HUGHIE Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 3:53pm

Forest Whitaker takes to the Booth to make his Broadway debut in this Eugene O'Neill classic. Post the reviews here.

Updated On: 2/25/16 at 03:53 PM

[Jshan05]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 3:55pm

Somebody already posted a thread a few below yours...just an FYI.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 7:14pm

And the first Hughie review-ee of the evening is amNY, which is mixed to negative, (2.5 stars), but brief:

 

"Christopher Oram’s towering set design of a decaying hotel lobby is visually impressive but inappropriate for such a small piece.

 

Whitaker gives a hyperactive yet sensitive performance that reveals the unease and desperation behind Erie’s jovial exterior, while Wood does a fine job serving as the blank-faced listener."

 

http://www.amny.com/entertainment/forest-whitaker-s-hughie-comes-up-short-1.11510813

Updated On: 2/25/16 at 07:14 PM

[Fantod]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 7:40pm

2.5/4 is mixed to positive, not mixed to negative. And to the 2 people who read my site, I won't be able to aggregate the reviews until tomorrow because I'm attending a show tonight.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 7:41pm

The tone of the review is mixed to negative.  I don't care what the star rating is.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 7:43pm

The AP is positive:

 

"Whitaker handles the overripe dialogue — “Say, is that on the level?” and “I ain’t a sap” — without overplaying it, and adds nervous touches like his constant folding and unfolding of little pieces of paper, somehow looking for reassurances in his pockets. He is a fine successor to the part played on Broadway before by Jason Robards, Ben Gazzara and Al Pacino.

 

Wood, a Tony-winner, mostly ignores Erie out of a clerk’s practiced self-defense, appearing to listen but really just spacing out. One of the pleasures of reading O’Neill’s script is the extended interior thoughts of the night clerk, which somehow Wood must translate onstage beyond a general sullenness. It is perhaps an even harder task than what faces Whitaker, but Wood is perfectly clipped and standoffish."

 

http://wtop.com/arts/2016/02/review-broadways-odd-hughie-glows-thanks-to-whitaker/

Updated On: 2/25/16 at 07:43 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:03pm

So far I am surprised at how good they are.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:09pm

Deadline is negative:

 

"The biggest miscue of Michael Grandage’s production (whether the choice is the director’s or the star’s, it’s impossible to know) is that Erie seems to believe his bull****. He lacks the sense of desperation that O’Neill says will overcome Erie during the course of this dark hour. Each story is delivered as if it had just occurred to him, carrying the same weight as the one before. There is no sense of the growing panic that will lead to Erie’s final revelation about his loss of confidence after Hughie’s death.

 

This approach might leave its own kind of chill if it were accompanied by a transparently false cockiness. But that’s not in evidence here, not within the  imposing set and Neil Austin’s entombing lighting. The result is a failure to lift this small work into the tragic realm to which it aspires. It remains stubbornly small. That’s surely as much O’Neill’s fault as Whitaker’s. But it’s Whitaker we’ve come to see."

 

http://deadline.com/2016/02/forest-whitaker-hughie-broadway-review-1201709239/

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:12pm

Hollywood Reporter is mostly positive:

 

"Lighting designer Neil Austin casts a murky pall over the scene with the smoky interior illumination, filtering the outside world through the revolving doors and leadlight windows above them. Adam Cork completes the atmospheric picture with a mix of rueful music and muffled noise, from traffic and sirens to the rumble of passing subways. The play is essentially a monologue, its rich early-20th-century vernacular designed to be read as much as staged; Grandage and his team of frequent collaborators have honored the inherent theatricality of the slender piece while fortifying it with an immersive cinematic presentation."

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/forest-whitaker-hughie-theater-review-869244

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:12pm

The Hollywood Reporter is mixed to positive:

 

With his sleepy eyes, soulful voice and fluttering hands, Whitaker is a superb actor who can wear sorrow like a baggy overcoat. However, as watchable as he is, the real star of Michael Grandage's production is the design team....

 

O'Neill's play is the kind of soul-scraping plunge that serious actors love, requiring a finely tuned balance between outer swagger and gnawing inner fear, sculpted out of evocative, rhythmic language. However, its rewards for the audience — particularly one paying today's inflated Broadway prices — are more low-key....

 

Erie's motivations are ... conveyed by Whitaker with admirable restraint. The actor is a natural storyteller, which is what this verbose role requires. ...The play's emotional charge remains subdued, but there's lingering melancholy in Erie's painstaking efforts to forget that his gorgeous Follies girls are cheap tramps, his massive paydays are minor flukes, and the high life he's living is more often an intoxicated stupor on the pathetic fringes of the big-money rackets. 

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/forest-whitaker-hughie-theater-review-869244

Updated On: 2/25/16 at 08:12 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:14pm

The Wrap is positive:

 

"On stage, Whitaker’s voice is much higher pitched than in the movies. Or it seems that way, perhaps because on stage we always hear his tenor coming from such a large man and not just a disembodied face in close-up. Whitaker uses that contrast in sound and appearance to superb effect, giving a whimsical edge to the character. “Whimsical” is not a word one uses very much to describe an O’Neill character. Whitaker delivers a most endearing Erie, right down to the nervous giggle he adds to punctuate the character’s otherwise bottomless despair. It’s a sign he’s still living."

