A desire to see two terrific actors I have long admired from television perform live got me to the August Wilson Theater where costume designer Brenda Abbandandolo rewarded my willingness to ignore so-so reviews. Both Jon Bernthal and Eben Moss-Bachrach, attired in the tight, high-waisted pants that peacocks in the '70s favored, have nice butts.
Too bad the lumbering production, based on the Sidney Lumet's unrelentingly kinetic 1975 movie about a Brooklyn bank robbery--which remains one of the most authentically New York movies ever shot--doesn't serve their thespian talents as well. Bernthal, who excels at playing tough guys, can't quite command the stage like Al Pacino did the movie, mostly because the latter's performance remains so vivid in my memory, half a century later, and his less convincing transitions between swagger and sensitivity. Bachrach plays Sal as if he were addicted to downers rather than uppers, surely the more believable high of choice for the trigger-happy accomplice played by John Cazale.
News accounts of a blow-up between the director Rupert Goold and writer Stephen Adly Guirguis prior to opening left me wondering who to blame for my underwhelmed reaction. Some efforts to make the story relevant today--such as the brutality of the federal government, represented by the FBI agent (Spencer Garrett, eerily Trump-like) who overrules the Latino detective (John Ortiz) trying to defuse the volatile situation by talking Sonny down--are effective, others are not. I nodded off during an extended scene between Sonny and his trans wife (Esteban Andres Cruz). Their chemistry isn't nearly as convincing as that between Sonny and Colleen, the head teller (played by Jessica Hecht for big, broad laughs). What almost seemed like a head-scratching punch line in the mid 70s (Al Pacino is married to a . . . guy!) has evolved into something more maudlin than shocking. Guirguis also inserts a "teachable moment" speech about homosexuality that might better have served its purpose upon the film's initial release when few Americans had any understanding of gay sexuality.
These inconsistencies in approach and tone are also reflected in the odd choice of not-quite-period music by David Bowie that opens and closes the play: "Queen Bitch" and "Aladdin Sane," quickly followed by "Heroes" with some entirely anachronistic Talking Heads thrown in during a scene change for good measure. In terms of establishing focus, the production seems almost as hapless as the robbers themselves.
But I'm still glad I saw it.
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