RACE Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 7:52am

Today is Sunday, December the 6th, marking the official opening night performance of the latest David Mamet work Race, which plays the Ethel Barrymore on 47th. Mr. Mamet also directs the wold premiere mounting that began preview performances on November 16th. The four-person ensemble features James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas. Mamet's Race opens tonight as the recent Broadway revival of his Oleanna ends its run at the Golden.

"In my play a firm made up of three lawyers, two black and one white, is offered the chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a black young woman. It is a play about lies," Mamet explained. "All drama is about lies. When the lie is exposed, the play is over."

Best to all involved.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:32am

Loved the set on this as well D2

I hope they get great reviews as the show deserves it. One of Mamet's best.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 7:30pm

Hollywood Reporter is Mixed-to-Negative (really more negative):

"Mamet is less interested in the legal aspects of the case -- which revolves around the apparent lack of evidence to be found in the hotel room in which Strickland supposedly ripped off the red sequin dress of his victim -- than he is in having his characters deliver profanity-laced pronouncements about the titular subject.

But despite the many provocative attitudes expressed onstage, the play's ideas don't coalesce in meaningful fashion, and the characters, particularly the evasive defendant and the intern with possible motives of her own, never quite come into focus. And with the latter character, Mamet once again reveals the misogynistic attitude toward women that made such works as "Oleanna" and "Speed-the-Plow" so problematic. "

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/race-theater-review-1004051274.story

I am kinda shocked. I expected the Scheck to like this one.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 7:54pm

The AP is Positive:

"The title is stark in its simplicity but "Race," David Mamet's provocative, hot-topic new play, is anything but simple.

The questions "Race" poses and the answers its characters supply add up to an intriguing study of perception — from both black and white viewpoints. Which means there are no neat, easy conclusions to be drawn even though Mamet throws out some fascinating, dramatically charged opinions, not only on race but on the divide between men and women as well."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/06/entertainment/e160253S20.DTL

[ljay889]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 8:09pm

Murray looks Positive

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Race.html

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 8:10pm

Entertainment Weekly is a C:

"...The shock is that the author (who previously staged a two-person dramatic tap dance about men and women, truth and lies in Oleanna) elicits little more than a shrug once all the thrusts and parries, revelations and reversals are toted up. The foursome bark out short, blunt, rhetorically provocative dialogue intended to demonstrate that black people and white people are doomed never to understand one another. But the arguments feel like moves on a game board, not words from the heart."
Review

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 8:56pm

Backstage is Mixed:

"There are plenty of pointed and thought-provoking exchanges, and the play's structure is sound. Several casually mentioned details later take on great significance. But Mamet, who also directs with a sure hand, fails to get beyond the editorializing to create characters with whom we can identify. Such identification may not be his intention, but it makes "Race" more a political tract than a compelling drama."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-ny-theatre-broadway/ny-review-race-1004051272.story

[Robert Taylor]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 9:18pm

Ugh, it didn't take long before the critics started shouting "misogynist" at the top of their lungs about Mamet.

It's like the original production of "Oleanna" or the book of the play, where the game of chess is so much more evenly played, never existed.

And I really wonder if anyone even saw or read "Boston Marriage" which was, for me, a really hilarious, smart and, yes, feminist portrait of two very brilliant women. You can't just pick the two most recent fairly popular Mamet revivals on Broadway and call him misogynistic without looking at his entire body of work. Updated On: 12/6/09 at 09:18 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 9:34pm

To be fair, Robert Taylor, his stance on women in Race could very easily be described as misogynistic. It's not subtle at all in the way he depicts the female character.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 9:38pm

Chicago Tribune is a Rave:

"“Race” is wholly watchable. Gripping, actually. Don’t believe anyone who argues otherwise. Granted, it is gripping within a dangerously narrow and familiar palette; “Race” is like a contrived composite of “Oleanna,” “Speed-the-Plow” and a TV legal procedural. There are many holes in its dramatic logic. Mamet doesn’t so much write plays driven by characters anymore. His shell-like characters are the whores of his ideas.

And for all the dramatic provocations (and the brilliant matching of the richly contrasting Grier and Spader), there’s a certain weariness that comes from watching the way that “Race” stubbornly ignores any and all differences in generational thinking and reduces its characters’ loyalties to the color of their skin. It’s a juicily argued reduction, sure, but also a very troubling one. Which is, of course, Mamet’s point. "

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2009/12/david-mamets-race-playwrights-latest-paints-world-in-black-and-white.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 9:41pm

USA Today is Positive (3 stars out of 4) with negative comments for Kerry Washington:

"The line seems at once sarcastic and pedantic. Though Race can be bitingly funny, some of Lawson and Brown's comments threaten to veer into speechifying. Lawson, especially, seems at times to be venting on behalf of the playwright, whose disdain for the strictures of political correctness is well known.