 

http://www.thewrap.com/hughie-broadway-review-forest-whitaker-makes-debut-in-edward-hopper-style-oneill/

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:17pm

NBC New York is mixed to negative:

"The likable actor, an Oscar winner for “The Last King of Scotland,” is brave to spread his wings to Broadway, but his performance, at least for now, is disappointingly one-note.

 

...

 

Whitaker, north of 6-feet-tall, manages to slouch and slink into the role. He plays Erie as consistently content, but such joviality doesn’t seem to fit the circumstances.

 

...

 

Whitaker’s Erie is a lonely guy thriving on any connection, superficial though it might be. Charlie, in the final moments, comes around to a similar place. It plays out in a game of dice on the clerk’s desk. I’d wager that Whitaker’s performance will evolve in the weeks ahead, but for the moment he’s throwing snake eyes."

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/entertainment/the-scene/Review-Forest-Whitaker-Hughie-369826641.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:19pm

NJ.com is negative (2 stars):

 

"It hasn't exactly been a stellar season for Hollywood titans on the Broadway stage: In "Misery," Bruce Willis had difficultly projecting his voice much beyond the first few rows; in "China Doll," Al Pacino visibly seemed to be struggling to recall his lines.

 

Now comes Forest Whitaker, who in the new revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Hughie" swallows his words and looks deeply uncomfortable onstage. This is especially problematic given that this one-act play is essentially a monologue delivered by Whitaker's character. (And, yes, the entire evening lasts just an hour — "Hughie" is traditionally presented with another one-act play, but is here offered up as the sole attraction.)

 

...

 

Directed by Michael Grandage (a Tony winner for "Red", "Hughie" does feature a very beautiful set (by Christopher Oram) and lighting design (by Neil Austin); employing somber shades of ochre, the designers gorgeously evokes a place (and an entire way of life) gone to seed. But that's about all this undercooked, altogether listless production has going for it."

 

https://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/02/forest_whitaker_goes_bust_in_his_broadway_debut_in.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:22pm

The Stage (UK) is negative (2 stars):

 

"Star casting rules in this city and the putative reason for doing any classic play like this is an actor’s desire to test their stage mettle. In this case, the mettle being tested belongs to Forest Whitaker, the Oscar-winning star of The Last King of Scotland, here making his professional debut on any stage.  And audiences are being asked to pay up to $225 a ticket to see him perform in a play that lasts less than an hour. For that sort of investment, it has to be something of an event, but this production contrives to be a non-event – and a bit of a non-starter, in every sense.

 

...

 

Whitaker is out of his depth and has a very hesitant stage range. He’s incapable of drawing the audience into a production that while very handsomely dressed up has nowhere to go. This is the Michael Grandage Company’s first project direct on Broadway and he, along with the invaluable assistance of composer Adam Cork and lighting designer Neil Austin, invests it with lots of atmosphere, but it feels like very hard work for all concerned, including the audience."

 

https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2016/hughie-review-at-booth-theatre-new-york-insubstantial/

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:27pm

The Telegraph is 3 out of 5:

 

The night I saw it, as Whitaker spoke those words, there was that sense of every consciousness in the auditorium merging into one rapt and receptive cell. It was a moment of magic, of palpable pure attention. That kind of spellbound state cannot, of course, be forced, so it’s curious that Grandage would have chosen to intersperse the play with several heavy-handed interludes in which the lights intensify, the spooky music swells and the clerk’s stare becomes even more eerily vacant.

 

Perhaps these moments are simply there for Whitaker to catch his breath: he speaks, in a rattling pace, for almost a full hour. But at least once in that hour, he shows us that a man in a humdrum sort of hell can also be an extraordinary kind of heaven to watch.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/forest-whitaker-makes-a-powerful-broadway-debut-in-hughie/

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:29pm

Time Out NY reads negative but David Cote gives it 3 of 5 stars, so I guess we'll call it mixed to negative:

 

"We get it: Erie is a damned soul in torment—but Whitaker portrays him as a low-status, apologetic schlemiel who’s already given up. When he should be a big-talking con man and Runyonesque swell, Whitaker tries something possibly more realistic, but ends up blunting O’Neill’s punchy lines.

In movies such as Bird and The Last King of Scotland, the actor has achieved a complex interweave of pride and self-doubt (even self-loathing), but in O’Neill’s piece, such bitter despair needs to surface over the swagger and rhetorical flash. Hughie is only an hour long. But as we wait for Whitaker to gain confidence in his character, the night grows long and weary."

 

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/hughie

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 8:32pm

Theatermania is mixed:

 

"Physically, this production of Hughie is one of the most beautiful shows currently on Broadway. Scenic and costume designer Christopher Oram and lighting designer Neil Austin masterfully bring O'Neill's fleabag hotel to life, evoking the old sepia-toned photographs one could find tucked away in their grandmother's armoire. Austin's ghostly, haze-filled lighting seems to add a fine sheen of dust onto both Oram's beautifully hulking set and the impressively specific wardrobe he created for the two characters. Adam Cork provides a vivid soundscape of sirens and subways, a world fully alive just outside the revolving doors.

