So how did John Doyle, Faith Prince and Leslie Kritzer do in Thursday’s night’s Broadway opening of “A Catered Affair”?
It depends who you read.
The musical is of some local interest because the director is John Doyle, of Playhouse in the Park’s “Company”; Faith Prince is a great Broadway star who graduated from CCM; and Leslie Kritzer will be a great Broadway star who graduated from CCM. Cincinnati's Rick Steiner is among the above-the-title producers, and there's an Cincinnati investor or two.
The NY Times hates the show big-time, which isn’t going to help. The NY Post loves it, which also isn’t going to help.
Let Variety, which has a positive review, explain: “A bittersweet reflection on the complexities of marriage and relationships, this small but satisfying drama forgoes big emotional impact for poignant understatement.”
Set in the 1950s, about a bad marriage and a daughter who wants a quick City Hall wedding, “It's true to the spirit of (Paddy) Chayefsky's writing and evocative of a period in American life when the chasm between upper and lower middle class was increasingly apparent. We might now be in the midst of an encroaching recession rather than a boom, but the parallels make this perhaps the perfect show for a new period of economic anxiety and widening class divides.”
USA Today is also a fan because of its “emphasis on characters drawn with passion and compassion, and handled with that most quaint of virtues: dignity.”
The NY Post calls Doyle’s direction “expert” and “discreet”, “it emerges less like a musical and more like a play with music: lovely, urban chamber music. But you won't come out humming the tunes, or even the scenery.
“You'll come out humming the characters” and the Post goes on to heartily applaud everyone, including “Kritzer's marvelously layered (bride) Janey.”
Variety raves about Prince (clearly headed for a Tony Award nomination), compliments Doyle, who “crucially provides the actors with the stillness and breathing room needed to reveal character shadings” and Kritzer: “Expanding her range from her usual comic roles, Kritzer is also effective. She brings a down-to-earth warmth and sensitivity to self-possessed Janey.”
The Associated Press is mixed: “John Doyle has directed "A Catered Affair" as if it were a play, in what can best be described as musical-theater minimalism. Scenes and songs are pared down to their essence. There's not a wasted moment as the family's humdrum existence is carefully explored on stage.
What's frustrating about Doyle's direction though is that he often gives the audience no opportunity for cathartic release. There's little time for applause — with big emotional moments quickly bleeding into something else.”
But there’s no hesitation in cheering Prince. “The woman is a joy. We always knew she could sing. Here she gets to excel at acting, often in moments of stunning silence. Prince has large, liquid eyes and a tremulous demeanor that allows her to project volumes without uttering a word.”
NYtheatre.com loved it; Curtain Up hated it.
NYtheatre.com on Kritzer: “Rising star Leslie Kritzer is smart and understated as the generally pragmatic Janey; shoe does a gorgeous job on "One White Dress." On Doyle: “He's realized the tone and vision of his collaborators quite wonderfully.”
Jackie Demaline
