American Buffalo (Broadway)
Closed 1h 40m
American Buffalo (Broadway)
79

American Buffalo (Broadway) NYC Reviews and Tickets

79%
(358 Ratings)
Positive
84%
Mixed
12%
Negative
4%
Members say
Great acting, Great staging, Absorbing, Entertaining, Intense

Lawrence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss star in Mamet's play about greed and deception.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (358)

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50 Reviews | 10 Followers
100
Riviting, Engrossing, Enchanting, Clever, Absorbing

See it if You want to be completely engaged in this tragic story. You can’t take your eyes off Sam Rockwell. He is masterful.

Don't see it if You want a fun comedy or musical.

58 Reviews | 8 Followers
100
Must see, Masterful, Intelligent, Great writing, Great acting

See it if you like realism in plays, culture and time specific pieces, seeing characters work through their own hardships

Don't see it if you need a play to be dramatic and riveting every moment. the mastery of this show is in the subtle and realistic acting and writing.

570 Reviews | 87 Followers
98
Thought-provoking, Great set., Great acting, Absorbing

See it if you want to see 3 terrific actors in one of my favorite Mamet plays.Staging in the round is perfect for the dance/duel/fight these guys do

Don't see it if you want something light and frothy.This is a play with something to say about loyalty, friendship, and honor.Great set.

535 Reviews | 155 Followers
96
Great acting, Great staging, Great writing, Hilarious, Intelligent

See it if This clever hilarious classic David Mamet play is cast and acted perfectly ! The 3 incompetent petty crooks are a joy to watch !

Don't see it if The only reason not to see this gem of a play is if you can’t tolerate the very raw language. It is one of Mamet’s best !

73 Reviews | 22 Followers
95
Intense, Great acting, Absorbing

See it if You love great character work. All three actors, but especially Fishburne, are masterful in their work.

Don't see it if You’re looking for grandiose staging/effects/large cast shows. Or a child (rated R). This is 1 set, 3 actors, and it’s absolutely thrilling.

752 Reviews | 145 Followers
95
Funny, Great staging, Edgy, Great acting, Quirky

See it if The cast of this show was the top reason I went to see this. The story starts with the sale of buffalo nickel and things turn upside down.

Don't see it if Language, one violence set. if you want singing and dance.

538 Reviews | 80 Followers
95
Masterful, Great writing, Great acting, Great staging, Absorbing

See it if I have seen every production of this play in NYC since 1975. This is the most memorable of the lot. Rockwell is astounding.

Don't see it if This is pure raw Mamet at his best. Expect foul mouthed language and, at times, a non linear script.

86 Reviews | 22 Followers
95
Great staging, Funny, Great acting, Absorbing

See it if You want to see great acting, wonderful staging and a thought provoking play.

Don't see it if I can't think of one reason not to see this.

Critic Reviews (21)

The New York Times
April 14th, 2022

"When 'American Buffalo' first hit the stage, in Chicago in 1975, its portrait of lowlifes like Teach — two-bit grifters aping the realpolitik of American business — was a game changer. Though it did not quite induce sympathy for a man who would strike a kid in the face with an iron, it did make audiences queasy about the respectable entrepreneurs whose behavior Teach was translating to his own turf. In language as crass and cadenced as gunfire, Mamet turned their man-eat-man philosophy, which some call capitalism, into brutal prole poetry: a poetry of predation, you might even say."
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Time Out New York
April 14th, 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. Scott Pask’s set and Dede Ayite’s costumes plunge us into the shabby world of the action; seated around the thrust stage at Circle in the Square, the audience can almost smell the mix of dirt and desperation. "
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New York Magazine / Vulture
April 14th, 2022

"Judged as a showcase, 'American Buffalo' works beautifully. Rockwell has exactly the right tools to crack the Mamet safe. His half-whine, half-growl voice sings in what Todd London evocatively called the writer’s “fricative riffs” — unsurprisingly, given how well he’s suited to other writers of masculine lyric like Martin McDonagh. Fishburne, judging his rhythms to the nanosecond, grips the play and captains it, and it’s lucky that the close quarters of Circle in the Square allow you to see the details of his casual command. Criss, too, does fine work as the play’s slow-minded straight man, though he finds fewer details in his character than the other two men."
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The Wall Street Journal
April 14th, 2022

"Mr. Mamet does not write tragedy—his characters are poor pipsqueaks compared to the doomed but majestic figures of the Greeks. 'American Buffalo' ends with a whimpering note of surprising, and touching, grace. For all their fecklessness and desperation, these men intuitively know that their only respite from a world they cannot compete in is the small comfort they can take in each other’s unspoken affection."
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Deadline
April 14th, 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"
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Variety
April 14th, 2022

"The play jolts alive when Rockwell enters, and the Oscar-winner is practically compelling enough to buoy this staging. He has an able scene partner in Fishburne, who brings a stolidity and authority to the store owner Don, a gravity that anchors the second act as Teach flails and decompensates."
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The Hollywood Reporter
April 14th, 2022

"David Mamet’s 'American Buffalo' is now on Broadway, buttressed by a starry cast. Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss are sharp and lithe in this revival of the caustic 1975 play about three hustlers planning a heist. They stalk across Scott Pask’s ornate set as they hurl Mamet’s signature terse prose at one another. Their speech moves rhythmically — a sonorous medley. They maneuver their bodies with precision and intention. This critic stared, entranced by their dance."
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Chicago Tribune
April 14th, 2022

"The play’s three characters roar at each other in sparse patriarchal metaphor, demanding verbal submission and claiming victory, even though nothing they are actually saying or doing or achieving matters a jot in the grand scheme of things. These are small-time hustlers, masters of a universe of nothing."
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