Review Roundup: LIVING ON LOVE Opens on Broadway - All the Reviews!

Four time Grammy Award winner Renée Fleming makes her Broadway debut alongside Tony Award nominee Douglas Sills, two-time Emmy Award nominee Anna Chlumsky, Jerry O'Connell, Blake Hammond and Scott Robertson in Living on Love by two-time Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro, based on the play Peccadillo by Garson Kanin, and directed by three-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall. Living on Love opens tonight, April 20, 2015 at the Longacre Theatre (220 West 48th Street).

The world's most beloved opera singer Renée Fleming plays the world's most beloved opera singer in this hilarious new screwball comedy. When her larger-than-life maestro husband (Sills) becomes enamored with the lovely young lady (Chlumsky) hired to ghostwrite his largely fictional autobiography, the diva retaliates by hiring her own handsome, young scribe (O'Connell) to chronicle her life as an opera star. Sparks fly, silverware is thrown, and romance blossoms in the most unexpected ways.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Renée Fleming seems like far too nice a woman to be playing a diva...Even screeching and preening like a peacock in mating season, Ms. Fleming glows with good nature, good sportsmanship and the reassuring sanity of a hostess at a fancy dress party who knows that all these silly high jinks shall pass. If such amiability makes Raquel less a monster than the script dictates, it also makes the show less a chore to sit through...DiPietro's version seems more like a forgotten bottom-drawer comedy from the 1930s...in fairness, everybody in "Living on Love" appears to be having a fairly good time...Though most of the jokes are so tired you expect them to nod off by themselves, the cast delivers them with go-for-broke gusto...It's only when [Fleming] sings...that Raquel becomes the passionate, larger-than-life figure she is said to be. The glimpse of real grandeur in that voice makes this trifle of a play seem even smaller. ... Raquel (Fleming) and her husband (Mr. Sills) belong to the breed of outsize, badly behaved theatrical couples who have been showing up at least since the salad days of George S. Kaufman and Noel Coward...

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press: The four time Grammy Award winner [Fleming] is a delight...able to lovingly goof on her refined world with an insider's grin...DiPietro...has a knack for writing for daffy characters and this play has a half-dozen of them. It feels comforting, like an old black-and-white film, and yet there's a newness here, too...the play centers on an aging soprano, played by a bejeweled Fleming, and her lothario Italian conductor husband...A fantastic Douglas Sills plays him like an impish boy beneath an exterior of shocking slicked-back arrogance and heavily accented English...One of the play's joys is the performances of two stuffy servants...who sing along to arias as they elegantly change the props between scenes or answer bells perfectly in sync...The play is directed with comedic aplomb by three-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall...The material could be accelerated and made into a farce, but Marshall never lets the comedic elements upstage the slightly looney characters themselves.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Kathleen Marshall helms this lightweight material with a properly playful touch...Sills...has Maestro's bravura moves down cold...Fleming's fans should be thrilled to hear that their idol is a natural, completely at her ease in the most ridiculously farcical situations and so personable she confirms her reputation as "The People's Diva"...Chlumsky...knows the drills and executes them with flair. But O'Connell isn't playing in the same league, and his discomfort repeatedly throws off the comic rhythms...It's all very charming until the ill-advised saccharine payoff which has half the audience cheering and the other half wondering how long we have to put up with yet more shameless pandering to the social zeitgeist.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: ...there's nothing contemporary and too little that's consistently funny about playwright Joe DiPietro's refried serving of Peccadillo...the new version does have a thoroughbred casting coup in its favor, which is the sporting turn of celebrated lyric soprano Renée Fleming as fading opera diva Raquel De Angelis. But when Raquel is not onstage trilling with vainglorious self-adulation and encroaching terror of her professional decline, the fizz quickly evaporates...while DiPietro and director Kathleen Marshall...treat the material like farce, it lacks accelerating mayhem...Anyone who has seen Chlumsky's fine work on Veep knows how skillfully she can underplay comedy. But her role here is written with too little dimension or consistency...And there's minimal chemistry between the actress and O'Connell, who is hopelessly miscast...O'Connell has a way of sucking the comic energy out of the room...Sills is a wily old pro who sails through the proceedings with brio in a one-note role...[Fleming's] performance is broad and campy, as the material dictates, but there's also a delightful airiness to it.