 

Grandage keeps the action moving smoothly, though his choice to divide the play into sections, separated by a not particularly subtle underscoring of just how alone Erie and Charlie are in the world, feels unnecessary. One could also raise the question as to why he and the production team chose not to pair the play with another work, as is a frequent occurrence to beef up the duration of the evening (a running time of under an hour is awfully paltry). In the end, however, the main concern is Whitaker's work. If only he could get the first half of his performance up to the level of the second, thisHughie would be a safe bet."

http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/hughie_76103.html

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 9:05pm

Newsday is positive:

 

And what a quietly satisfying, touching pleasure this production, staged by Tony-winning director Michael Grandage (Red) turns out to be. “Hughie” is a late O’Neill work, written as the first of eight projected one-act plays during his precious last years in the ’40s. Whitaker, who hasn’t been onstage since the movies snared him after college, brings a buoyant, sweet, almost delicate sensibility to the breakable soul in the baggy suit and bow tie who has grandiose self-delusions.

 

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/hughie-review-forest-whitaker-s-robust-broadway-debut-1.11510364

Updated On: 2/25/16 at 09:05 PM

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 9:09pm

Daily News is 1 out of 5:

 

Whitaker, known for emotionally vibrant performances in “The Crying Game” and “The Last King of Scotland,” is simply reciting his lines rather than embodying Erie Smith, the small-time gambler trying to get back on a winning streak....

 

That’s a shame, since there’s plenty to play as Erie, who’s down on his luck and living on illusions. During a mostly one-side conversation with an overnight hotel clerk (Frank Wood), Erie talks of things revealing his insecurity, anger, boastfulness and more.

 

Whitaker was one-note as he jawboned about women and wagers and, mostly, missing Hughie, the former desk clerk he believed was his lucky charm. Hughie’s desperate for a new talisman. But Wood plays the clerk in a brusque and slightly menacing fashion, which just feels off.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/theater-arts/forest-whitaker-underwhelms-eugene-o-neill-hughie-article-1.2542759

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 9:20pm

Variety is mixed:

 

Wood’s immobile face and poker-stiff spine are strong indications that Charlie is not only aware of Erie’s desperate need, but also determined to resist it.  Both actors have their best moments during this tug of wills. Wood makes Charlie’s silence seem both menacing and merciless, while Whitaker lays bare Erie’s terror of being alone with himself in this empty hotel in this cruel city.

 

There’s no denying the suffering humanity that O’Neill saw in poor Erie. But Whitaker’s hangdog vulnerability makes it tough to believe in Erie’s better days ....

 

http://variety.com/2016/legit/reviews/hughie-review-forest-whitaker-broadway-1201713997/

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 9:28pm

These reviews are all over the map which is a bit of a surprise.

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 9:45pm

The New York Times is mostly positive:

 

In Michael Grandage’s gentle, churning dream of a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie,” which sighed open on Thursday night at the Booth Theater, Erie is portrayed by that excellent actor Forest Whitaker, in a transfixing yet modest Broadway debut. Mr. Whitaker provides all the anchoring physical detail that you might expect from his meticulously observed screen performances (“Bird,” The Butler).

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/theater/review-in-hughie-with-forest-whitaker-two-desolate-lost-souls.html

Updated On: 2/25/16 at 09:45 PM

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 9:51pm

Wow. Haven't seen this, but from what others have been saying, I'm shocked that it's an NYT Critics' Pick. Good for them.

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 10:07pm

The Washington Post is positive:

 

That actor would be the outstanding Forest Whitaker, who demonstrates in his Broadway debut a facility for transformation on a stage as cannily as is revealed in his many screen performances. Under Michael Grandage’s well-calibrated direction, Whitaker trenchantly embodies the main — for all intents, the only — character in this drama, about a small-time horse player with a life so barren his most fervid moments are the ones he spends in a hotel lobby, chattily puffing up his exploits.

 

The other figure in the hour-long playlet, set in 1928 in the shabby entrance hall of a faded New York City hotel — and magnificently rendered by set and costume designer Christopher Oram — is the night clerk who’s forced to listen to Erie. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/02/25/forest-whitaker-successfully-tackles-eugene-oneills-hughie/

[Tom-497]

Posted: 2/25/16 at 10:11pm

USA Today is 3 out of 4:

 

Whitaker makes his character worthy of compassion. Erie can, without question, come across as a lout, particularly when the subject turns to women, who have obviously proven as elusive as money. But Whitaker brings an awkward sweetness that makes his desperation not only pitiable but accessible.

 

That Whitaker is the first African-American actor to play the part on Broadway — he's preceded by Al Pacino, Ben Gazzara and original lead Jason Robards — may lend a certain added poignance to O'Neill's account of a man whose dreams have been dashed in this country.

 

But Erie's struggles, like his flaws, are above all human, and will resonate with anyone who catches this gently moving production.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2016/02/25/forest-whitaker-makes-moving-broadway-debut-hughie/80772140/