History Boys Reviews- Page 2

[new_philosophy_girl]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:02pm

mabel...he's seems to be out a lot. when I saw the show the 15th, anderson was out. hope he's alright....


I'm so happy to read these reviews. The show and cast deserve every last accolade.

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:04pm

Margo, just wondering if you have seen it yet?

[bythesword84]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:10pm

Actually, Anderson's been out the whole time. He wasn't there the first preview and any other time I was there (including tonight's opening) or at the theater the u/s board was up with him out. I don't think he's done a performance.

Updated On: 4/23/06 at 11:10 PM

[andyf]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:13pm

"He wasn't there the first preview and any other time I was there..."


How many times have you seen it already, Sword?

It hasn't been open long at all, but you sound like you've gone two or three times already. Just curious. Brava to supporting the arts.

[mabel]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:15pm

Thanks for the info on Anderson, bythesword84. I was curious about him since, as I said, I noticed he was out Wednesday and Saturday. But the fact that he wasn't even in the Times photo seemed especially curious.

How fun that you got to go to opening night, too!!! I've only been to one. Very exciting though!

Updated On: 4/23/06 at 11:15 PM

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:15pm

He wasn't there when I went on Thursday night.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:21pm

I see it this week and already have tickets to see it again in May (a friend is coming into town and wants to see a good play).

Here's a rave from Variety:

"Transatlantic travel can be a treacherous adventure in the theater. Shows lauded on the London stage often founder in Gotham while Broadway hits have been known to leave West Enders cold. So feeling the ripples of appreciation as a New York audience connects to "The History Boys" makes a captivating work even more deeply satisfying. This very British play from that peerless observer of English life, Alan Bennett, is in many ways sprawling and untidy, but invigoratingly alive with ideas. And Nicholas Hytner's superb production also is alive with an unruly energy that mirrors the sexual and intellectual vitality of the gifted lads at the play's center.

The National Theater smash arrives on Broadway after repeat repertory engagements in London, followed by U.K. and international tour stops and the shooting of a film version with the same director and cast, to be released by Fox Searchlight later this year.

Returning to a setting distant in time but close in milieu to that of his first play, "Forty Years On," Bennett gives ample evidence here of why the British press tirelessly refers to him as "a national treasure." Among his contemporaries, Tom Stoppard, Michael Frayn and Caryl Churchill are brilliant intellectual playwrights, but Bennett is as much a humanist as an intellectual. His plays are the work of a restless, questioning mind but also of a gentle soul and an immovable outsider whose writing has remained impervious to the effects of success and privilege. It's the sparkling balance of the literate with the poignant that makes "The History Boys" so enjoyable."


http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117930303?categoryid=1265&cs=1

Updated On: 4/24/06 at 11:21 PM

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:21pm

Seeing this Thursday night. Hooray!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:36pm

Theatremania is another rave:

"Bennett's The History Boys is explicitly about teachers and schoolboys and what constitutes a true education. It may well be the best bloody play to have opened either on or off Broadway this season. Part of what makes it superior fare is that it concerns something crucial. For the record, the play copped almost every prize in sight when it bowed at London's National Theatre two years ago, and it could repeat the award-nabbing trick here as well.
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If you don't think this clash of principles makes for engaging theater, put on a dunce cap and go stand in the corner. Bennett's play crackles with the heat and banked threat of a hearth fire. Irwin's strategy is championed by the determined school headmaster (Clive Merrison), who sees great things for himself and his institution if his motley charges impress Oxford and Cambridge. But the boys, an octet of precocious and sharp-tongued (not to say foul-mouthed) lads, clearly respond to Hector's methods and are on their way to becoming quick-witted, independent thinkers -- even though the sweet-voiced Posner (Samuel Barnett) and the taciturn Rudge (Russell Tovey) lag socially in comparison to the sexually predatory Dakin (Dominic Cooper) and the incipient seminarian Scripps (Jamie Parker).

Bennett, whose work is undeservedly less well known in America than that of his peers Tom Stoppard and David Hare, stuffs his narrative with a series of hilarious schoolroom scenes. (Bob Crowley designed the sliding-grey-walled sets, and Ben Taylor provided the many video sequences that cover scene changes; Crowley also did the costumes, Mark Henderson the lights, Colin Pink the sound.)
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At one point in History Boys, when Irwin and Hector are dueling about over their disparate philosophies, the former says to the latter: "Education isn't something for when they're old and grey and sitting by the fire. It's for now. The exam is next month." Hector replies, "What happens after the exam? Life goes on." Alan Bennett's History Boys will enrich the lives of all current or former students who see it.

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/8111

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:46pm

True, true. It did indeed.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:47pm

Not that I wasn't suprised, but it's so wonderful to see all the raves coming in. From the first time I saw it, I knew the acclaim would soon follow, and I know that it will do very well with the Tony Awards. It's so rare to find that chemistry on the Broadway stage lately, so it's great to see it recognized. Too bad it wasn't eligible for a Pulitzer.

Let's hear it for The Boys!

(I know, cheesy...)

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:51pm

You are completely right about the chemistry in the show. It's thrilling to watch.

