Friday is here, and I’m waxing wroth in my Friday Wall Street Journal drama column. Neither Ring of Fire nor Entertaining Mr. Sloane pleased me:
And you thought “Lennon” was lousy! Rarely have I been so comprehensively irked by a Broadway show as I was by the latest entry in the jukebox-musical sweepstakes, “Ring of Fire: The Johnny Cash Musical Show.” Anyone who loves Cash’s music should stay as far away as possible from this 38-song, two-and-a-half-hour tinselthon, which fills the Ethel Barrymore Theatre with the sour smell of bogusness….
Joe Orton’s “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” is a black comedy of sexual manners that has lost nothing of its ruthless immediacy in the four decades since its premiere. If anything, Orton’s kinky subject matter is more accessible now than it was in 1965, when the first Broadway production closed after just 13 performances. Like most comedies, all “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” needs to make its effect is to be played absolutely straight. Instead, Scott Ellis, the director, has chosen to play it for laughs, encouraging his cast to give the kind of exaggerated, self-conscious performances against which Orton warned. “Unless it’s real,” he said, “it won’t be funny.” It isn’t–and it’s not….
No link, so kindly shell out your weekly dollar at your neighborhood newsstand to read the whole thing. Alternatively, get ambitious and go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, which will provide you with immediate access to the full text of my review, along with plenty of additional art-related coverage (including the Pulitzer-winning film reviews of my eminent colleague Joe Morgenstern, which I recommend wholeheartedly).