American Buffalo
Opening Night: April 14, 2022
Theater: Circle in the Square
Website: americanbuffalonyc.com
American Buffalo returns to Broadway more explosive and pointed than ever, exposing a timely American truth: crime and business are two sides of the same coin. Three small-time hustlers want a bigger cut of the American dream. David Mamet’s classic about loyalty and greed stars Academy Award® nominee and Emmy® winner Laurence Fishburne (Thurgood, The Matrix), Academy Award® winner Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards, Fool For Love), and Emmy® winner Darren Criss (The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Hedwig), under the direction of Neil Pepe (Tony®-winning Artistic Director of Atlantic Theater Company).
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April 14, 2022
This crackling revival of “American Buffalo” highlights by contrast the devolution of Mamet’s craft that coincided with the shift in his worldview, from red-diaper baby to apologist for billionaires. How could the man who showed us how the powerless are crushed by the lessons of the powerful now argue, both in plays and on television, that the problem flows in the other direction?
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April 14, 2022
So, are the performances good? They are! Sam Rockwell and Laurence Fishburne, and to a less spectacular extent, Darren Criss, are clearly reveling in material worth their impressive stage mettle. Is the production good? Oh, certainly — it holds up Mamet’s 1975 text like a coin, making it wink in the light. But is the play good? There, now, there you have me. Because American Buffalo works as it used to work (or at least every time I’ve seen it) as a vivid comic indictment of warped American posturing and language. It’s just that now we wonder — given its creator’s wild fall from sense — if its raillery might also have some other function.
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April 14, 2022
Superbly performed by Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss, with director (and longtime Mamet collaborator) Neil Pepe finding every comic beat and threatening glare, American Buffalo – opening tonight on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre – retains a vitality that eluded some recent equally starry revivals of works by Mamet’s bad-boy contemporaries (here’s looking at you, True West).
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April 14, 2022
Directed by Neil Pepe with the expert eye for appraisal that the characters lack, this production is vastly superior to American Buffalo’s last Broadway incarnation, which ran briefly back in 2008. The play itself, which marked Mamet’s breakthrough, is as thin as a dime, but it’s got great atmospherics.
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April 14, 2022
But polished up here by performances from its marquee stars, particularly Sam Rockwell, and through captivating feats of design from its creative team, the revival at Circle in the Square will at least invite those who are curious to linger and turn it over. Whether they buy it will depend on their investment in shopworn fables of American greed, and their taste for motor-mouthed posturing and misogyny.
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April 14, 2022
There is no denying the technical merits of the production. From the meticulous designs to the dynamic scene works between the performers on top of their game, everything is well executed. And yet, the story itself feels formulaic, as does the structure. One might argue that those are the marks of a classic, and in 1975, perhaps it was groundbreaking, but I can’t help but wonder, are we simply trying to squeeze out values from a junk shop piece out of nostalgia even though we’ve evolved away from it?
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April 14, 2022
Whether this play has any fresh revelations to offer the more “woke” world of 2022, however, is a question that this production never really bothers to ask. For better or worse, this new production mostly offers the not-inconsiderable spectacle of a job well done.
READ THE REVIEWApril 14, 2022
In this era, the attraction offered by reviving American Buffalo is not just the dialogue, but getting to see these actors deliver it. Rockwell and Fishburne are definitely worth the price of admission.
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April 14, 2022
Invective, repetition, manly backchat: the Mamet staples are here, but truly what gives with the damn coins? The actors make as much sense as they can of the foggy mystery and verbal extremity Mamet has written for them around these misplaced little shiny objects, but the playwright’s hot air—so visible on Fox News this week—barely seems to merit his characters’ heightened tempers, much less our interest. Still, Rockwell rocks it.
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April 14, 2022
But canonical playwrights, if they are to remain central to our culture, deserve to see their work altered, changed, presented as vivid and vital. This production, laden with reputation, demonstrates the way we stage the works of the unquestioned greats, without quite convincing us why Mamet is among their league.
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April 14, 2022
Not exactly Earth-shattering stuff. Yet Mamet’s 47-year-old play hits harder than the many self-important staged newspaper op-eds of today. Most Americans continue to inhabit suffocating spaces, are glued to their work and will do anything for some quick cash. Now more than ever. We might not all buy and sell used lampshades, but “American Buffalo” feels as if it’s about us.
READ THE REVIEWApril 14, 2022
The script is a work of genius, of course, and a much misunderstood masterpiece. But this revival — although lively and highly entertaining and far better cast than the 2008 attempt — doesn’t delve so deep into the real emotional core of the drama. Pity. It has the horses to do so.
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April 14, 2022
Following the non-events after a junk shop owner begins to suspect the buffalo nickel he recently sold might be worth more than the amount paid, David Mamet’s American Buffalo has given a who’s who of actors great reasons to curse and yell at each other. There’s nothing wrong with plays in which not much happens, but with Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss up for sale, there’s no reason for this Neil Pepe-directed revival to lowball an audience this badly.
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