Posted by Jordan Catalano 2013-01-17 22:07:09
I guess Limelight Mike doesnt like Sar-Jo!
I'm on my phone and can't post em but go on ahead if you can find them!Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by chanel 2013-01-17 22:10:33
Brantley likes ScarJlett, but not the rest of it.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/theater/reviews/cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof-at-richard-rodgers-theater.html?adxnnl=1&ref=theater&adxnnlx=1358478540-mCrax9fg8i9nllWbVtblTQ
Villagevoice.com says Ciaran Hinds screams so much he might start to sound like Scarlett soon.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2013/01/scarlett_johans.php
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Visceral_Fella 2013-01-17 22:14:31
Ms. Johansson must be giving a stellar performance if Brantley liked her.
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Posted by NewYorkTheater 2013-01-17 22:16:39
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Posted by Jordan Catalano 2013-01-17 22:16:45
She actually is.
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Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 22:40:31
Financial Times is 3 out of 5 stars. I don't know if the link will work.
All the physical production co-ordinated by director Rob Ashford for this Tennessee Williams masterpiece is indelible....
Hinds hasnt quite the rotundity that we expect from Broadway Big Daddys.... But the actors southern accent isnt syrupy, and he achieves genuine pathos in the act-two showdown with Brick....
Monks Big Mama prods and pokes Maggie with the practiced skill of a professional character actor....
If Benjamin Walker gives us a solid Brick awash in whisky, Johansson delivers a Maggie with a whisky voice.... Johansson shies away from the poses that can turn Maggie the Cat into Maggie the Sex Kitten, but she doesnt find much biting humour in the role the way that Elizabeth Taylor did in the 1958 movie version. The performance is modestly accomplished, but furnishes little insight into the character....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 22:47:38
New York is mixed.
Johansson puts up a hell of a fight in the first act, but even her radiance is no match for a staging that seems to absorb and diffuse heat as fast as the actors can generate it. She starts strong, a ready pugilist, and she has to be: Act One belongs entirely to her. Yet Johanssons Maggie resides not in her blooming body or her more reticent soul, but in her throat: The character seems like a meticulous aural creation, and feels oh-so-created....
Luckily, Ciarán Hinds Big Daddy lopes in for Act Two, and he and Walker strike up a rowdy chemistry.... Hinds, regularly employed as a movie heavy, is clearly having a ball. Theres no detail work in his rendition: He just performs like the roofs on firewhen, in fact, the room remains mystifyingly tepid throughout.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by QuirkyGuy 2013-01-17 22:55:56
Entertainment Weekly is mixed. Grade: B
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 22:56:51
Hollywood Reporter is mixed.
For an actor whose experience is primarily in film, Johansson has innate stage presence, as she showed in her Tony-winning turn opposite Liev Schreiber in A View From the Bridge in 2010. She has no trouble playing sultry and looks alluring in Maggies iconic slip. Johansson has made some bold choices in the demanding role, aging herself with a coarsened, growling voice, knowing humor and a refusal to soften the characters abrasive edge. Theres no kitten in her cat. But keeping Maggies vulnerability hidden until the final act seems a mistake. Without the underlying wounds shes just a shrew....
There are real sparks in the father-son faceoff because Hinds gets the determination and frustration of Big Daddy, a crude man accustomed to buying or bullying his way out of any situation. Its a cruel irony that the exception is self-destructive Brick, the only member of the family he truly loves. Ashford and his actors do right by this sometimes-neglected aspect of the play, forging a kinship that exists between the two characters contrary to all logic.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by NewYorkTheater 2013-01-17 23:02:25
I thought it was dull. Maybe I saw it on an off night.
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Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:05:54
Backstage is fairly negative.
In his stage directions Williams calls Maggie a role that is almost sung and notes that her voice has range and music. Johanssons froggy instrument rarely varies in pitch as she races through the words on a single level of truculence, as if Maggie thinks that she can get her alcoholic husband, Brick, to sleep with her just by bullying him. Johanssons mangled rhythms and self-consciously thick Southern accent frequently impede clarity, and the actor is never able to show us Maggies shifting strategies for achieving her goal....