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: How do you deliver a pitch-perfect performance when the writer keeps giving you flat notes? This is the conundrum faced by the cast of Living On Love (**½ out of four), the flimsy new comedy that marks the Broadway debut of opera star Renée Fleming...Playwright Joe DiPietro...provides a few sharper lines, but not enough to sustain nearly two hours of dialogue. Still, director Kathleen Marshall...keeps the pace brisk, and her actors are infectiously game. Fleming, in particular, plays her part with obvious relish, and reveals a real flair for screwball repartee. The soprano uses her earthy speaking voice to great effect -- lowering it when Raquel is trying to reprimand or seduce, then offering higher, brighter tones to affect delight or indignation. On occasion, Raquel will regale us with a brief excerpt from a classic aria, allowing Fleming to show off her enduring prowess.

Linda Winer, Newsday: There is something almost daring about Broadway's inexplicable insistence on throwback fluff-ball comedies this spring. Daring, perversely, but not encouraging. Into the 1950s time warp comes "Living on Love," another example of a well-crafted triviality without subtext or a thought in its head beyond trying too hard to entertain. Joe DiPietro's play...will be remembered, if at all, as the vehicle for Renée Fleming's altogether honorable Broadway debut...Douglas Sills expertly throws himself into the histrionics as the ridiculous libidinous maestro with the atsa-spicy-meatball Italian accent and an insane head of hair...Fleming, who dots her performance with lustrous fragments from opera's greatest hits, doesn't speak as effortlessly as she sings. But she knows about comic timing and stage presence, self-mocking all the grand-opera caricatures...Not surprisingly, the production...has the broad, exaggerated physicality of a comic musical -- albeit, perhaps, one most comfortable as larky summer theater.

Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal: "Living on Love"...is a sentimental farce that might recall one of the lesser efforts of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart were it not for one minor problem: It isn't funny. Not even slightly so. Indeed, it's so unfunny as to make the viewer despair of ever laughing again, much as a starving man might despair of ever eating again...Ms. Marshall has directed "Living on Love" as if it were a musical with an onionskin-thin book, nudging her cast toward clattery caricature...While it's quite possible that Ms. Fleming can act, she definitely can't act like a temperamental diva, perhaps because she's known throughout the world of opera for her niceness. Whatever the reason, her performance is as amiable and bland as a hot cup of Ovaltine before bedtime.

Robert Kahn, NBC New York: A little knowledge of opera helps, but it's not key to admiring the frothy and fizzy "Living on Love," in which soprano Renée Fleming makes her Broadway debut -- you're apt to enjoy the celebrated diva in this send-up of celebrated divas, even if the in-jokes about Maria Callas pass you by...Fleming, with her silk caftans and gorgeous arias (she has ample opportunity to break into song, and it gave me goosebumps each time) throws herself into all the diva cliches as she tries to outdo her philandering husband...Sills...is a comic marvel as the out-of-tune conductor who thinks he still has a way with the ladies...Most of the time, Fleming is boozy and Sills is flamboyant. It's not until the end of the two-act confection (you won't be blamed for wishing director Kathleen Marshall had made things just a bit tighter), that they have to do anything bittersweet. When Vito and Raquel finally drop their schtick and connect with each other, it makes for an impressive conclusion, especially considering the abrupt change in tone.

