SEMINAR Reviews

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 6:49pm

Backstage is mixed (positive for the acting and direction, negative for the play):

"There are consolations, chief among them Rickman, who wisely understates Leonard's prickly intelligence, colossal ego, and enormous self-loathing. The actor is absolutely delicious as Leonard slides a metaphorical knife in so smoothly and off-handedly that the victim can't even feel it. Watch Rickman as Leonard delivers a blistering assessment of a student's bleak future. Only gradually does it become apparent that the teacher is speaking about himself. This is the kind of part that could have been played with fireworks, but Rickman sounds subtle and beautiful grace notes. Linklater gives spine to Martin's neediness, Rabe lights a fire under the seemingly placid Kate, O'Connell lends depth to the jerky Douglas, and Park gives Izzy a refreshing spark.

Gold maintains a steady balance between broad comedy and sharp character study, and David Zinn has designed character-revealing sets and costumes, but they do not entirely make up for Rebeck's obvious devices and tricks. Ironically, in this play about writers, we can see the writer's hand too clearly."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-ny-theatre-broadway/ny-review-seminar-1005546752.story

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 6:55pm

Variety is positive (with particularly kind words for Lily Rabe):

"The problem here is that the audience is never made privy to any actual work produced by Leonard's students, which makes his clever pronouncements sound facile and his sage insights seem shallow. The one-sidedness of these blind literary discussions also deprives the other characters from making genuine contributions of their own.

But if Rebeck isn't really interested in a serious literary exchange between a wise old statesmen and his promising apprentices, she's entirely committed to exploring the teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil sexual dynamics of private educational pods like this one. Although the young writers claim to be shocked by Leonard's unethical behavior, they all hurl themselves into these mating dances with more enthusiasm than any of them have shown about writing the great American novel."

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117946621

ETA: Also, someone should inform this critic that Sam Gold did not, in fact, direct August: Osage County... Updated On: 11/20/11 at 06:55 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 6:59pm

amnY is negative (2.5 stars though) (with praise for Rabe only):

"Oh, sure, the initial setup is reminiscent of a sitcom, and Rebeck depends heavily on vulgarities and insults for easy laughs - but it makes for great fun at first. Of course, that has a lot to do with a knockout performance from Rabe, who plays up her character's sexual awkwardness and professional frustration.

...

Linklater, who insists on crossing his arms at all times, is surprisingly dull. O'Connell comes off as upbeat and uninteresting. And Park is reduced to pointlessly taking her shirt off in the first five minutes and then being passed around between Linklater and Rickman.

http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/theater-review-seminar-2-5-stars-1.3335759

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 7:22pm

Hollywood Reporter is positive:

"The play is more driven by character than narrative. It doesn’t go deep on the armor required for artistic self-exposure or in subverting the mentor-acolyte dynamic. There are also drawbacks in the stage shorthand required to believe that fully formed opinions can be based on cursory glances at anything as complex as fiction writing. But Seminar is tight, witty and consistently entertaining, acquiring more muscle as the layers are peeled back to reveal both the scarred humanity and the numbness beneath Leonard’s soured exterior.

This happens incrementally, via nuggets dropped throughout the play – a few words here, a re-evaluating gaze there – but most dynamically, a fuller picture of the man and his methods emerges in two robust speeches. In one, Rickman masterfully builds steam in Leonard’s disparagement of Martin while gradually conveying that the soul-crushing path he’s mapping is actually his own. In another, he shows uncharacteristic vulnerability, confessing to the flaying effects on an artist of the whole process of being marketed and scrutinized.

This is a virtuoso role for Rickman; it’s to his credit and Gold’s that he makes it an integral part of the ensemble, not a star turn."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/seminar-theater-review-264108

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 7:32pm

A virtuoso role for Rickman? What the hell play did he see??

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 7:34pm

I also love that every single review has referred to Rebeck as "prolific". Apparently there is no other word to describe her.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 7:50pm

Talkin Broadway is actually positive:

"Making his Main Stem debut after a string of impressive Off-Broadway efforts with works The Black Eyed, Kin, and most notably Circle Mirror Transformation, [Sam Gold] burnishes every moment to a dazzling shine, and maintains a rigidly regimented pacing that doesn’t let a single plot point or line of dialogue escape the notice it deserves. More important is that he establishes and maintains a properly creepy claustrophobia that lets you understand how trapped everyone is by something, but does so with a light hand that never compromises Rebeck’s genial comedic atmosphere. Gold can’t work his peculiar magic of extracting shocking depth from apparently ordinary conversation — most of the dialogue is simply too insubstantial for that to work — but he finds more in what’s there than your senses tell you should be possible.

