TO BE OR NOT TO BE Reviews

"To Be or Not To Be," Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 film comedy about Polish theatre troupers trying to outsmart the Nazis, opens on Broadway tonight (Tuesday, October 14) in a new stage adaptation penned by Nick Whitby, at MTC's newly-refurbished Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Break legs, all!

Post 'em here!

The Hartford Courant is MIXED for the show, POSITIVE for Maxwell...

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/stage/reviews/hc-toberev.artoct15,0,7304878.story

The production that opened Tuesday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (formerly the Biltmore), seems made for live theater. Most of its characters, after all, are actors, members of a Polish troupe headed by Josef and Maria Tura. And the adaptation by Nick Whitby cleverly reworks the material for the stage.
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Under the direction of Casey Nicholaw (" The Drowsy Chaperone"), Maxwell gives an enthusiastic, highly watchable performance with some wonderful moments. When offered a cigarette by Silewski, suavely acted by Rocco Sisto, she takes it, allows him to light it, then discovers she already has been smoking a one of her own. Maxwell stares at her foolishness, then smiles and spins her hands, like twin whirly-gigs.
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This is an elaborate physical production, with theatrical lighting by Howell Binkley and a series of grainy projections of marching troops and swooping planes designed by Wendall and Zak. All of this makes for an enjoyable evening, though not always as funny as Nicholaw obviously hopes. But then again, that was also true of the overrated "Drowsy Chaperone."

Just got back from the opening night performance. I tried to like this, but the material this great cast was given was pretty terrible.

Word of Mouth runs the gamut.

One woman hated it.
One woman felt it was mediocre.
The guy felt it was good, but not great. However, he seemed to have genuinely liked it.

http://www.broadway.com/To-Be-or-Not-To-Be/broadway_reviews/5012846

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/theater/reviews/15tobe.html?ref=theater

Ben Brantley at the New York Times is Negative:

'If the producers of the walking corpse of a comedy “To Be or Not to Be” are feeling unappreciated this morning — and it’s a safe bet that they are — here’s a consoling thought for them. It took years for the Ernst Lubitsch film that inspired this play to get any respect. Greeted with sad critical head-shaking when it opened in 1942, Lubitsch’s bizarrely merry tale of a theater troupe in Nazi Poland is now considered a masterpiece of American cinematic farce.

To be honest, though, I can’t imagine many of us who attended the “To Be or Not to Be” that opened last night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater looking back in a couple of decades and thinking: “Doh! How could we have missed the greatness of it?” As translated to the stage by the playwright Nick Whitby and the director Casey Nicholaw, with a heartbreakingly game cast led by David Rasche and Jan Maxwell, this Manhattan Theater Club production has the spring, color and freshness of long-refrigerated celery...'

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/theater/reviews/15tobe.html?ref=theater

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OK, I'm a relative newbie here--can someone explain to me how Brantley can get his review posted less than 45 minutes after the curtain comes down? Does he go to previews and write most of it in advance? Does he write it on his Blackberry during intermission?

It's too bad it's getting such negative reviews. I just read the interview with Maxwell in the Sunday Times and she sounded so happy to be in it.

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The press usually attends a special "press preview" a day or two prior to opening.

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TheaterMania is NEGATIVE

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/15589

"...For all the production's many flaws, some of the script's dialogue -- much of it lifted bodily from the film -- successfully lands. One of the funniest lines comes from invading Colonel Erhard (Michael McCarty), who says about attending one of Josef's performances of Hamlet: "What he did to Shakespeare, we are now doing to Poland." Sadly, the same could be said about what's being done by Nicholaw and company to the original To Be or Not to Be. "

Tis a pity the critics are tearing it apart. I enjoyed it for what it was...definitely not as good as the film, but it was an enjoyable evening.

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How was the party, though?

I was there last night...the play was pretty dreadful. You could tell there were were problems with the playwright and the play. Most times it was mechanical and predictable, and there was so much superfluous dialogue, and for me most of the actors had this passive frustration about themselves.

So far (I know we missed a few but I can't find any more now...)

NEGATIVE
New York Times
New York Post
Theater Mania
Talkin Broadway
Associated Press
Variety

MIXED
Word of Mouth
Hartford Courant

Updated On: 10/15/08 at 03:03 PM