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News: Mixed-up romantic couples and larger-than-life eccentrics are meant to ignite bright comic fireworks. But too many lame jokes and broad-as-a-barn performances extinguish any chance of that, in a production directed by Kathleen Marshall. I laughed twice. One good moment came from Fleming, who's not half bad in her Broadway debut. "How much longer can I play the young virgin?" middle-aged Raquel asks. "Ten, twenty years?"...That's not much for two hours at Broadway prices. But at this point, there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: The new Broadway comedy "Living on Love" isn't just filled with clichés -- it revels in them. This is a show that has its cake, eats it, and then rubs whipped cream all over its face...That Raquel is played by Renée Fleming -- an actual opera star, making her Broadway debut == adds a yummy twist...It's all shamelessly silly, and it works: In Joe DiPietro's play, based on Garson Kanin's 1985 "Peccadillo," broad jokes and shameless hamming make for a guilty pleasure...Wisely, DiPietro and director Kathleen Marshall let their stars play to their strengths. Fleming lets out a few trills and, though a bit stiff at times, seems to relish the high jinks. And Sills...is hilarious as the pompous, vain Vito. The show's only misstep is an 11th-hour plot twist that's as contrived as it is sentimental. Leave that at the opera, please -- we're here for dessert.

Robert Hofler, TheWrap: As expected, Fleming sounds great when she sings. She's also very funny when she speaks, which is not to be expected after her awkward performance earlier this year at the Metropolitan Opera in "The Merry Widow," under the direction of Broadway's Susan Stroman. Musical-comedy veteran Kathleen Marshall directs "Living on Love," and you'd never know it's her Broadway debut, too, as the director of a play. No small part of Fleming's success must go to Marshall...With all due respect to the diva of the hour, the real revelation of "Living on Love" is Sills, whose divo Vito enters the Broadway pantheon of great, inspired, and completely over the-top comic creations.

Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record: The play certainly looks good. The De Angelis apartment, designed by Derek McLane, is properly luxurious. And Michael Krass' costumes are perfect: dazzling, 1950s-inspired outfits for Raquel and blindingly bright pajamas with matching robes for Vito. For Fleming, the fine work she does in "Living on Love" could lead to a second career as a stage actress. That would make any descent into mezzo territory totally irrelevant.

Matt Windman, AM New York: Fleming and Sills serve up over-the-top caricatures, while O'Connell and Chlumsky dutifully serve as their pawns and playthings. Fleming occasionally breaks into bits of familiar arias, adding some operatic flavor...The most inspired bit of comedy involves an encore curtain call that mocks the self-indulgent, overextended ones you can still see during revivals of Franco Zeffirelli productions at the Met. Directed with Technicolor flair by Kathleen Marshall..."Living on Love" might have been enjoyable were it not for the complete emptiness of the piece itself. Although reminiscent of the screwball film comedies of the 1930s, it never moves beyond a simple, static scenario.

Jesse Green, Vulture: Living on Love, as directed by Kathleen Marshall, is tacky and weirdly downmarket, as if divas and maestros could only be made palatable to contemporary audiences by turning them into frenetic buffoons...And while Sills has the craft and comic experience to scale up his performance to Broadway levels, I'm sorry to say he's the only one of the four leads who can convincingly project this weak material to the back of the house...It is certainly very strange to report that Fleming, one of the great operatic sopranos of the last three decades, cannot. She is lovely, she is game, and you always sense her niceness. But these qualities domesticate Raquel's monstrousness; she isn't fierce enough to make her middling antics funny...What's oddest is that, without music, Fleming can't seem to find a natural shape for her lines...This distinction becomes clear when, after teasing us with snippets of arias throughout the play, Fleming finally lets loose with a whole song: "Always." Now we realize what we've been missing.

