The stage world was rather quiet this week: The biggest news was that Dane Cook announced he’ll make his Broadway debut this spring in a new production of Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig that the playwright will also direct. (Another of LaBute’s shows, The Break of Noon starring David Duchovny, opens Off Broadway on Nov. 22.) There were, however, several openings in the past week, led by the seasonal holiday offering Elf, a musical based on the beloved 2003 movie starring Will Ferrell. A Free Man of Color, Merchant of Venice, and Mistakes Were Made also opened on New York stages, and we reviewed them all here on EW.com. Here are the highlights:
A Free Man of Color: EW stage editor Thom Geier didn’t much care for playwright John Guare’s new historical play, giving it a D grade: “A Free Man of Color,” Geier wrote in his review, “is a shrill, overstuffed two-and-a-half-hour epic that does not lack for ambition or muchness.”
Elf: Geier, however, was more enthusiastic about the stage version of Elf, which he awarded a B: “I doubt that a stage version of the 2003 movie comedy Elf was at the top of anybody’s holiday wish list, but the family-friendly new Broadway musical is a surprisingly diverting confection that’s a sleigh-length ahead of recent seasonal fare on the Great White Way (e.g., White Christmas in 2008 and 2009),” Geier wrote in his review. “Even the biggest Cotton-Headed-Ninny-Muggins is bound to lave the Al Hirschfeld Theatre with a festive glow.”
Merchant of Venice: EW film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum focused her review of Merchant on star Al Pacino and gave the production a B–: “This Pacino-plenty sampling of Shakespeare on Broadway,” Schwarzbaum wrote in her review, “undoes the lesson that high school teachers work so hard to impart—that the merchant in The Merchant of Venice is not Shylock.”
Mistakes Were Made: Reviewer Melissa Rose Bernardo raved about Boardwalk Empire star Michael Shannon in what amounts to nearly a one-man show by writer Craig Wright. Bernardo gave the production a B+ and lavished praise on Shannon, who plays a two-bit theatrical producer: “The whole thing is a preposterous, hilarious tour-de-force for Shannon, who couldn’t ask for a better vehicle to highlight his oft-unseen comic prowess.”
Tanner on Twitter: @EWTanStransky
More Stage coverage from EW.com:
Dane Cook will make Broadway debut in ‘Fat Pig’
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