Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (431)
See it if McDonald and Shannon. Naked and exposed.
Don't see it if Naked and exposed under the moonlight is not for everyone.
See it if When youth is almost gone, sex may be easy but the work of actually making a relationship is hard. This play brings that hard truth to life
Don't see it if If you have no interest in a touching human story of two all too human souls reaching for a real connection one last time, then not for you
See it if You want to see superb performances in a hopeful and sentimental play
Don't see it if You are a pessimist. Nudity is unacceptable to you.
See it if you love good acting.McDonald &Shannon are perfect in the roles.They balance sexual attraction/fear of commitment/vulnerability perfectly
Don't see it if you can't deal with seeing Audra on stage and not hearing her sing. Let her remind you what a gifted and brilliant actress she is!
See it if you enjoy a well-written relationship drama exploring the human condition.
Don't see it if You don't like good character driven drama with no frills.
See it if ...you enjoy plays about human connection.
Don't see it if ...you don't enjoy two-handers.
See it if McNally's poetic exploration of desire for intimacy and fear and resistance to it-raw, honest, universal, &relevant despite current mores.
Don't see it if You don't want to go deep or object to frank sex talk, or if you want to miss the beauty of the dance between Frankie and Johnny. Must see Read more
See it if You want to see two actors equally at the top of their craft in a very good play about last chance love.
Don't see it if adult nude bodies troublesome to you
Critic Reviews (44)
"The age of the work sometimes shows; its devices and its rhetoric are throwbacks. But with a lot of help from McDonald and a deceptively expressionistic set from Riccardo Hernandez, the director Arin Arbus effectively operates on the levels of the then and the now. In the best moments of the piece, you think about the different terms of relationships in the 1980s and also how so much and yet so little has changed."
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"Like its lost-soul lovebirds, the play is likable, tender and funny — and has issues. The second half essentially repeats the first, making for a long-winded evening. But the performances make up for it, and director Arin Arbus adds a grace note with a sly shift in Frankie’s apartment."
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"Both spark off McNally’s crackling dialogue like they’re living the words off the page, breathing new air into his room-bound pas de deux. Ultimately, though, even their supreme handling of the material can’t quite justify shooting for this moon — already explored twice on a New York stage, and also onscreen — one more time."
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"McDonald and Shannon deliver superb performances that combine hyper comedy with underlying vulnerability. However, the revival is misconceived physically, with a lighting grid stationed far too low below the actors and a flimsy exterior backdrop, which affects the extent to which the audience is drawn into the play...McDonald’s nervous and jaded Frankie contrasts nicely with Shannon’s kooky and intense Johnny...That being said, the play itself is very thin."
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"While it’s beautifully acted by Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon, the dynamic between them seems dated. What made sense in 1987 now feels jarringly off-kilter...While it’s hard to buy their relationship, McNally’s gift for incisive dialogue makes Frankie and Johnny compelling as a pair of sadly conflicted survivors...A stronger directorial hand might have glossed over the play's less plausible parts, but there's no excuse for the production's clunky symbolism at play's end."
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"Gorgeously acted, this sophisticated two-hander from 1987 offers some surprisingly prescient insights about love in the age of Tinder...McDonald and Shannon dexterously convey the push-pull tension between Frankie and Johnny: They're too old and jaded for it to be called flirtation, but also invested enough for it to never morph into sexual harassment."
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"McNally's two-character play is wonderful. Director Arin Arbus' production, which handily deals with the 1987 piece's moments that might cause uneasiness with contemporary audiences, floats lovingly across the Broadhurst stage as co-stars Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon skillfully explore the delicate details of the many ways we may choose to expose ourselves to one another."
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“McDonald and Shannon slip into their characters' battered souls, finding new shadings and tiny revelations that make them seem freshly conceived...McNally takes a faintly preposterous premise and convinces us that it is a plausible statement about the redeeming nature of romantic love...For all of the fireworks that flare during the play's two acts, it ends on a mundane, oddly touching, note that reinforces McNally's sensibility, which detects magic in the details of ordinary living.”
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