LUCKY GUY: Consensus

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 12:32am

Hey, guys!

So, I'm curious as to what the public consensus is with regard to LUCKY GUY on Broadway. I know the reviews were fairly strong for it, but what of the public opinion -- especially my second family on here? Is it worth getting over to the Broadhurst? While we're on the subject, any perspective on seating over there would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all the insight!

Best,
- M

[dramamama611]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 2:25am

I don't know if I hold any sort of consensus but it was good, maybe very good -- but not fabulous, or even close to it. The biggest flaw, to me is the style in which the story is framed. Some fabulous individual performances. I thought Courtney B. Vance was, BY FAR, the best thing about the show. It was one of the Tony Nominations I was most happy about.

However, the show is presentational and involves a LOT of yelling. It was exhausting. I do not think that Hanks performance holds a candle to Tracey Letts' in Virginial Woolf. More's the pity that Hanks will likely win.

Updated On: 5/19/13 at 02:25 AM

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 8:48am

I agree 100% with dramamama about Letts.

[Luv2goToShows]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 8:53am

dramamama611, I totally agree. It was an ok play, the cast is the only thing great about it, with Courtney B. Vance the standout. Tom Hanks, well, is Tom Hanks, a natural who buries himself in a role, played a fine Mike McAlary. But the selling point for this play is the cast.

Also agree, Tracey Letts' performance should win over Hanks.

LimelightMike, if you are a huge fan of the cast or Mike McAlary, then it may be worth it, otherwise I would think twice about it.

[followspot]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 9:05am

It all came off as shallow, slick, and schticky to me, Hanks included. Nothing bad, but I never connected on any level other than as a somewhat bored observer to the story of a life (career, really) I didn't find particularly interesting. That said, great supporting cast directed to do everything in their power to distract the audience from the lack of narrative depth.

The Broadhurst is very intimate, and the play is very presentational — I can't think of any potential seating issues other than maybe to avoid sitting too close, as there is a constant use of informational projections throughout the play that might be difficult to see.

Updated On: 5/23/13 at 09:05 AM

[TalkinLoud]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 10:58am

I thought it was bad.

[Owen22]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 1:34pm

If you saw Peter Marks and Ben Brantley on Theatre Talk this week, they very lucidly explain what is wrong with Lucky Guy.

Oh, and Joan Rivers talks about it too...

[mikem]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 1:49pm

I thought the play was okay, but I was hoping for more. It's very much in a style of "and then this happened." I didn't find McAlary to be so compelling that I thought it was necessary to write a 2+ hour play about him, and I frankly felt I knew very little about his being (rather than his accomplishments) at the end.

Hanks is good but not great. He is a bit miscast age-wise (McAlary was 41 when he died and in his 20s in the beginning; Hanks looks over 50 the whole time). But he doesn't have much of a character to play. He is probably going to win the Tony but both Letts and Lane deserve it more.

I was surprised by the 6 Tony noms. It only got one Drama Desk nod (for Hanks) and 2 OCC noms (for Hanks and Best Play). It was not a factor at all in the NY Critics Circle voting (it didn't get any votes at all in the first round).

[mordav]

Posted: 5/19/13 at 6:05pm

I guess it depends what you are looking for when you go to the theatre. If you want a play that has a narrative that develops its characters and builds to a climax, then this show probably isn't for you. It is more the theatrical presentation of a series of vignettes from McAlary's life. The main problem I had with it was that when scenes did try and show the conflict of the character, e.g., in a long scene when he was alone with his wife, and in another with his editor, there wasn't enough of a build up to the scenes for them to be a denouement of anything.And then when it got to the Abner Louima case, I thought - "here we go", and then it was over.
It is the closest I have ever come to falling asleep in the theatre.

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 2:35am

Bump.

