Review Roundup: BILLY & RAY Opens Off-Broadway

"Mad Men" star Vincent Kartheiser and Broadway's Larry Pine (CASA VALENTINA) play Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, respectively, in BILLY & RAY, Mike Bencivenga's new play -- directed by the legendary director/writer/producer Garry Marshall -- being given its NY premiere this fall at the Vineyard Theatre, with an official opening tonight, October 20, 2014.

Completing the cast of BILLY & RAY are Sophie von Haselberg (THE CAT AND THE CANARY) as Wilder's long-suffering secretary, and Drew Gehling (JERSEY BOYS) as a beleaguered studio chief.

BILLY & RAY -- a whip-smart comedy charting the birth of the film noir genre -- follows literary odd couple writer-director Billy Wilder and novelist Raymond Chandler as they contentiously collaborate to adapt the novel Double Indemnity for the silver screen. Set in 1940s Hollywood, BILLY & RAY is the true story of how two brilliant and thorny artists battled the Hollywood censors and each other to create a groundbreaking movie classic.

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

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: Any given five minutes of the classic film noir "Double Indemnity" -- I am tempted to say any single frame of the classic film noir "Double Indemnity" -- packs more heat than the torpid two hours of "Billy & Ray"...Film lore fanatics may enjoy the behind-the-screen details of how Wilder and Chandler transformed a pulpy book into a slyly sophisticated movie...But those without a fervid interest in the minutiae of screenwriting will slide into a stupor as we watch two men sit in a room, talking about the process for two long, listless acts. The thinly drawn characters and static narrative give little scope for Mr. Kartheiser and Mr. Pine to deploy their considerable skills. Mr. Kartheiser's Wilder mostly consists of a thick Germanic accent and a cocky smirk. Mr. Pine, given little more to do than act grumpy and take furtive gulps from a bourbon bottle he keeps in his briefcase...gives perhaps the only disengaged performance I've ever seen from him.

Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press: Two tough guys, one tough script and their Herculean team effort to cram steamy sex and violence into a strictly-censored Hollywood studio film is the subject of Mike Bencivenga's fascinating play "Billy & Ray." A smartly humorous, suspenseful production, featuring Vincent Kartheiser (of TV's "Mad Men") as legendary Hollywood writer and director Billy Wilder, and Broadway veteran Larry Pine as hardboiled detective novelist Raymond Chandler...Kartheiser sports an Austrian accent that would veer into shtick if he wasn't so adept at bringing out an impish, confident side to his energetic portrayal of Wilder. His likable performance is well-matched by Pine's grumpy, stubborn enactment of a secretly alcoholic, down-on-his-luck yet still pedantic Chandler...As crisply directed by Garry Marshall...This tense dramatization of the writers' edgy partnership is so revealing you'll probably want to stream the movie soon afterward, to revisit the innovative ways Wilder and Chandler got around the puritanical censors.

Linda Winer, Newsday: Vincent Kartheiser, so creepy yet oddly engaging as the ambitious Pete Campbell in "Mad Men," has genuine stage presence...And that is the most upbeat news we can squeeze out of "Billy & Ray," Mike Bencivenga's labored imagining of the tempestuous collaboration between Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler...The production...has been staged with little dramatic rhythm and/or flair. Kartheiser has an exuberant confidence as the womanizing Viennese-Jewish Wilder, but his Jiminy Cricket energy and bizarre cartoony Austrian accent threaten to wear down more than just his new writing partner. Larry Pine, ordinarily a splendid actor, was seriously off his game at a recent preview...It would be hard to blame Pine if he was too bored with the project to concentrate...the creative process tends only to be amusing to the people involved -- and not always then.

Adam Feldman, Time Out NY: ...bourbon should be under every seat at the Vineyard for Mike Bencivenga's inept backlot comedy, Billy & Ray, which blends the excitement of scene-by-scene DVD commentary with the sophistication of junior-class high-school drama. Garry Marshall's lax direction hangs the play out like a wet sock. The exposition clunks; the jokes die squirmingly...An inexperienced stage actor, Mad Men's Kartheiser gives a mannered, charmless performance -- his accent sounds like it hails from the border of Austria and Korea -- while theater pro Pine, underplaying opposite him, seems to be counting Equity work weeks in his head.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: For a textbook example of how to botch a great subject, see "Billy & Ray." It's not that the show's terrible. Rather it's dull. Dishwater dull. Stare-into-space-while-the-clock-ticks dull...Vincent Kartheiser, struggling to free himself from his devious Pete Campbell persona on "Mad Men," looks completely lost as Billy Wilder, the Austrian-born director whose accent Kartheiser botches badly...The humor plays like a sitcom, and it's no surprise to discover this Vineyard Theatre production is directed by Garry Marshall...But then, Mike Bencivenga's script doesn't give Marshall or the cast much to work with...If you want drama, rent the movie.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly: Kartheiser and Pine are a bit too odd. Kartheiser -- who tackles the Austrian-born Wilder's accent with gusto, if not accuracy -- is having a fantastic time with groaners like ''In case you haven't noticed, I don't sprechenzee English so hot'' and ''Subtleties are fine. As long as we make them obvious.'' Pine, meanwhile, couldn't look more uncomfortable. It's almost as if Kartheiser is too fast for him; he's always just behind the beat. As Billy says to Ray, extolling their wildly different personalities, ''No spark, no sparkle.'' Alas, Billy & Ray is woefully short on sparkle. C+

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: "No killing, no dead body, no sex, no nothing. Just talk."...the line could also describe Mike Vencivenga's play itself: Nothing much happens, just talk, in this disappointing production at the Vineyard Theater, directed by Garry Marshall. Its main appeal, to be honest, is in being able to witness the New York stage debuts of two of the performers in the four-member cast...Director Garry Marshall began as a joke writer. Yet nearly every joke, verbal or visual, falls just as flat...A different stage director might have improved the pacing of "Billy & Ray," but it's difficult to know whether a different cast would have been better at covering up the flaws of the script. Kartheiser seems miscast as the European bon vivant and sophisticate whose family has perished overseas...In the performance I saw, there were some signs of a newcomer to stage acting.

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