PAL JOEY Reviews

[accordingtoalex]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 12:54am

Post 'em here!

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 12:54am

It's gonna be awhile...

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 1:14am

i agree...this thread was started a bit too early...

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 1:15am

lol way too early. but they sure will be a fun read.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 1:21am

I'm sure the critics will be up all night finding just the right adjectives to describe this Pal Joey.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 1:21am

I'm sure the critics will be up all night finding just the right adjectives to describe this Pal Joey.

[accordingtoalex]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 2:22am

Sorry for the early start - notwithstanding, these reviews are going to be extremely interesting to read. Seeing it on the 30th and looking forward to it.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 4:52pm

Newsday is Mixed-to-Negative:

'Broadway has been waiting a long time for a major revival of "Pal Joey," the most sophisticated musical to ever get lost in mid-century Americana. But despite a smart creative team and game performances from Stockard Channing and the ever-more-surprising Martha Plimpton, the Roundabout Theatre Company production that opened last night at Studio 54 seems more like grown-ups playing dress-up than gritty and cynically delicious pulp fiction.

There is no nice way of saying this. Matthew Risch, the understudy who stepped into the starring role when Christian Hoff reportedly was injured, is a slick and stylish hoofer, and a competent singer. But he doesn't have the wattage to make us care about Joey Evans, the song-and-dance cad and gigolo played by Gene Kelly in the 1940 original, Frank Sinatra in the 1957 movie and Bob Fosse in a 1963 revival.'

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/friday/partii/ny-etent5968940dec19,0,5729172.story

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:10pm

"BOTTOM LINE Pale pal"

Wow.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:14pm

And so the onslaught begins...

[jaystarr]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:15pm

Ouch!

J*

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:20pm

They are coming.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:26pm

Is it just me or do pans for shows with troubled preview periods show up sooner?

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:43pm

AM New York gives the show 1 1/2 Stars out of 4:

'The blame for this revisal should lie with playwright Richard Greenberg, whose overhaul of John O’Hara’s original script with new character motives is uninvolving and awkward, and director Joe Mantello for making so many poor artistic choices. Graciela Daniele’s serviceable choreography works best when it parodies bad nightclub staging.

The production is visually attractive thanks to Scott Pask’s seedy underworld set and William Ivey Long’s Depression-era costumes. Don Sebesky’s new orchestrations, conducted by Paul Gemignani, sound great. So perhaps someday “Pal Joey” will receive the Broadway revival it so rightly deserves.'

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/stage/blog/2008/12/theater_review_of_pal_joey.html

[jonartdesigns]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:47pm

to quote the producers: "The reviews come out faster when the critics leave at intermission"

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:50pm

OUCH.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:52pm

"He also appears too effeminate to play such a manipulative conman."

Haven't seen homophobia in a review in a long time. Fun!

[Neverandy]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 5:56pm

that's not homophobia. "Effeminate" is a characteristic. If it's a characteristic in a leading man playing opposite a woman, it's a problematic one.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:02pm

For all my reservations about this revival -- and they are many -- I didn't feel that Risch projected as being "effeminate" -- and I had the sense that he was working his a__ off (maybe not to successful effect but still working hard).

I TOTALLY agree about Greenberg's revisions and Channing's singing.

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:06pm

Oh please! The exact same thing could have been said in a more tactful way.

[Neverandy]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:31pm

Like how?

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:44pm

The Roundabout Theatre Company gets a lot right with its handsome revival of the jazzy classic - just not the guy on the marquee.

http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/90930/time-out-theater-review---pal-joey-/Default.aspx

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:49pm

NY1 (with video) is Positive:

'If “Pal Joey” has a weak center, the glitter at the fringes is plenty engaging. Richard Greenberg's rewrite of the John O'Hara book flashes with keen wit and shadows of melancholy, raises the emotional stakes for each character and avoids O'Hara's more formulaic plot devices.

Choreographer Graciela Daniele keeps the cast bumping and high stepping with jazzy dances. Martha Plimpton makes a sizzling musical theater debut as the jaded singer Gladys Bumps, dryly unzipping Lorenz Hart's perfectly packaged rhymes.

Stockard Channing is classy and poised, and while she may not be a great singer, she lends worldly humor and stylish charisma to classic tunes such as "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." If only she could have lent some of that star presence to her leading man.'

[jaystarr]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:54pm

Too bad it was pretty harsh to Matthew Risch! I feel sorry for him, based on the clip it looks like he gave 110% !

J*

[marknyc]

Posted: 12/18/08 at 6:57pm

The NY1 review got it right - amNY was just being bitchy.
Updated On: 12/18/08 at 06:57 PM