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- [00:01]
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The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time, scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
- [00:32]
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Welcome to a review Recap episode of Broadway Radio for the Broadway premiere of the stage adaptation of Dog Day Afternoon. My name is Matt Tamnini. On today's episode, we are going to run through all of the reviews from opening night over at the August Wilson Theater where Dog Day Afternoon opened on Monday night. Again, reviews were embargoed for either like 11 or 12. Either way I was asleep, but I'm bringing them to you now. Dog Day Afternoon was based off of the Life Magazine article written by PF Klug and Thomas Moore called the Boys in the bank, which was eventually adapted into a Warner Brothers film called Dog Day Afternoon. This stage adaptation was adapted by Stephen Adley Girgis, a Pulitzer Prize winner, of course, and directed by Rupert Gould. It features a tremendous cast led by Jon Bernthal as Sonny, the role that Al Pacino played in the original film Evan Moss Bacharach as Sal, which is the role of John Cazale played in the film. If you're unfamiliar with either the real life story, the article or the film, or now, I guess the play on Broadway. It is set in the summer of 1972 when one man's desperate act captivates the nation. Sonny is desperate to find the money to help his partner Leon have gender reassignment surgery, so he convinces his friend Sal to help him rob a bank. Things do not go according to plan, leading Sonny to become something of a cult hero after taking hostages at the bank. Interestingly enough, this is of course based off of a real life event and the character Sonny, who Jon Bernthal plays, actually got some of his ideas for this bank robbery because he watched the film the Godfather, which of course Al Pacino and John Cazale starred in. So it is kind of an interesting full circle moment that they played the roles in the Sidney Lumet film in 1975. And as I had ment mentioned on Monday's episode of Last Week on Broadway, the word on the street from previews for the show was mixed at best, but unfortunately the reviews were even worse than that. As of recording time, review aggregator site Did They like it? Has collected 16 reviews. One was positive, seven were mixed and eight were negative. Let's start over at the New York Times, where Jason Zinneman provided the review. He was negative, saying Jon Bernthal plays Sonny as a charming buffoon leaning so far into broad comedy that the whole play eventually tips over. The flamboyantly flustered Bernthal doesn't evoke Pacino so much as welcome back Cotter era John Travolta. While his co conspirator Sal Eben recedes into the background, the playwright Stephen Adley Girgis gives Sonny a formidable new sidekick in the Bank Teller Colleen, played with Malthy Panache by Jessica Hecht. When discussing reports of tension behind the scenes between the producers and playwright that I mentioned on Monday's episode, Zinneman writes, a playwright fighting for his ideas is not necessarily a bad thing, and many great works of art have resulted from ferociously contentious clashes of vision. But there's no getting around the fact that this undercooked staging does feel like the product of an unresolved artistic dispute, he continues. Half a century after the movie, which was ahead of its time both in having an A list star portraying a queer protagonist, but but also in its nuanced portrait of a transgender character, the play seems less comfortable exploring the complexities of this relationship. Bernthal delivers a largely sexless performance, finally, he says, but the comic bits and the raucous sound design, which includes deafening helicopter propellers and blaring 70s pop hits, belong to a more cartoonish entertainment. While Bernthal is chewing scenery, Moss Bacharach appears in an altogether different play, delivering a nicely restrained performance of a terse repressed man. The overly articulate arguments outside the bank between Detective Foucault, John Ortiz and the FBI agent Spencer Garrett about the state of the city feel shoehorned in the New York Post's Johnny Oleksinski was also negative, saying there's been a robbery. A new Broadway play starring Jon Bernthal and Evan Moss Bacharach has stolen the title of the classic New York film Dog Day Afternoon and slapped it on a mid season replacement sitcom. You certainly recognize the plot no nonsense characters and Brooklyn banks setting from the 1975 Best Picture nominated heist film with Al Pacino. But the weird show that opened Monday night at the August Wilson Theater has contorted it into something altogether unfamiliar, a stress free series of drama deflating punchlines that add up to little more than a barstool yarn. Adam Feldman of Timeout New York was negative. He did not give the show any stars, which means that it was either a one or two star production based off of their more somewhat sensitive rating system. Richard Lawson of the Hollywood Reporter was also negative, saying, this Dogday is an antic comedy of bumblers and busybodies and freaks, of nasty jokes and weak attempts at rabble rousing. It's a frustrating image. Girgis and everybody else involved in this folly watching the intimate neorealism of Lumet's film and saying, let's turn this into a big Broadway farce. One of the mixed reviews does come from Juan A. Ramirez, who said, oddly, it is during that act One Closer, when Sonny rallies the audience into chanting the film's famous act, Attica Cry, that the production feels most itself. It's essentially Disney for Dads, a curious blend of head patting nostalgia and earnest artistry delivered with a refreshing lack of cynicism. For all its flaws and unlike its protagonists, Dog Day Afternoon is not trying to put one over on anyone. Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly was also mixed, saying, in the end, the new Dog Day Afternoon is a mostly satisfying experience that offers impressive big budget values. It has the right star, it has the right set, and with a few tweaks, this dog could truly have its day. I will wrap up with the one and only positive review that did they like it collected. This comes from unsurprisingly because it's the opposite of what everyone else thought. Robert Hoffler of the Wrap he wrote Girgis Dog Day Afternoon is a big, hugely entertaining and laugh filled dramedy that's crafted to delight the typical Broadway audience. If you would like to read more of these reviews and some others that I did not sample in this episode, I will have the Did They Like It? Review roundup in the show Notes. Thank you as always for supporting Broadway radio. If you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio thanks again for listening. This has been Matt Tamnini and I'll talk to you soon.
- [07:07]
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The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today, so you never miss a moment.