The proceedings perk up a bit when Ciarán Hinds Big Daddy shows up in Act 2.... Though Hinds is never convincingly Southern and also exhibits a tendency to charge through his lines unheedingly and indistinctly, he goes doggedly toward Big Daddys objective, and Benjamin Walker, as Brick, finally has something to play against....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:10:50
AP is mixed to positive.
Whether all the sound effects are meant to enhance the performances onstage or cover up the acting is unclear. What's not unclear is that an unnecessarily noisy production opened Thursday at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. The ruckus distracts from some fine performances and a play that deserves - as most of the men in it also wish - silence sometimes.
Scarlett Johansson turns in a nifty turn as Maggie, finding humor and barely hidden desperation in her role as frustrated wife and mother-to-be....
Benjamin Walker, as her husband Brick, is slow to boil but savage when he does....
The older couple in this three-act melodrama - Debra Monk as Big Mama and Ciaran Hinds as Big Daddy - are excellent as a long-married pair whose love has turned poisonous....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:14:40
AM NY is two stars.
... an unconvincing, cheesy and cheap-looking production.
At least Johansson is terrific, bringing a sultry, ferocious spirit to the famous role.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:21:15
Philadelphia Inquirer is pretty negative.
The prominent Irish stage actor Hinds (TVs Game of Thrones) plays Big Daddy without any of the grand Southern style and the entitlement we expect, but rather like a cigar-smoking CEO. Walker (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) plays Brick as a very contemporary sort of mess: where is that icy detachment, the broken, tragic elegant figure crucial to the role? None of these actors seems a good fit for these characters.
This is especially true for Johansson, although much of what seems missing at the heart of all their performances may be in Rob Ashfords direction.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:25:41
Daily News is 2 out of 5.
Broadways starry but misguided new take on Tennessee Williams 1955 Pulitzer winner about secrets, lies and love is a dim and soggy affair....
Johansson is alarmingly one-note....
Director Rob Ashford, known for staging and choreographing musicals, does her no favors with a preposterous set by Christopher Oram....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by jeffmiele 2013-01-17 23:26:20
Johansson and Monk give great performances, Ashford puts together a great physical production, smart move to eliminate ghost skipper http://tinyurl.com/auweojz
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:30:56
Newsday is mixed.
What we have not had, at least in my experience, is a sedate Maggie in a tasteful, even timid revival....
But here is Scarlett Johansson.... In her much-anticipated star turn as one of the theater's juiciest women, she works so admirably to avoid Maggie-the-Cat cliches that the actress and the character almost disappear in sensitive, levelheaded, ladylike restraint....
For heat, we must look to the moody, alcoholic Brick (played with dashing, elegant disdain by Benjamin Walker)....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by broadwaybabytn 2013-01-17 23:31:32
That's actually a post from your blog, Jeff.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:38:07
Bloomberg Businessweek is 4 out of 5.
Dont be lulled by Scarlett Johanssons steamy come-hither look on the posters for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Her Maggie the Cat is more tigress than the kitty so often portrayed in this role.
This gutsy production pairs the sultry star with the equally sizzling Benjamin Walker (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) as her dissolute, disinterested husband....
Ashford lets the show get a little fussy, what with the singing tykes and the ever-primping Mae (a rather one-note Emily Bergl). But Hinds is admirably coarse and Debra Monk is touching as the much maligned Big Mama. Michael Park is snakelike as the son whose very competence leaves his dying father cold.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-17 23:56:24
Boston Globe is mixed to negative.
Its vital that Johansson generate sufficient electricity to transfix us during the Maggie-centric first act....
But Johansson doesnt. The outlines of a fine performance are visible, but not the thing itself....