As do the actors. Rickman is something of a standout because of his delightfully dry oiliness, and his arch delivery makes each of Leonard’s barbs, whether they last a single sentence or approach Proustian lengths, a lacerating pleasure. But this is not a star vehicle, it’s an ensemble piece, and Rickman’s costars are all impressive. Park’s saucy, sarcastic delivery ensures that Izzy is exactly the erotic fulcrum she needs to be. In his Broadway debut, O’Connell proves deft at walking the difficult line between likeably haughty and lithely hateful — no small feat, as he’s portraying the smarmiest person onstage. Rabe is alternately hilarious and heart-rending as she sweeps through the full colorful spectrum of emotions of a victim determined to not let herself be down forever. And Linklater negotiates Martin’s evolution from prostrate indifference to power with energetic, pliable aplomb."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/index.html Updated On: 11/20/11 at 07:50 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 7:55pm

Entertainment Weekly is mixed to negative (C+):

"As for the other four other performances, each reflects the limitations imposed by the playwright. Park and O'Connell get the worst of the bargain since (to use a word lambasted early in the dialogue) there is no 'interiority' to either Izzy or Douglas. The distinctive Rabe (an outstanding Portia opposite Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice last season), is impressively resourceful in filling out the personality of a young woman oddly designated by the playwright as alternately a princess (the apartment belongs to her family), a feminist, a sexually frustrated Bridget Jones type, a bad writer, and a good one. (In the final scene she's someone else entirely — although who, exactly, is impossible to figure out.)

If, in the end, Seminar belongs to Hamish Linklater, it's not only because the actor does such a good job of creating, sustaining, and quietly intensifying Martin's full personality, building to the play's one honest dramatic climax. It's also because Rebeck has taken the care to make Martin a person, not a just a plot piece. Leonard would have something barbed to say about him — and then approve."

http://preview.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364394_20547297,00.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 8:22pm

The AP is very positive:

"This economic play, clocking in at 100 minutes with no intermission, still manages to say a lot about the pain and costs of creating art. It is funny, witty and painfully aware - easily one of Rebeck's best works. Director Sam Gold has drilled home the truth of her words and added a little frisky sexiness. An excellent cast of five - Rickman is joined by Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, Jerry O'Connell and Hettienne Park - give Rebeck's words a believable three-dimensional life.

...

Rickman is clearly very good at playing arrogant and sneering, but he shows a touchingly vulnerable side while also delivering a lacerating monologue about what the publishing industry does to young talent and how words can really hurt. Rabe has a coltish immaturity that ages into weary pride by the end, and Linklater is excellent as the nerdy, but needy, wannabe intellectual who is really just a boy.

Who turns out to be the best writer of the bunch? That's easy - Theresa Rebeck."

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1764568

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 8:25pm

Seems pretty much what I thought it'd be - praise for the performances, not-praise for the play.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 8:28pm

I mean, the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and the AP actually don't dislike the play. In fact, the AP loves the play.

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 8:42pm

I guess ya either like it or ya don't...Some will love it, some won't.

[Sauja]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 8:44pm

A mixed bag so far with reviews on the play itself, but I'm thrilled the cast is getting such great notices. Whatever you think of the play (I do happen to like it quite a lot), it's a pretty fantastic production with a killer cast.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 9:02pm

I agree, Sauja.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 9:43pm

Newsday is mixed:

"We're also expected to believe that these four would-be authors would pay him $5,000 apiece for 10 weekly sessions, without anyone having an outside job. The appealing Lily Rabe plays a rich, nerdy beauty who seems far too smart to have spent the past six years rewriting the same short story. It is also hard to believe that she lives alone -- without threat these days from the city's rent guidelines board -- in her family's Upper West Side rent-controlled palace.

Hamish Linklater is endearingly intense as a secretive young writer. Hettienne Park makes an edgy sexpot who, for some reason, thinks fame would mean being in New York magazine, while Jerry O'Connell deftly juggles the glib vanity of the most experienced student.

Rebeck, the prolific playwright with major credits in quality TV drama, is also the creator of "Smash," NBC's hotly-anticipated -- at least among us theater geeks -- backstage series about a Broadway musical. In "Seminar," she can make these ambitious characters enjoyable, but can't make them matter."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/seminar-fanciful-but-don-t-write-it-off-1.3335988

[Katurian2]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 9:47pm

Who goes to this play and comes out musing about rent guidelines, let alone mentions it in a review? Let's nitpick a little more, shall we??

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 10:01pm

Yes, Sauja, the cast and set design are absolutely superb. It's a true ensemble piece.

