Elling Reviews

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 8:08pm

Ouch. Pan from Terry Teachout at the Wall Street Journal:

"In theory, any play can be good. I've been surprised time and again by the excellence of shows that I expected to be awful. Sometimes, though, a show turns out to be fully as bad as I was expecting, a fact that usually becomes evident shortly after the curtain rises. My preliminary expectations about Simon Bent's "Elling" can be summed up as follows: Why would any American producer in his right mind choose to put money into a British stage play adapted from a Norwegian film based on a series of allegedly comic novels about two mentally ill men, one prim and fussy and the other loud and sloppy? What good could come of so patently misguided an investment? None whatsoever, I regret to say: "Elling" is relentlessly sentimental and comprehensively unfunny, so much so that I had to struggle to stay awake all the way to the bitter end."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703567304575628501697192956.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 8:10pm

Hollywood Reporter is negative:

Its mishandling in the trans-Atlantic crossing echoes that of another Scandinavian stage-to-screen vehicle, Festen, based on Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film released in the U.S. as The Celebration. On the London stage the drama about a family's murky secrets had an intoxicating nastiness; on Broadway it was turgid melodrama. Perhaps it's something about the British vs. American affinity for Nordic material.
There's an unassuming visual simplicity to the Broadway production of Elling. Scott Pask's austere set, a bare room with minimal blond-wood furniture, is decorated only by the descriptive strokes of Kenneth Posner's lighting. But elsewhere, director Doug Hughes leans aggressively on the quirks. The same goes for the actors, who play their oddball roles as sitcommy caricatures.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/elling-theater-review-47935

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 8:13pm

AMNY is a pan (1 star):

""Elling,” a delicate parable about male outcasts that combines elements of “The Odd Couple” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” might have been well served in an intimate Off-Broadway theater. Instead, it has been poorly chosen as a star vehicle for Brendan Fraser, who is making a horrifically bad Broadway debut.

Besides a few visits from an annoying social worker and nurse, and some talk about poetry and pizza, very little actually happens during the play. In its most memorable moment, Fraser and O’Hare swap underwear in full view of the audience. Though it works as a simple character study, Doug Hughes’ production is poorly acted and misconceived to the point of feeling completely pointless."

http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/theater-review-eiling-1.2484301

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 8:15pm

The Faster Times is mixed:

"It is safe to say that “Elling” offers the greatest Norwegian story on a Broadway stage since Ibsen — since there have been no Norwegian stories on Broadway other than Ibsen’s — and that it’s a far funnier play than “When We Dead Awaken.” But the laughs here are not Borscht-belt big; it’s all sweet and low-key. When Elling says of Kjell Bjarne “There’s nothing wrong with Kjell Bjarne, he’s just a bit funny,” that could be the credo for Elling the character too, and for “Elling” the play."

http://thefastertimes.com/newyorktheater/2010/11/21/elling-review/

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 8:23pm

The AP is mixed to positive:

""Elling" never falls into the trap of slapstick, a dangerous prospect with two leads suffering from an illness. (What exactly their diagnoses are is unclear, but they may involve touches of autism and Tourette's syndrome.) The characters, under the sensitive touch of director Doug Hughes, are introduced as odd misfits and then gradually win us over. By the end, the audience is rooting for them to succeed.

The production wrings much suspense in a thin, feel-good story that is essentially a character piece. There is also a slight biblical theme — a pregnant woman on Christmas, mistaken angels, a virgin mother and a reference to Kjell as "one of life's simpler Apostles." But they're just a motif and really don't go anywhere.

In that way, the play strives for shades of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and, with Fraser's massive, stout character looming over a thin, thoughtful O'Hare, recalls John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." The depth of those works, though, aren't present in this light, sentimental comedy."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101122/ap_en_re/us_theater_review_elling

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 8:41pm

NJ Newsroom is mixed to negative (more negative really):

"Presumably we are meant to be touched and beguiled by these guys. Unfortunately, Bent drags their uneventful doings out for two acts and director Doug Hughes' wishy-washy production generates only intermittent laughs and scant emotional resonance."

http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/movies/review-brendan-fraser-and-denis-ohare-costar-in-elling

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:09pm

Ten bucks they announce a closing date by Wednesday?

