THE NORMAL HEART Reviews- Page 2

[singtopher]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 9:51pm

EW gave BABY IT'S YOU a B-, and this a B+.

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 9:54pm

EW doesn't have real theatre critics. Love them to death and read the magazine every week, but their theatre reviews aren't really ever legit.

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 9:58pm

^ hallaaa!!

I mean: couldn't agree more!

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:12pm

And my boy is up with a RAVE!!!:

http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/theater/reviews/the-normal-heart-on-broadway-theater-review.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1303956623-GN9SOQNnzJyU8o4z9W8Row

Brantley of the NY Times that is. Updated On: 4/27/11 at 10:12 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:19pm

Indeed a beauty.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:22pm

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:25pm

So pleased for this show

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:27pm

Brantley read my mind, especially about Mantello and Kramer's writing, Bravo!

[Blockhead24]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:27pm

Time Out New York is a rave

In its stunning Broadway revival, Kramer’s ferociously rhetorical work has lost little urgency; if anything, changes to the AIDS crisis let our focus extend to the play’s other concerns. This is essentially Ibsen for our times: An Enemy of the People, with Kramer’s loudmouthed surrogate, Ned Weeks—played with streaming intelligence and writhing neurosis by Joe Mantello—cast as the teller of unpopular truths about the dangers of gay sex. “We just feel that you can’t tell people how to live,” cautions a more conservative colleague, Bruce (Pace), when what Ned is really trying to do is tell people how not to die..

http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/theater/1269691/review-the-normal-heart

[adamgreer]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:29pm

They absolutely deserved every word of that rave from Brantley. So happy for this brilliant production.

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:41pm

Variety is a rave... BUT I DONT LIKE THE TONE!

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945105

[B-maniac]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:52pm

Does this show have chance of extending till the end of this year?

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:56pm

And the Tony for Best Revival of a Play goes to.... The Normal Heart! Woot!

[Blockhead24]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 10:59pm

Can someone with access send me the Variety review, please?

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:00pm

Have they already officially announced it's going to be a revival?

[bwayfan7000]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:03pm

Extension, please! I would be so happy.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:03pm

No, but it ran for almost 300 performances at the Public in it's first run and then was revived in 2004. I can't imagine that they would be able to argue this for the New Play category.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:05pm

I'm so glad I got tickets.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:10pm

Bloomberg is positive with another love letter for Mantello:

"In a Broadway season robust with bravura performances, comes another that makes demands of our souls along with our ears.

In “The Normal Heart,” Joe Mantello plays Ned Weeks, a stand-in for playwright Larry Kramer, founder and later ex- communicant from the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. The year is 1985 and for some time now, healthy young gay men have been developing mysterious ailments, including tell-tale purple lesions that never heal. They are dying in ever-greater numbers. No one is paying attention.

...

As played -- no, embodied -- by Mantello with fathomless compassion and dignity (not to mention charm and humor), Ned is impossible to ignore. He is, after all responding to a nightmarish fact: All of his friends are dying or dead."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-28/mantello-throws-a-fit-in-normal-heart-rock-s-queen-reviews.html

[Blockhead24]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:16pm

Theatermania is a rave and another love letter for Mantello

The political and the personal collide with devastating effect in The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer's powerful and passionate 1985 play about the early years of the AIDS crisis, now making its Broadway bow at the Golden Theatre.

While some may feel that its debut on the Great White Way is long overdue, all can rejoice in this impeccable production, directed with enormous sensitivity and clarity by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe and performed by a remarkable ensemble led by the brilliant Joe Mantello.
______________________
Mantello, making a return to stage acting after a nearly two-decade absence, is an ideal Ned, all nerve-endings and spontaneous combustion. He doesn't shy away from the character's stridency, yet we understand the root of all of Ned's actions and reactions, and he ultimately gains our sympathy without ever asking for it.

Moreover, Mantello exhibits enormous chemistry with Hickey, who gives a Tony Award-worthy turn as Felix. Their connection is immediately palpable, and the pair's relationship forms the emotional core of the play, especially as Hickey beautiful details Felix coming to terms with his unfortunate fate.


http://www.theatermania.com/broadway/reviews/04-2011/the-normal-heart_36639.html



Updated On: 4/27/11 at 11:16 PM

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:21pm

AP is a rave:

""The Normal Heart" is about AIDS. Until it isn't.

Larry Kramer's historic play about the beginning of an epidemic that has killed millions can be seen as a time capsule of a period when the disease was first emerging. But it can also be a cautionary tale for any horror we have yet to fully grasp.

Joe Mantello and Ellen Barkin headline this excellent production, which opened Wednesday at the Golden Theatre and represents the play's Broadway debut, 26 years after it was first mounted at the Public Theater."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=13474537

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:25pm

Village Voice is a rave:

"?Run to the Golden Theatre if you want to be reminded of how alive you are.
You'll be moved, enraged, buzzed, and haunted.

You will feel.

By the end of the masterful revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart--directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe--the audience has been put through an emotional ringer and is almost too shattered to applaud.

But they do. They cheer."

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/2011/04/the_normal_hear_1.php

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:29pm

The Post is positive (3 stars):

"Kramer certainly loads the dice. To give scientific weight to his/Ned's case, he uses Dr. Emma Brookner (the magnificent Barkin) as a mouthpiece who delivers screeds rather than dialogue. Ned's lawyer brother, Ben (Mark Harelik), is the straight audience's proxy, and needs to be reminded that "gay" doesn't mean "inferior."

But the show does have a formidable momentum because Ned himself is relentless. And he's far from being a knight in shining armor: He's often a judgmental jerk whose callowness is explained but not excused by his insecurities. After many years as the sought-after director of "Wicked" and much more, it's exciting to see Mantello -- who starred in the original "Angels in America" -- onstage again, giving this complex role full justice."

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/old_heart_rates_second_viewing_5Y8J5Rf7dQEWjAXKQXsjMM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:36pm

Wow, that excerpt from the Voice is gorgeous.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/27/11 at 11:42pm

Dear Terry Teachout,
You are a Debbie Downer.
Love,
BJH2114

Wall Street Journal is mostly negative (positive for the cast, other than Ellen Barkin whom he dislikes):

"Too much of "The Normal Heart," alas, is given over to speech-making, and the intimate scenes in which we see the characters living their lives rather than talking about them are so involving and persuasive that the table-pounding becomes all the more regrettable by contrast. An even bigger problem with "The Normal Heart" is that it is self-aggrandizing to an astonishing degree: Mr. Kramer portrays himself as a flawed but ultimately heroic figure, a kind of secular Moses, and the fact that he really did make a historic contribution to the fight against AIDS doesn't make the portrayal any easier to swallow without gagging. There are certain things you shouldn't say about yourself from a stage, even if they're true.

It helps greatly that Mr. Mantello, who is vastly better-known these days as a director but starred in the original Broadway production of "Angels in America," is giving one of the best performances of the season, on or Off Broadway. He doesn't do anything fancy, nor does he hungrily solicit the audience's sympathy: Instead he plays Ned with a simplicity and straightforwardness that makes him fully understandable. Mr. Hickey is just as good, albeit in a less demanding role, and the supporting cast is mostly excellent. The weak link is Ellen Barkin, who is making her Broadway debut in the cartoonish role of Emma Brookner, a wheelchair-bound doctor and AIDS researcher who is as angry as Ned and twice as noble. Ms. Barkin's performance is flat, though that may be more Mr. Kramer's fault than hers."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576285172021280218.html