[jnb9872]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 11:07am

I didn't think it was great or terrible. Very middle of the road to me, which given the talent onboard can certainly be considered a let down. I didn't think it was much of a thud as Pacino's GLENGARRY, in that respect, and a lot of the cast was wonderful.

Hanks really does give a very committed performance, and I personally won't feel he's been unfairly honored if he wins the Tony. (I think there are better performances this year, but I don't think his performance isn't award-worthy, to parse that better before I get maligned.) Courtney B. Vance is a highlight, as is Peter Gerety (who I think is even better, and seeing him with Deirdre Lovejoy onstage was delightful for this fan of THE WIRE) and Christopher McDonald plays the kind of character that only he can make work so deliciously.

It's very pulpy bioplay, felt very much like an early draft of a piece that, had Ephron (sadly) had more time to polish could have turned into something both entertaining and enlightening but, as it is, falls just short of that. It really came across to me as a labor of love and a tribute to Ephron's memory that this ensemble gathered to produce this piece. That may not be enough for Broadway ticket prices, but there are worse things.

[welcometothetheater]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 12:37pm

I wrote this in my journal while the play was in previews. Obviously I was wrong, the play is incredibly successful financially, and maybe even artistically by some standards. The reviews I read were extremely tactful and sort of danced around the flaws of the script:

I love Nora Ephron and her work with all my heart. In the weeks following her unexpected death last summer, I really felt like I was mourning the loss of a friend, and certainly a mentor. I have such a strong desire to write and direct for stage and screen, but I also have a strong inclination to be an essayist, and she did it all with great success.

I fear, however, that Lucky Guy, her final work, will not be such a success. I could be wrong, but I predict unfavorable notices from critics when it opens, due mostly to the writing (in terms of concept and structure). Tom Hanks and Maura Tierney and the rest of the cast do all they can with the material, and of course George C. Wolfe's direction brings the text as close to life as possible. Apparently, though, in writing a play about journalism and reporting, Nora felt the need to have the story "reported" to the audience rather than shown to the audience.

The first things we were taught in introductory playwriting were the benefits of showing vs. telling, and while I'm all for breaking rules, I'm all for breaking rules when it's innovative and it works. Unfortunately Nora's not here to see that it doesn't work. There are one or two brief moments when the concept is effective, when we're given the same kernel of a fact from different angles by different reporters, demonstrating the power of the journalist to spin a story, but having an overwhelming majority of the action told to us was colossally boring, even with an actor as great as Tom Hanks onstage.

It really breaks my heart to write this. I really, really wanted to love this play for Nora, and maybe some people will thinks it's genius, but from what I could hear of audience members leaving the theater, there was a general dislike of the play itself.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:10pm

I don't view the characters talking to the audience as some sort of dramaturgical failure. What I think Ephron was going for is a group of guys swapping stories at a bar, in this case about McAlary. It's how the play begins in Wolfe's staging. And the overlapping and contradicting narratives throughout the play get at one of her main points: there's the truth, and then there's someone version of that truth. You witness that happening when Hap Hairston, the Courtney Vance character, edits one of McAlary's columns up on screen at one point in the play.

The play is also a eulogy for the waning days of the New York tabloids, a world Ephron loved, as she was a NY Post reporter in her early career. You also experience a moment in the late 90s when newspapers die and the 24 hour television news cycle takes over, another indelible moment in the production.

The play and production capture the dirty, racially charged, antic, adrenaline fueled New York in the 1980s in Act One. Then in Act Two, all of that begins to change, and the play captures that as well - a safer, more sanitized, less idiosyncratic New York City. Above and beyond being the story of the particular columnist, Mike McAlary, it's more about how journalism and New York and how we get our information has changed, and what has been lost in the process.

Maybe it's true that it's untidy and runs in a lot of directions at once and who knows what Ephron might have done if she had lived to see it through production, but there is a lot happening in it and a lot to ponder, beyond the strong cast and production. It's certainly a more interesting and worthy play than it is being credited for on this thread.