[Tom-497]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:11pm

Newsday is positive:

[I]t is oddly charming, even winning. Or, as Elling says when his friend is described as odd, "I prefer the English expression 'rare.' As in uncommon."

The chemistry comes in the casting. O'Hare is a virtuoso of ... high-strung needy eccentrics.... But the real surprise is Fraser, the formerly boyish comic-action-movie star, making an altogether endearing Broadway debut....

Hughes stages all this with precision-loopy timing and the courage not to Americanize the strangeness for easy consumption.

[No link. Subscription only.]

[ljay889]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:12pm

Isherwood

http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/theater/reviews/22elling.html?pagewanted=1

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:13pm

The New York Times (with Isherwood) is negative. http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/theater/reviews/22elling.html?ref=theater

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:16pm

Just to add some context from Isherwood's review linked twice above (negative with a positive notice for O'Hare):

"It’s probably true that a more restrained approach to the material would be impossible to put across successfully in a large theater, at least in the vulgarized context of today’s Broadway. But it is hard to see the point of translating this story to the stage if you have to distort or disregard the qualities that make it fresh.

As the Broadway production of “Elling” unhappily proves, the same fictional people in different aesthetic contexts can also prove to have oddly divergent personalities. The Elling and Kjell Bjarne who prove such moving, gently amusing company in the movie are rendered overbearing and charmless onstage."

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:25pm

Variety is negative.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117944090?refcatid=33

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:29pm

Well, the play definitely seems to be one of those "love it or hate it" kinds of things. Which further begs the question, "Why make a non-musical stage version of a perfectly good movie?"

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 11/21/10 at 10:46pm

Peronally, I didn't mind it so much, but those reveiws are lethal. Better luck next time, especially Brandon Fraser -- sorry we didn't get to see his Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 11/22/10 at 7:40am

Not that I don't trust Isherwood's review, especially since the consensus seems to support it, and not that he shouldn't have mentioned the film as source material at all... but I find his incessantly discussion of the movie's specifics a little tasteless. Tell us why it's not good theater; not why it's not a good stage adaptation.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/22/10 at 8:18am

^ Most of the reviews did that, and they usually DO when a play is adapted from a movie. He's saying that it's not bad because it's quirky. The film WAS quirky, and it worked. The play is bad for other reasons. So it makes sense to say what worked for the film didn't work for the stage show. It's not tasteless at all. It's a totally valid, if not almost necessary comparison.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 11/22/10 at 9:48am

As I said, I believe the citation is warranted, and saying that the movie worked and the play does not is valid. But saying that in such-and-such an instance, the movie does this, and in the same instance, the play does that, is absurd. It does *not* make sense to say what worked for the film didn't work for the stage. It makes sense to explain why what is on stage doesn't work onstage. As someone who has not seen the movie, what these reviews tell me is that elements of the play don't click the same way that the same elements of its film predecessor did, and that doesn't tell me anything at all about the quality of this play or production.

Perhaps we diverge on a fundamental "agree to disagree" level, but I'm of the opinion that every piece of art -- though its history may inform contextualization -- ultimately must be judged on the merits of how its content interacts explicitly with its own form, regardless of its gestation.

But you're right that I was wrong to fault Isherwood alone on this.

[jewelchk]

Posted: 11/22/10 at 10:05am

I was at the opening last night. I liked it well enough, my friends really liked it. I'm most inclined to agree with the AP review, actually. The plot is probably a hard sell (I actually didn't know what it was about going into it, aside from "the odd couple of Oslo"), but if you just go in looking for something fun and rather odd, it's pretty funny. If you go into it looking for transcendent drama and depth, or comparing it to prior incarnations, you're going to think it's a muddled soap opera.