It doesn't help that Susan –the only woman who appears on stage – emerges as the weakest character, thanks in part to Kerry Washington's lackluster performance. Like Carol in Mamet's Oleanna, Susan is enigmatic, and her motives become more suspect as the play proceeds; it's hard to tell whether Washington's stiffness is meant to suggest that Susan may herself be an amateur actress."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2009-12-07-racereview07_st_N.htm

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 9:59pm

Variety is Mixed-to-Negative:

"Grier works a little harder to strip back the vocal personality to the required affectless delivery. But the constant sparks as his brusque barbs ricochet off Spader's make it easy to overlook the fact that the writing's dazzle is all on the surface.

Maybe with further refinement, especially in the third and final scene, this play could be more incisive than just a witty provocation. The bones are certainly there. But as it is, it's a lit fuse that crackles and pops but never quite explodes."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941738.html?categoryid=33&cs=1&ref=ssp

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:06pm

Well...looks like these reviews aren't nearly as good as the marks BWWers gave the show.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:12pm

And the kiss of death... a not so hot review from Brantley. New York Times falls somewhere between Mixed-to-Negative and Negative (I am leaning more towards negative here). Great review for James Spader though:

"Having put in many television seasons playing cynical lawyers (“The Practice,” “Boston Legal”), Mr. Spader could play Jack with his heavy-lidded eyes closed. He keeps them wide open, and considers every inflection and gesture in creating the one role in “Race” with more layers than the who’s-scamming-whom plot. He’s good enough to make you wish that Mr. Mamet had given his other actors the same opportunity."

http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/theater/reviews/07race.html?pagewanted=2

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:13pm

I never listen to most of them especially Brantley.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:16pm

That's nice Roxy. Too bad the rest of the tourists in the country aren't you.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:19pm

Well...I'm glad I'm going on Tuesday. Because if the crowds listen to the reviews, it doesn't look like this will last through the typically harsh winter. Hope I'm wrong.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:21pm

I liked the play more than the critics did. I think they went in expecting a very Mamety play, which Race isn't. It's somewhere between old-school Mamet and the sitcom-ish November. I don't think it was bad, just different.

[Robert Taylor]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:23pm

I'd call Brantley's review more mixed than negative. He gives high marks to everyone in the cast, underlines Spader's excellence, and says that while Mamet does an okay job with the subject matter, he was expecting more out of him as a writer, though his direction was fine.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:26pm

This is not a tourist show as there are no falling chandeliers or or dancing showgirls.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:29pm

Robert Taylor, the only reason I lean more negative is because of the obvious sense of disappointment. He makes it seem like such a let down, as though the whole thing didn't live up to its potential.

And Roxy, did Doubt or August: Osage County have chandeliers or showgirls? I don't seem to remember them. And yet I do remember tourists seeing those shows. Why? Glowing reviews.
Updated On: 12/6/09 at 10:29 PM

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:30pm

I'm pleased with the positive notices for Spader, whom I love in almost anything.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:37pm

Even though Osage had a long run, it was on TDF quite often.

Doubt had a subject matter than titillated & sex or the thought of it always sell.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:41pm

LA Times is Negative for the play with commendations for the cast:

“Race,” the title and subject of his new play, which opened Sunday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, starts strong but loses steam as the playwright approaches his tinderbox topic more like a journalist anxious to appear balanced than a theatrical provocateur wanting to get beneath all the claptrap.

Sure, the profanity rips like only Mamet can rip it, but his ideas lack their usual polemical bite and there’s something tentative about the overall vision. As George Bernard Shaw demonstrated, the theater is an ideal forum for complex public argument on hot-button issues. But the biggest debate this thin play will likely spark is among theatergoers wondering if their tickets were worth the time and expense.

With a title like “Race,” controversy would seem to be a given. Yet Mamet plays a strange shell game with his theme, leaving his characters in a limbo where they’re neither winners nor losers. There might be some truth to this stalemate, but the indecisive drama fizzles to a close. "

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/12/theater-review-david-mamets-race-on-broadway-.html

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 12/6/09 at 10:41pm

I think you're reading too much into it, roxy. It had strong reviews, which led to strong word of mouth, which led to good ticket sales. Period.