Nor is there much acting chemistry between her and Benjamin Walker, who portrays Brick, Maggies alcoholic ex-jock of a husband. Still, Walker (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) manages to deliver the most fully realized performance....
Theres a languid athleticism and sensuality to Walkers Brick, whos broken his ankle in a drunken attempt to clear some high hurdles. Hobbling in circles on a crutch, his foot in a cast, Walker moves like a tranquilized panther whos still capable of one last lethal lunge....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 00:02:14
USA Today is 3 out of 4.
The performance is, in other words, as insightful and as lacking in vanity as Johansson's last stage effort. If it's also less nuanced, that can be attributed at least in part to the material and to Rob Ashford....
As Brick tries to drink himself into a comfortably numb state, Walker makes him both a foil to Maggie's ferocious life force and, in his own repressed rage, a worthy sparring partner. He's just as potent in Brick's crucial scene with Big Daddy, Cat's alpha dog, played here by a duly commanding, savagely funny Ciaran Hinds.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 00:07:24
Theatermania is positive.
Of course, supplicants of subtlety and subtext will find the whole production overdone. However, this Cat is exactly the play Williams wrote, melodramatics intact. Earlier, coy productions were victims of a more mendacious time in which producers feared audiences wouldn't stomach the unalloyed truth of the play. In this version at least, the cat is out of the bag.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 00:13:42
Talkin' Broadway is mixed.
Spending most of the first act, over which Maggie traditionally rules, barking lines upstage, adjusting various parts of her outfit behind the bed or perched on a partially obscured chair, and basically doing everything except revel in the critical sexuality with which Maggie can no longer arouse Brick, Johansson captures none of the character's essential spirit and fails to set her up for the crucial role she'll play in defusing the powder keg of lies later on....
Benjamin Walker, however, makes an unusually dynamic Brick, a notable change from the thoroughly anesthetized lumps that so often appear in the play. If Walker doesn't project the dying glow of heat for Maggie that should give his early scenes some tension, his refusal to let Brick descend into complete self-pity believably animates a young man who's struggling to discover where (or whether) he belongs in an unfamiliar world. And Ciarán Hinds is a boomingly threatening Big Daddy, utterly convincing as an uneducated farm hand elevated to royalty beyond his ken and beyond his reason.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 00:20:31
WSJ is extremely negative.
Scarlett Johansson, who made a solid Broadway debut in the 2010 revival of "A View From the Bridge," is no good at all this time around as Maggie, speaking her lines in a half-intelligible pseudo-Southern accent that suggests a concerto for ice pick and eardrums.
Rivaling her in the weird-accent department is Ciarán Hinds, who plays Big Daddy, the cancer-ridden Mississippi plantation owner, as an Irish blowhard, an innovation that is as inexplicable as it is inappropriate. Benjamin Walker, cast as Brick, Maggie's unhappy husband, seems to be pretty good, though the rest of the show is so bad that he might simply be coming off well by contrast.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 00:28:02
NY Post is 3 out of 4.
While her performance often lacks nuance and starts off too shouty, the star eventually gains in confidence. Spitting out Williams florid lines in a low-throated growl reminiscent of the young Kathleen Turner (herself a Broadway Cat in 1990), Johansson successfully brings to the fore Maggies rough edges....
Hinds and Walker dominate Act 2, beautifully bringing out the mens fraught but strangely caring bond.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by henrikegerman 2013-01-18 01:59:04
In this instance, Musto gets it exactly right:
"Johansson has fun with Maggie's imaginative way with language, but with her raspy voice and overly direct approach, she seems to be playing Maggie's extreme coarseness at the expense of her sultriness or vulnerability. Her high-volume take is interesting, but it's hard to believe the emotionally (and physically) crippled Brick wouldn't grab his crutch--as it were--and hobble away for miles rather than just roll over to the other side of the bed."
My thoughts exactly. And the play suffers because of it (and I blame Ashford, not Scarlett).
But what's interesting is how the reviewers all see it differently, some saying she's too demure, some too strident, some say too ladylike, some say too coarse, some (inexplicably) see flashes of vulnerability, some (all too correctly) see none. Of course critics can interpret performances in different ways, but these diametrically opposed conclusions make little sense unless they saw different previews in which she was giving wildly different performances or they are just seeing what they "want" to see to make their point, or worse, in some instances just making something up so they have something to write to hide the fact that they are incapable of forming a genuine opinion about anything.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by broadwaydevil 2013-01-18 02:09:31
Henrike, to your last point, I will say that legitimate, qualified critics can have very different interpretations and opinions of the same work. That is the point of critics. Obviously there could be some differences between previews, but a lot of the differences in reviews can be chalked up to the fact that they're different critics with different experiences, expectations, and opinions. This is a fairly mixed bag but I'm sure they'll find some very good pull quotes (especially from the Times), promote Scar Jo like crazy, and have a solid limited run.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by henrikegerman 2013-01-18 02:46:05
^you're probably right, but still the reviews here are all over the place; when a Maggie is dismissed by some as a timorous kitten and unfavorably likened by others to a rapacious tiger, I've got to wonder if they saw the same play, let alone the same performance.
The simple fact is that, unfortunately, there is nothing remotely kittenish about Johannson's Maggie. At least when I saw the show 3 weeks ago. I wouldn't call her a tiger either. She's more like a shrew.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by muscle23ftl 2013-01-18 03:13:34
"For an actor whose experience is primarily in film, Johansson has innate stage presence, as she showed in her Tony-winning turn opposite Liev Schreiber in A View From the Bridge"
-I haven't even seen "Cat", but I did see "Bridge" and I feel like I've seen something different than the critics and Tony voters, Johansson was completely stiff on stage and had no stage presence in my opinion, her co-stars Liev Schreiber, Jessica Hetch, Santino Fontana and others, did though and got no recognition at the Tony Awards.
Based on the clips I saw of the previous Broadway version with Brittany Murphy, she was much more comfortable in the role and she deserved a Tony, not Johansson. Murphy had what it takes to be on Broadway.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 07:58:24
Guardian is mixed.
Resisting the charms of Johansson should indicate a bravura performance, but Walker, a rambunctious delight in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, seems oddly passive here.
Johansson, on the other hand, is very active and sometimes very good. She looks terrific (if there were an award for foundation garments hers would take the trophy) and she has emphasised her natural huskiness to deliver lines in a seductive growl. As in her Broadway debut in A View from the Bridge, she likes to let the audience know how hard she's working and some scenes seem more studied than lived, though she has a very fine last act. But all her feline grace and neat red claws still can't make this revival land on its feet.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 08:07:17
Regarding the variety of opinions re: Johansson -- I think part of it is, as suggested, the fact that different people are seeing different preview performances, and things are still fluid.
Also, I note that some of the reviews -- accurately from my point of view -- include some variation of: "She gets better in the third act." Although I found her first act one-note and grating, I did see vulnerability later on. For instance, the moment when she thanked Brick for lying on her behalf struck me as sweet and even touching.
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Posted by Roscoe 2013-01-18 09:04:44
Interesting that Brantley complains about the sound design, like the fireworks that underscore key lines. As I recall, they're specifically mentioned in Williams' play.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by henrikegerman 2013-01-18 09:15:28
muscle23ft, I disagree with your assessment of Scarlett's Catherine. I thought she was wonderful, not at all stiff, engagingly stage-present, and captured the character with complete comfort and seeming effortlessness. I also think she could have been a very good, or at least a far better Maggie with better direction. I agree with the review - can't recall which - that said the Maggie she reveals on the photo on the cover of Playbill is far more compelling and spot on that the one she is giving us on stage.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by TalkinLoud 2013-01-18 09:21:14
Wow, these reviews are all over the place.
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Posted by ucjrdude902 2013-01-18 11:09:50
Anyone know what pull quotes they're using?
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by TalkinLoud 2013-01-18 11:14:05
The two I saw in an ad today were:
"A four alarm urgency infuses every breath that Scarlett Johansson takes...she is an actress of raw power & adventurous intelligence...her Maggie is an undeniable life force." - Ben Brantley, NY Times
"Sultry and sizzling." - Bloomberg
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Jordan Catalano 2013-01-18 11:28:06
I'm shocked that Walker didn't get stronger reviews. I thought he was just OUTSTANDING.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by SonofRobbieJ 2013-01-18 11:36:44
Can I make a request? Can we stop listing Michael Musto's 'review' as the Village Voice review?
The lead drama critic for the Voice (and, in my estimation, the best critic in New York) is Michael Feingold.
Musto is a great gossip columnist, and may, indeed, have some interesting things to say about theater. The theater critic for the Voice is Feingold...can we note that? Pretty please with sugar on top?
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by chanel 2013-01-18 12:44:58
I presented it on this thread as villagevoice.com review.
Feingold's review doesn't come out till the next Wednesday, in the paper.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by muscle23ftl 2013-01-18 12:51:58
henrick, it seems like most critics and Tony voters agree with you, I do recall reading other posters on here saying she was stiff and she didn't have stage presence, but you know, art is subjective, I thought she wasn't good in the play, and then she went on to winning a Tony. It will be one of the big mysteries of 2010 for me!
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by henrikegerman 2013-01-18 13:04:08
Totally with you on the subjectivity, Muscle. For example, I couldn't understand the love for Ellen Barkin in Normal Heart. All I saw was screaming.
It makes things interesting that we all respond differently. However, sometimes the critics respond so completely differently that I find it incomprehensible. I'm not talking about their evaluations of how effective or accomplished something is, but on their empirical characterizations of the work. And how anyone can characterize Johansson's Maggie as kittenishly demure is beyond me.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by muscle23ftl 2013-01-18 13:19:51
WHAAAAAAAAAAT??? LOL!!! Ellen Barkin made me believe she was that doctor, fighting to get funding to research this new virus, filled with anger and frustration in The Normal Heart, I cried like a baby while she was doing her monologue! Hahah.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by henrikegerman 2013-01-18 15:23:42
^I know, exactly, and in this instance you're definitely in the majority and I'm not. It happens.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by South Fl Marc 2013-01-18 17:10:20
I'm curious, who was the actor who played "Ghost Skipper"? Was he let go or is he one of the understudies for Brick or Gooper?
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by Tom-497 2013-01-18 18:13:50
Variety is mixed.
This Maggie the Cat is a tiger. But for all that hissing and scratching, not much blood is spilled in this meh revival....
Johansson is ... giving a hell of a tough performance here. But she never lets up on this full frontal attack, denying Maggie the wounded feelings that make her human....
Walker pretty much walks through Act One.... But he recovers himself brilliantly in Act Two, turning in a riveting perf....
Although the miscast Hinds doesn't begin to get a handle on the magnetic vulgarity of Big Daddy, he's so fully engaged in that same father-son scene that the earth does seem to tremble....
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by susie777 2013-01-18 19:15:54
Unfortunately he lost his job. He was at the opening and has been removed from the playbill. Nice guy.
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by allofmylife 2013-01-19 03:19:47
It seems to me the only pull quote this play needs is the one visible in the photos on this site: "This Performance Sold Out."
Cat Up On A Hot Tin Roof Reviews
Posted by henrikegerman 2013-01-24 13:51:52
Feingold, perceptively, is not happy.
"Many people have worked very hard on the new production of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Rodgers Theatre), and I feel extremely sad for them, since all their efforts have added up to nothing but a confused, noisy mess, which has less to do with Williams's play than any production of Cat I've ever seen. I feel saddest of all for Scarlett Johansson, who made a powerful and lasting impression a few years ago as Catherine in Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge, and who still, I think, could prove effective as Maggie, Cat's heroine, if somebody would direct her in an actual production of the work."
