SPEED-the-PLOW Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 1:42am

Today is Thursday, October the 23rd, opening day of the 20th Anniversary Broadway revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, which co-stars Jeremy Piven, Raúl Esparza and Elisabeth Moss, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. For any all attending, by all means, post your thoughts, questions, comments and concerns here. To the cast and crew: Break legs!

Best,
- Mike

[nicole neumann2]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 7:17am

Good Luck to all........nicole

[TonyVincent]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 7:51am

Best of luck. I expect predominately mixed reviews. There wasn't anything particularly polarizing in this show. Able but predictable performances in an average script.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:41am

I wish them the best of luck! Hopefully Esparza will get his Tony this year...we'll see. Break a leg!

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:56am

I think it'll get mostly positive reviews, on the level of last seasons' revival of THE HOMECOMING: from what I've read, it seems like it all comes down to whether you like the play or not, and most critics probably like the play.

Very good reviews for Esparza (although not everybody likes him - even his performance in COMPANY got love-him-or-hate-him reviews), and perhaps mixed for the other two.

Of course, I could be wrong: last season, everyone was coming out of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF saying that Anika Noni Rose was the best thing about it, and that she was at least guaranteed a nomination. She got mixed-to-positive reviews, and the entire production was shafted.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:59am

I can't wait to see Brantley fall over himself over Raul again.

Many good wishes to them all.

I didn't like the play on paper, and I still don't think it's a particularly great play, but it's a decent play by a great writer (even if it's not your personal cup of tea), it's a hell of a lot of fun to watch, and it's relevant. I honestly think critics are going to be pretty divided on the performances, which are what it's most worth commenting on.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 11:54am

Good luck, guys. Break a f***ing leg.

[wonkit]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 5:07pm

Make it the best f****** opening night ever!

[Morgaine885]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 5:38pm

Happy Opening night!

Wish I could be there!!!!

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 6:28pm

To everyone involved with this play, I wish you all the best. And to Raul Esparza, may this be a Tony winning performance that finally brings home a well deserved award.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 6:32pm

Saw it last night. Raul is by far the best thing about it.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 6:33pm

Hope they all get ******* great reviews.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 6:54pm

AM New York gives the show 3 1/2 Stars out of 4:

'Piven and Esparza practically explode with high-powered male aggression. While Esparza indulges in excessive eccentricity and Piven sincerely portrays his character’s change of heart as a religious rebirth, Moss is seductively low-key. Her character is a seemingly pure, delicate flower who nearly destroys her boss’s career with her high art ambition of making a real human connection.

Neil Pepe’s tight direction allows Mamet’s criticisms on the excesses of American capitalism to resonate more powerfully than ever before. He has crafted three very strong performances and controls their use of Mamet’s overlapping, rapid-fire dialogue like a symphony conductor.

At an 80-minute length, this is an extraordinary production that never fails to rock and shock your attention span or leave you laughing.'

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/stage/blog/2008/10/broadway_review_of_speedtheplo.html

Updated On: 10/23/08 at 06:54 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 6:59pm

When we saw it it clocked in @ about 1:35. Did they cut it down?

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 7:16pm

The Associated Press is a Rave:

'The original 1988 production was skewered by the awkward celebrity casting of Madonna as the secretary. Moss is deceptively low-key, a nice contrast to all the screaming going on around her. She's a standout in the play's second act, set in Bobby's apartment, when Karen persuasively makes the case for filming the seemingly unfilmable novel.

Piven's Bobby is the play's moral center, or at least, the one person on stage who has qualms about what is happening and doesn't quite know what to do about it. The actor has perfected the persona of bad-little-boy-lost and wears the snarling bewilderment here with considerable expertise.

There's no such indecision in Charlie. The man is a ferocious wheeler-dealer, capable of glad-handing and back-stabbing at the same time. Wearing a fierce glint and a sly smile, Esparza is one of those kinetic actors who doesn't hold anything back. He's full-tilt ahead _ tailor-made for the pugnacious Charlie.'

http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news;_ylt=A0WTTkmNBAFJnt8AViDQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBhNjRqazhxBHNlYwNzZWFyY2g-?p=Michael+Kuchwara&c=&x=wrt

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:17pm

Why is this play held in such regard? I didn't understand. It seemed a very poorly constructed play as there wasn't much 'action' going on. I felt like Mamet just wanted to show off how punchy his dialogue can be.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:26pm

Talkin' Broadway is Very Positive:

'At last, the voice we didn’t know we needed to hear this election season has chimed in: David Mamet. What’s the message from this churningly clear-eyed, vinegar-tongued playwright? Blow away the stardust. Close the dream factory. Hope and change are buzzwords. What you can sell is the only thing that matters.

Not uplifted yet? You will be when you hear these scintillating sentiments - and so many more - erupt through the impressive revival of Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow at the Barrymore, thanks to director Neil Pepe and his largely excellent cast of Jeremy Piven, Raúl Esparza, and Elisabeth Moss.

This is not, however, a political play in the traditional sense - it probably didn’t even seem like one when it premiered in 1988, with Joe Mantegna, Ron Silver, and Madonna starring. It focuses on a shyster other than the kind that inhabits Washington, D.C.: the Hollywood mogul. He earns a magnificent living peddling fantasies with one hand, but he can gleefully crush them with the other. You want your movie made? Assemble the perfect package - the star, the setting, and the blurb (the shorter the better) - and you’ve got it. Art? Meaning? Life? That’s another ballgame - one that’s constantly being rained out...'

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

(so, of course, all the reviews from now on will be negative...)

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:28pm

Glad these reviews are so good.

I may rush it this weekend.

[humbugfoto]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:35pm

Hollywood Reporter (via Reuters) is very postitive:

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE49M9AI20081023

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:39pm

The Hollywood Reporter:

'...Anyone who saw the superb original production starring Joe Mantegna, Ron Silver and Madonna might be slightly disappointed by this rendition directed by Neil Pepe. Piven, perhaps conscious of not wanting to repeat his hyperactive persona from "Entourage," is a little too subdued, and Moss, though perfectly fine, naturally doesn't bring the resonance that her famous predecessor did to the role of a sneakily ambitious woman not above exploiting her sensuality.

Fortunately, Esparza picks up the slack, delivering a furiously fast and funny performance that provides Mamet's hilariously profane dialogue its full impact.'

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:46pm

USA Today gives the show 3 1/2 Stars out of 4:

'With Wall Street in ruins and businesses of all stripes facing greater consumer discretion, there is at least one place left where a guy or gal can safely exploit a colleague's dreams and the public's basest instincts. Hooray for Hollywood!

It's a measure of the blossoming triumph of commerce over art — not just in the movie business, but in television, music and, dare I say it, print and online media — that Speed-the-Plow seems even more topical today than when David Mamet introduced it.

Twenty years after Plow's Broadway debut, the wickedly fine revival... that opened Thursday at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre seems less like a satire than a darkly comic documentary. Strip away the trenchant wit of Mamet's dialogue and it's not hard to imagine his narcissistic, desperate characters inhabiting a reality TV show.'

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2008-10-23-speed-the-plow_N.htm

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:50pm

WOW! I'm so thrilled for this show...I'm excited to see Brantley's take on it.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 8:50pm

Variety is Very Positive:

'The play may be 20 years old but David Mamet's astringent observations on the supremacy of commerce over art in Hollywood are still as fresh as last night's rushes. With the dismantling of studio specialty divisions and the increasing struggle of non-mainstream fare to find a foothold in the marketplace, "Speed-the-Plow" remains on-target in its sardonic skewering of an industry run by self-confessed whores and driven by the public's appetite for mindless escapism. Despite a weak midsection, Neil Pepe's taut Broadway revival keeps the verbal sniper fire swift and scathing, while the three accomplished actors make the air between them crackle with tension.'

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117938792.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 10:22pm

Ben Brantley at the New York Times is a Rave:

'Mr. Piven has the pivotal role, and he executes it with uncanny grace and intelligence. A three-time Emmy winner as the amoral über-agent on “Entourage,” he would be a natural for the hungry-like-a-wolf Charlie. But here he mines a subtler vein, letting you glimpse the genuine, self-questioning weariness beneath Bobby’s macho bravado. Far more than Charlie, this Bobby knows he’s playing a part, a perception that could be fatal.

In contrast, Mr. Esparza runs full speed ahead with his ambition-stoked character, tapping the full kinetic force he artfully kept under wraps in recent revivals of “Company” and “The Homecoming.” But while Charlie may be an animal in perpetual fight-or-flight mode, Mr. Esparza finds many shades and textures — of pride, humiliation, anger and resentment — within that primal instinct. And the portrayal of the shifting alpha-male status between Charlie and Bobby should be mandatory viewing for sociologists and, come to think of it, zoologists.

Ms. Moss is best known for playing another ambitious secretary (turned copywriter) in a testosterone-drenched world, on the AMC series “Mad Men.” But she definitely doesn’t just repeat what she does on television. When Madonna played Karen — as woodenly as she was to play most subsequent parts — she got a pass from the critics, who said that her role was too enigmatic to do much with. Ms. Moss proves the lie in that assessment, bringing a naked clarity to her unvarnished, tinny-voiced Karen that makes the play hang together in ways it didn’t before.'

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/theater/reviews/24plow.html

Updated On: 10/24/08 at 10:22 PM

[karen24]

Posted: 10/23/08 at 10:33pm

Wow! Can't wait to read more. I've been haunting the Web site but hadn't seen this yet. Thanks!