Broadway Review Roundup: THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON
By: Robert Diamond Mar. 07, 2011
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THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON officially opened on Broadway on March 6, starring Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan, Chris Noth,Jason Patric and Kiefer Sutherland. Jason Miller's Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON is directed by Gregory Mosher and plays at the Bernard B Jacobs Theatre (242 West 45TH Street). This is a limited engagement through Sunday, May 29th, 2011.
The design team includes Michael Yeargan (Sets), Jane Greenwood (Costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (Lights) and Scott Lehrer (Sound).
THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON is produced by Robert Cole, Frederick Zollo, Shelter Island Enterprises, The Shubert Organization, James MacGilvray, Orin Wolf, The Weinstein Company, Second Chance Productions, Brannon Wiles and Scott M. Delman/Lucky VIII.
THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON made its debut at The Public Theater in May 1972 before moving to Broadway's Booth Theatre where it went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play and the Tony Award for Best Play for the 1973 season. It played a total of 944 performances on and off Broadway.
What'd the critics have to say about the star-filled new revival? Let's find out...
Ben Brantley, The New York Times: "That Championship Season," Jason Miller's portrait of morally bankrupt men remembering their Glory Days as a high-school basketball team, was never what you would call a shy play. Like its liquored-up, confession-prone characters, this award-laden 1972 drama states its intentions loudly, repeatedly and often embarrassingly.
Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: Such easy camaraderie would seem hard to fake, and it serves the cast well. "That Championship Season" has been revived to excellent effect by a talented, committed ensemble of actors.
Elysa Gardner, USA Today: In the new Broadway revival of Season (* * ½ out of four), which opened Sunday at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, a starry cast that includes Miller's son Jason Patric reintroduces these no-longer-young men. Over two boozy hours (in the short first act, virtually every other line seems to be an invitation to imbibe), they revisit old grievances and form new ones, gradually tearing to shreds both past glories and present accomplishments.
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: A drama about the bitter recriminations of a generation of men stung by the reality of their diminished promise and feeling let down by both their leaders and their peers should strike chords in this rudderless age of epidemic disillusionment. So why does this deluxe revival of such a celebrated play as "That Championship Season" fall flat? The Bottom Line: Even in a production polished to a high sheen, the starry cast and able director can't get around the limitations of a play that hasn't aged well.
Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg: Moreover, Mosher hasn't coaxed much more than whining and empty bluster from his cast. Hardest to take is Noth, who fills the theater with Serious Acting, entailing much grimacing and mangling of words. Some snapshots -- witness Mosher's revival last season of Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" -- gain stature with time. Some are destined to remain snapshots.
Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New York Post: To resuscitate this play, we needed an A team. But Gregory Mosher's star-studded production -- the cast also includes Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Noth and Jim Gaffigan -- is a train wreck. Actually, that implies some kind of momentum, of which there's none onstage...
Michael Sommers, NJ Newsroom: Nearly 40 years later, the Broadway revival that opened Sunday at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre does not make a compelling case for this by now painfully naturalistic drama. Veteran director Gregory Mosher and five good actors - Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Noth and Brian Cox among them - manfully try to pump life into Miller's embodiment of the failed American dream, but the play appears clumsy and schematic today without acquiring yet the luster of antiquity.
Scott Brown, New York Magazine: These famous (and semi-famous) names are all playing the game they were recruited to play: Unlike a lot of boldface screen personalities slumming on Broadway, these guys actually listen to each other and, for the most part, throw their signals well. More than once, they manage to produce the illusion that there's a real barnburner going on. But their playbook, I'm afraid, is hopelessly dog-eared.
Peter Marks, The Washington Post: The conflicts among them, though, never ignite, and we're left with a dreary canvas of American values in serious jeopardy. It doesn't help that the estimable Cox is miscast here, playing a self-aggrandizing narcissist as a man who wants the best for his boys. That he cares only about how much they think of him gets lost in the attempt to infuse a minor work with deeper meaning.
Marilyn Stasio, Variety.com: Since it is now an article of faith that you need big stars to finance a straight play on Broadway, it definitely helps to have Kiefer Sutherland ("24") and Chris Noth ("The Good Wife") on board for this revival of "That Championship Season." Scribe Jason Miller won the Tony, the Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his 1972 drama about the explosive reunion of a high school basketball team 20 years after winning the state championship. But the stars are just as stymied as the rest of the ensemble by the play's schematic structure and transparent characters.
Robert Feldberg, NorthJersey.com: The issues at the center of Miller's play are hardly extinct, but they just don't have the juice they once did.
Matt Windman, AM New York: But as currently revived on Broadway for the first time - with an all-star cast including Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Noth, Jason Patric (the playwright's son), Brian Cox and Jim Gaffigan - the only thing you'll find shocking is how terribly the play has aged.
Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos
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