[musicman89]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:56pm

It's sad that it will not be able to extend. If it does win the Tony (which it most likely will), those tickets are soon going to be hard to get.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 4/23/06 at 11:59pm

Andyf, I hate you will all of my being.

Mabel, no problem, I hope it was of some help. Yes, tonight was really nice. They gave Frances flowers at the curtain call and everyone stayed standing and applauding until the cast came out a second time. It was very well received. I'm just a tad bit in love with this show, as Andyf was mocking because tonight was my fourth time seeing it...

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:01am

Pay him no attention, bythesword. I think it's great that you're supporting a show that you love. More power to ya!

[bythesword84]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:06am

Oh I do love it. I love it very, very, much.

And he's very easy to ignore, I just get back at him once and awhile when its appropriate

Besides, I'm going to see it again anyway, its not like a little teasing could stop me, ha!

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:09am

No offense to anyone, but it's nice to see someone supporting a non-musical so much.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:11am

Well, I mean I love my musicals. Its not like I don't like musicals, I love them. However, for a multitude of reasons I think The History Boys is beyond brilliant and I, for one, am thrilled to see the reviews it is getting. I think it (and its cast certainly) deserve every bit of praise and reward that they get.

[Lamc16]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:12am

ditto.

[mabel]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:17am

Spoilers below...some posts on talkinbroadway making me ponder a couple things (well, one main thing).










What do all you HB enthusiasts think about the issues with Hector and his motorbike groping. While it didn't ultimately "ruin" the show for me as much as it appears to have tainted it for some of the TB folks, I must admit that I did find the fact that none of the boys seemed overly concerned, affected, etc by it to be kind of...off. Like, "Who's going to volunteer for ol' Hec to cop a feel today? Oh, ok, I will." Didn't Dakin even say something along the lines of "shouldn't we be more affected by this than we are?" It just seems odd to me that it seemed like a such a non-issue to the boys. Dunno, maybe I missed some awkward glances/moments in my quasi-obstructed seat, or maybe I missed some comments that hinted at it more. I'll have to give it a read, and I'm sure I'll see it again at some point. I still really enjoyed it, though there was definitely something about this whole plot point that seemed, as I said, off to me. Thoughts? I'm more than open to "how could you miss, such and such?" type comments, because that could very well be! I'm in end-of-the-semester, not-so-bright mode.











/

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:27am

Margo--

I'm seeing it on Friday as well. Let's meet up! I'll be in the front row.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:29am

Broadway.com is Positive:

"We don't go to the theater for a lecture. Or do we? Alan Bennett's rip-roaringly enjoyable The History Boys is almost entirely a pedantic exercise; its point of view is never far from view. But Bennett possesses such a large and sympathetic vision, and such a smart ear for incisive, nearly Wildean language, that this teaching lesson is like none we ever received in school. Certainly director Nicholas Hytner's handsome, free-flowing, ideally cast production, which comes to us whole from London's National Theatre, helps Bennett's medicine go down smoothly. But the play's the thing, and in the midst of an intellectually challenged Broadway season, we might embrace The History Boys as a wise elder whose company enriches, even if the message he bears is a tad shopworn.
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It is a tremendously entertaining evening, not least because it captures, in splendidly immediate theatrical terms, the twilight of boyhood camaraderie—a time when the exuberant confusion of youth makes the time buzz by before you know where it went. The eight schoolboys here are a thoroughly lovable and plausible bundle of wisecracking overconfidence and teenage nerviness, from the cocky Dakin (Dominic Cooper) to the good-natured Scripps (Jamie Parker), from the touchingly effete Posner (Samuel Barnett) to the pudgy joker Timms (James Corden).
___________________________________________________________

Apart from Sweeney Todd, there's probably no better ensemble cast on Broadway this season. The play's action spills energetically around Bob Crowley's expansive rotating set, with scene changes covered deftly by quick-cut film montages or stageside songs from the honey-voiced Posner and the piano-tickling Scripps.
______________________________________________________________

Indeed, Bennett's attention to behavioral detail, and the bone-deep humanism behind it, is finally what makes History Boys more than a mere thesis statement on the state of education, or a crank's elegy to lost innocence. Bennett's points could surely be reduced to pamphlet form, but that wouldn't be fair to a play this full. When Irwin tries glibly to paraphrase Kipling, Timms stops him and points out, inarguably: "With a poem or any work of art we can never say 'in other words.' If it is a work of art there are no other words."



http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=527937

[NYadgal]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:36am

Cannot WAIT to see this!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 12:39am

The Washington Post is a Rave:

"May the marvelous "The History Boys" achieve a long and happy life on Broadway. May it be fruitful and multiply. May its tills fill to overflowing, its matinees sell out on beautiful spring days, and its cast spend a night at my house.

You're prone to swoon a bit embarrassingly when a play is as bracingly smart as the one that opened last night at the Broadhurst Theatre. Playwright Alan Bennett has pulled off that rarest of feats, a comedy of ideas both devilishly entertaining and true to the heart."

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 4/24/06 at 8:07am

When is the last time a full transfer like this won the Tony?