October 15, 2008

'To Be or Not to Be' opens, bombs on Broadway

The Manhattan Theatre Club staging of the WWII comedy “To Be or Not to Be” opened on Broadway last night, earning half a star from the Post, and comparisons to long-refrigerated celery (from the Times,) and cement pierogi (from the Daily News.)

Newsday asks not “what” but “why.”

The play is based on the 1942 Ernst Lubitsch film of the same name, set amid a Polish acting company trying to make the best of it as the Nazis invade.

“To Be or Not to Be” is scheduled to play through November 23 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, located at 261 W. 47th St., map. Tickets are priced from $56.50 to $96.50. Student rush tickets are $26.50.

The reviews:

Associated Press - “The fall theater season is still young, but Nick Whitby’s “To Be or Not to Be” may turn out to be the most unnecessary Broadway production of the year.”

New York Times - “This show isn’t offensive, though; it’s just pale, flat and a bit desperate”

Post - “”To Be or Not To Be” is a shabby little play. It bears the marks of most bad comedies - it’s not funny, and it’s incomprehensible.”

Newsday - “What Casey Nicholaw’s production does have is a cast, headed by Jan Maxwell and David Rasche, forced to work way too hard to find a twinkle of charm, much less hilarity and heartache, in this return to this odd trifle-within-a-tragedy.”

Variety - “Whether it’s as a play or musical, theatricalization of film properties requires, at the very least, freshness of vision, if not of structural conception. Whitby’s inert reworking of Edwin Justus Mayer’s screenplay for the Lubitsch movie simply slaps it onstage, with embellishments that add nothing and supposed expedients that slow things down.”

Daily News - “Though the play strives to be fluffy, it’s about as airy as cement pierogi - and a late turn toward heart-tugging feels tacked on.”

Hollywood Reporter - “This woeful theatrical version of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film classic doesn’t begin to conjure up the magic of the original or even the far lesser Mel Brooks remake.”

Newark Star-Ledger - “Nick Whitby’s limp, choppy stage version more or less follows the movie and includes its arguably wittiest remark, which a Nazi cracks about Josef’s histrionic skills: “What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland.”“

amNewYork - “The blame for this fiasco lies in Nick Whitby’s stale and utterly misguided adaptation, which mechanically reproduces scenes from the original film while adding awkward, uninspired plot twists.”

Hartford Courant - “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.”

Philadelphia Inquirer - “In the amusing, feather-light To Be or Not to Be, a world-premiere comedy that opened last night on Broadway, there’s a little of everything and it all adds up to a modest whole.”

October 15, 2008 8:12 AM in Broadway

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