[Katurian2]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 10:13pm

Times is up: Mixed: http://theater.nytimes.com/

"The creation of art is notoriously difficult to depict on stage (as in film), so leeway must be allowed those who would evoke this slow and tortuous process in a brief, digestible narrative. But “Seminar” seems to be almost nothing but shortcuts, and that includes the ways it defines and manipulates its characters. Full of efficiently mapped reversals and revelations, the play feels as if it were written according to some literary equivalent of a mileage-saving GPS device."

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 10:14pm

Brantley is mixed at the Times:

"Mr. O’Connell and Ms. Park don’t overplay the inherent cartoonishness of the patrician Douglas and the sexpot Izzy (though I’m not sure either is ideally cast). And Ms. Rabe (a wonderful Portia in “The Merchant of Venice” on Broadway) and Mr. Linklater give real comic substance to skeletal parts.

Finally there comes a turning point, about an hour and 15 minutes into the show, when Mr. Rickman is allowed to embody something more than brisk intellectual sadism. Handed a really good piece of writing by one of his students, Leonard responds with a quietly potent mix of antagonism, humility, fear and something like joy.

Of course this mélange of feelings, magnificently orchestrated by Mr. Rickman, is arrived at after Leonard has only glanced at the first couple of pages of a vast manuscript. But for the first time I felt an authentic rush of pleasure and the exhilaration of being reminded that in theater, art comes less from landing lines than in finding what lies between them."

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/theater/reviews/seminar-by-theresa-rebeck-with-alan-rickman-review.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 10:16pm

USA Today is positive (3 out of 4 stars):

"Characters turn out to be different than they appear on the surface, though in predictable ways. Yet Seminar, which opened Sunday at Broadway's Golden Theatre, is consistently clever and entertaining — and, under Sam Gold's briskly intelligent direction, a fine showcase for extraordinary actors.

They include the formidable Alan Rickman as Leonard, who returned to the role Friday night after an "acute respiratory infection" led to the cancellation of Thursday's preview (and the first missed performance of his career). If Rickman was feeling under the weather, it registered as part of Leonard's emotional malaise. Perhaps the most banal figure in Rebeck's play — a brilliant roué whose brutish behavior toward others masks his own regrets — this literary lion nonetheless has some delicious lines, and the actor serves them with robust elegance while suggesting a wounded humanity that transcends stereotype."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/story/2011-11-21/seminar-alan-rickman/51322264/1

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 10:24pm

Michael Musto at The Village Voice is mixed to positive:

"The truth about Seminar?'

Well, the young writers' banter initially crackles, as they humorously toss around words like "reductive," "associative connection," and "interiority."

But other times their language becomes surprisingly flat, with too many seminar-discussion utterances of "I liked it" or "It's good."

Similarly, the play sometimes veers between the extraordinary and the mundane, with little attention paid to the quartet's actual writing processes.

Still, Seminar ends up being a tartly funny look at a teacher who makes Miss Brodie look like Mr. Chips, with Rickman never pandering for approval."

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2011/11/alan_rickman_on.php

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 11:34pm

NY Post is positive (3 out of 4 stars):

"Rebeck’s acidic dialogue often has a pingpong, sitcom-y quality — which isn’t a bad thing, especially considering that this would be a very good sitcom.

...

These exchanges distract you from the play’s implausible elements — here, an entire novel is deemed fascinating after 40 seconds of reading. The characters also follow a predictable arc.

...

Yet you can overlook the formulaic plotting because the witty Rebeck hits plenty of bull’s-eyes, most notably when poking fun at literary Manhattan’s cutthroat world. And with actors of this caliber delivering the goods, it’s easy to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride."

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/rickman_seminar_so_write_V7zWChVRGZEw0KBOZO0ybL

[bjh2114]

Posted: 11/20/11 at 11:37pm

Bloomberg is positive:

"Yes, you have seen this one before, the play/movie/novel about a debauched, embittered genius wreaking emotional havoc all around him until one talented voice breaks through the armor. Doubtless you’ll see it again. Rarely, however, will you see such toxic zingers delivered with more elan.

Rickman and this extraordinary quartet, paced with feverish enthusiasm by Sam Gold, bring sexiness, verve and artistry to a tried-and-true formula. They come very close to making it seem seem fresh."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-21/alan-rickman-devours-seminar-boy-scouts-gone-wild-review.html

[Copperfield2]

Posted: 11/21/11 at 12:39am

I'm really seeing this for the cast. I am not expecting a great play from Rybeck unless she suddenly gained genius overnight. It looks like the play will stay open at least for two more weeks when I am seeing it.