ENRON Reviews- Page 2

[pacificnorthwest]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 9:42pm

Does someone have full access to Newsday? Not being a subscriber, this is as far as I could get:

Funny money gets devalued in 'Enron'
April 27, 2010 By LINDA WINER [e-mail]

For "Enron" to be any more timely, the financial satire with music would have to be happening in the offices of Goldman Sachs' lawyers. If Rupert Goold's fanciful multimedia staging of Lucy Prebble's London hit were any livelier, the actors wearing voracious debt-eating raptors masks on their heads would be dashing up the theater aisles gobbling credit-card receipts from our wallets.

In other...

[blaxx]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 9:47pm

Matthew likes it:

Which is the greater achievement of Enron: that someone wrought an energetic theatre experience out of one of the biggest financial collapses in American history, or that you don’t need an advanced degree in finance to understand it? Lucy Prebble’s play, which just opened at the Broadhurst, may not cover a lot of new ground, and may ignore some byways it would be better off exploring, but what it does take on it does so with such clarity and originality that it never comes across as the two-and-a-half-hour scold it technically is.

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

[lull89]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 10:14pm

B- from Entertainment Weekly:

One understands the desire to goose material that is both potentially dry and well past its sell-by date. (In the wake of AIG and Bernie Madoff and Lehman Brothers' own collapse, doesn't the Enron scandal seem so 2001?) But subtlety gets lost in the process: At one point, Butz's Skilling literally stomps his foot like a petulant 2-year-old when Lay sides with Roe in a corporate dispute — an over-the-top gesture that undercuts any effort by the production to make its characters more than cardboard stand-ins for American Big Business excess and immaturity. Goold further muddles the satire with kitchen-sink showmanship, employing everything from a barbershop quartet of traders to a mini-ballet by lightsaber-wielding execs. He even creates anthropomorphized 'raptors' to represent the shady debt-laden shell companies that led to Enron's ultimate unraveling. We see Fastow and Skilling kill the raptors at the end, but there's no real-world explanation of what they're doing; Goold is too caught up in his theatrical conceit to serve the fact-based story he's trying to tell. Too often, in fact, Enron plays like 60 Minutes on acid

Stage Review Enron Reviewed by Thom Geier

[wonkit]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 10:20pm

Obviously Thom Geier has never worked in a large New York based corporate setting or he would have seen a lot of otherwise rich and powerful executives stamp their feet like 2-year-olds in the supermarket line.

[lull89]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 10:33pm

NY Times is up. Upon rereading, I'd say it's Negative, though he has good things about some of the cast, particularly Stephen Kunken.

"Yet even with a well-drilled cast that includes bright Broadway headliners like Norbert Leo Butz and Marin Mazzie, the realization sets in early that this British-born exploration of smoke-and-mirror financial practices isn’t much more than smoke and mirrors itself. “Enron” is fast-paced, flamboyant and, despite the head-clogging intricacy of its business mathematics, lucid to the point of simple-mindedness. But as was true of the company of this play’s title, the energy generated here often feels factitious, all show (or show and tell) and little substance."



Titans of Tangled Finances Kick Up Their Heels Again Updated On: 4/27/10 at 10:33 PM

[CAX]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 10:36pm

Petulance is everywhere, so the actor choices are just that. Choices and so long as they're justified, so be it. This is going to be a wild and wacky ride. Who has yet to chime in? NY TIMES? The Post? WSJ? Who holds the most clout?

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 10:43pm

I am so happy Kunken is getting great reviews. I think he will be a serious contender for the Tony.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 10:58pm

That EW review is ridiculous. In fact- I'm pretty sure that in several books about Enron, there is a scene recounted where Skilling does actually throw a temper tantrum in front of/about Sherron Watkins.

[Brick]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:09pm

Well, the Brantley review was the one that needed to be positive, of course. So, we'll see...

I don't think the marketing for this has been very good. Or even apparent.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:19pm

Brantley pretty much hits the nail on the head again.

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:27pm

Having not seen the show yet, I can't comment on whether the reviews are on target, but it seems to me that many of the critics are uninformed about the facts of Enron, which discredits the reviews, to me at least.

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:28pm

double Updated On: 4/27/10 at 11:28 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:31pm

Whether or not the critics know about Enron has nothing to do with the fact that the quality of the writing is mediocre at best. The dialogue is so terribly contrived that the subject matter, which is already heavy, actively hurts your brain.
Updated On: 4/27/10 at 11:31 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:34pm

Are audiences all expected to go into a mainstream production knowing all of the facts of Enron? What common person DOES?

[PReeves2]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:38pm

not surprised by these reviews. people in the US don't care about the Enron era anymore. much like the point of view that is portrayed in American Idiot. They both just seem dated like a few years ago when everyone was wearing flared jeans...again.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:43pm

I kinda hope these divisive reviews mean NEXT FALL will take Best Play!

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:49pm

I think it's between that and Time Stands Still at this point. While I would hope for Next Fall, I would be happy either way. And i guess this makes Time Stands Still the best reviewed new play of the season (along with Vibrator Play and Superior Donuts, one of which could take a nomination spot from Enron now).

[taylorPHENOMENON2]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:52pm

I completely forget The Vibrator Play even happened until someone brings it up like this. I'd rather see that, Time Stands Still, or just about anything else take best play over Next Fall.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 4/27/10 at 11:59pm

I may be all wet on this, but didn't Brantly rave about ENRON in London last year?

[PReeves2]

Posted: 4/28/10 at 12:08am

"I may be all wet on this, but didn't Brantly rave about ENRON in London last year?"

Exactly my point. Last year it may have hit home but, at this point in time no one seems to care anymore about Enron. Bigger issues happening and it seems people want to come to the theater to escape not be reminded.

[MisterSnow89]

Posted: 4/28/10 at 12:14am

For whatever its worth, there is no pull quote from Brantley review of Enron when it was in London. I feel like if he raved about it, they would quote it on their site. But I could easily be mistaken.

Also in regards to the Best Play discussion, what about Red? It got very strong reviews as well. I feel like it could potentially take the Tony as well.

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/28/10 at 12:15am

I don't think Brantley reviewed Enron in London.

[Barney Stinson]

Posted: 4/28/10 at 12:18am

"Having not seen the show yet, I can't comment on whether the reviews are on target, but it seems to me that many of the critics are uninformed about the facts of Enron, which discredits the reviews, to me at least. "

Don't need to know the intracacies of Enron to know if the play is good or not. Plus, isn't the play a complete separation from the actual facts on Enron (and finance in general)? The people I know who have seen it - and who most definitely know the exact facts of Enron - didn't like the play in part because of all the poetic license (at best) or complete break from reality (at worst).

So if a reviewer didn't know the specifics of Enron, wouldn't that only help the reviews?

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/28/10 at 12:28am

To be honest, the more I think about ENRON, the less I liked it. That seems to be a common theme with most shows I've seen this year (particularly with THE VIBRATOR PLAY which I semi-enjoyed immediately after but kinda loathed the next day).

The only two shows that should really be vying for Best Play are NEXT FALL and TIME STANDS STILL, in my opinion.

[pacificnorthwest]

Posted: 4/28/10 at 8:31am

NY Post is very POSITIVE, 3.5 of 4 stars

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/joy_ride_amid_fast_cash_and_cooked_NQ2MT1kCQRngnL5nqTTTyO