Jeremy Gerard, Deadline: Sometimes, what happens in Williamstown really oughtta stay in Williamstown...Vito is played by Douglas Sills with everything you'd expect of a comic Italian stereotype: malaprops galore, a leering gaze, peripatetic hands, flaring nostrils, animated hair, etc...DiPietro's script is so inside in its opera references and jokes, sonic and visual, that you may find yourself gasping for air, though probably not from the laughs that director Kathleen Marshall works overtime extracting. The great Fleming is a trouper but she's slumming here. It's possible to imagine this as the perfect diversion for a summer evening on sabbatical from Tanglewood. But on Broadway, it's piffle, forgotten by the time you reach the corner to hail a cab.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY: Being is not the same as acting, and this lesson is illustrated by Fleming herself throughout Joe DiPietro's lousy new comedy, Living on Love. She's a great star giving a mediocre performance as a great star...The canned corn of DiPietro's writing -- "This dog was petted by more Italians than Sophia Loren!" -- is pressed into mush by Kathleen Marshall's clunky direction; the younger actors, who spend most of the play in a panic, are nearly unwatchable. Living on Love is meant to be hammy, but it's not even that. It's a bland, synthetic dud: a ham-flavored turkey.

Brendan Lemon, Financial Times: The dictionary defines diva as "a distinguished female singer". Renée Fleming, the illustrious star of Living on Love...certainly fulfils that description. Alas, in her Broadway debut, she has more difficulty approximating the caricatural aspects of the term. This is a problem in an evening -- frothy yet only occasionally funny -- that relies on stereotype...The evening devolves into a writers' bake-off, but the competition isn't very expertly developed by DiPietro...Kathleen Marshall's staging of the gags is more professional than inspired...One can applaud [Fleming's] desire to branch out, even while recognising that there's a reason most opera stars appear on Broadway in roles that rely more on singing than on comic aplomb. It's a kick to hear Raquel make fun of mezzos, and to listen to her sing snatches of La bohème, but Fleming's stage persona is too wholesome to make us believe fully her flights of temperament.

Ronni Reich, The Star-Ledger: "Living With Love" flies by, with nearly as many jokes as there are sparkles on a "La Bohème" costume Raquel sports...It's not exactly full of surprises, but the light comedic throwback is well executed by the cast and creative team. DiPietro's script takes a kernel of an idea from Garson Kanin's 1985 "Peccadillo" and spins it into something completely different and quite entertaining. Director Kathleen Marshall has a knack for the piece's scale and the quick rhythms of its banter. As Vito De Angelis, Douglas Sills gives a skillful, rangy performance. He's highly entertaining as he lashes out at Robert, primps for Iris or lounges amiably and with the playfulness of someone who knows just how to lead a scherzo...The role is written in such a way that it could be foolproof for Fleming - Raquel is always playing the diva, ready with a song, her speech even taking on a half-sung quality as though it were recitative...But she's a joy to watch when she gets to stick it to diva stereotypes. There's a wonderful self-mocking quality when she walks center stage and talks through the process of one of her famous scenes, telling her costar, "no one is looking at you, you're the tenor."

Stephen Collins, BritishTheatre.com: There is nothing sadder than seeing a genuine superstar being diminished by participation in a lousy Broadway vehicle...Right now, at the Longacre Theatre, where Joe DiPietro's crassly dull play Living on Love is in previews, it is Renée Fleming's turn. Fleming is an accomplished operatic soprano with a voice of ravishing beauty and the capacity to move opera audiences to extremes of emotion by her extraordinary singing and her skill as a musical performer. Indeed, some of the finest moments in this play occur when Fleming sings the odd phrase or legato line...Kathleen Marshall is a woman who understands the inherent musicality of comedy but not even her considerable talents can make a dent on this plodding nonsense. If it has a musical sense, it is that of a dirge...This is not a text worthy of a Broadway stage. It needs much refinement. And the fault here does not lie in the stars.

David Finkle, Huffington Post: Another way to look at it has to do with snow globes. Raquel and Vito collect them. A few dozen are displayed on a series of shelves. Some are even hurled before final fade-out. But what do you usually do with snow globes? You turn them upside down, shake them and then watch the fake snow fall through the water enclosed for a perhaps a minute of bland prettiness. What you get when you cross this crossed Private Livesand Kiss Me, Kate are a few moments of bland silliness.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus