickly as possible, not even taking time for pauses.

John Lee Beatty's sets are simple, and well lit by Paul Gallo. William Ivey Long's naval uniforms are so stylish I can imagine a new vogue for the military look.

Although some of the play's concerns now seem remote, others are surprisingly up to the minute. It seems a shame the production doesn't make a more compelling case for the play."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/415698p-351274c.html



Bergen Register is Negative:

"It's impossible to kill a good courtroom melodrama, but the revival of "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" that opened Sunday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre inflicts severe wounds on Herman Wouk's hardy play.

Weakly directed by Jerry Zaks, and, for the most part, poorly acted, the production plods along, an exercise in extended dullness. If you're looking for colorful legal theatrics, crackling cross-examination and intensifying drama, you won't find them here.

As lawyer Lt. Barney Greenwald, defending a mutinous officer in the World War II Navy although detesting what he did, David Schwimmer makes an unfortunate Broadway debut.

The "Friends" star won't make any new friends with a flat, monotonous performance that suggests a community-theater actor earnestly reciting a role he's just happy to have memorized.

Playing his opposite number, the prosecuting attorney, Tim Daly is about as bland, indicating somebody backstage at the Schoenfeld might have put Ambien in the water.

Zeljko Ivanek, as the battle-worn Captain Queeg, is more animated and delivers a reasonably efficient performance. But it's also a miscalculated one.

Queeg's cracking up under Greenwald's questioning -- while not exactly believable given Schwimmer's unthreatening portrayal -- should be surefire drama, a poised man slowly destroying himself on the witness stand.

But for that to happen, the Queeg we see at the beginning needs to seem a normal, assured, capable ship's commander. Here, though, Ivanek's Queeg seems off from the start, a man uncomfortable in his own skin. That greatly reduces his fall, and its ability to grip us."

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNjcmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY5MzAyMTYmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3



Journal News is Negative:

""The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" is a competent, if totally colorless, rendering of a 1954 play by Herman Wouk.

It's as riveting as a reading of the 2006 tax code.

The production marks the Broadway debut of David Schwimmer of TV's "Friends," who is anxious to prove that he is a stage actor.

Schwimmer proves that, no question. He is competent. He speaks well, and enunciates better than most TV actors do.
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Zeljko Ivanek, fresh from portraying a police torturer in "The Pillowman," plays Queeg as deeply sinister wacko. He lets his evil out gradually. In the second act, in which Queeg is called to the stand for the defense, Ivanek's eyes are shaded, and he look like the human equivalent of a poisonous snake.

It's a nice performance, though it does little to energize this strangely wan production, directed by the usually high-energy Jerry Zaks. And it makes it difficult to feel the eventual sympathy one is supposed to find for Queeg, in spite of everything."

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060508/LIFESTYLE01/605080304/1031