Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune NYC Reviews and Tickets

“Near-flawless revival...It is a play and a pair of performances whose richness lies in a million little details...Remarkably, none of this feels dated...McDonald and Shannon breathe so much truth into their characters...’Frankie and Johnny' is as open and honest about the human heart as anything you are likely to encounter on a Broadway stage, and the music that gives the play its title is reflected in the duet of the performances.”
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"That McDonald plays Frankie so well is not surprising; she has repeatedly demonstrated that she can do just about anything...With McDonald and Shannon in Frankie and Johnny’s shoes, or rather bare feet, the stage is dazzled with lightning sparks of alternating current...Arbus carefully modulates her two powerhouse actors, not necessarily an easy task. The three of them, along with McNally, combine to creating an enchantedly moonlit evening."
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"This impeccably performed production of McNally’s sweet, sad, and funny play, crisply staged by Arin Arbus, can feel nevertheless a bit sodden. For all the virtuosity on display, I’m not sure that we ever truly believe the characters, believe that these people are as lonely, and as needy, as the script requires them to be...Johnny, as played by the estimable Shannon, is a charmer, but he’s also overbearing, relentless, and slightly frightening."
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“McNally’s exquisitely tender-creepy mating dance in a revival that perplexes as much as it delights...Arbus and her team work a bit too hard at making the dese-dem-dose point...The effort shows. Across two and a quarter hours, I never for a moment forgot that I was watching 'acting.' Terrific acting, to be sure, but never the kind that disappears into character and takes us out of ourselves, of the theater, of the time."
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"Fortunately Shannon and McDonald — playing the only two characters onstage — as well as Arbus seem to be clearly aware of the minefields to be avoided. In the way that it’s played, we are constantly attuned to the tension that simmers between the two characters, the sense that they are both equals engaged in a complex emotional (and sexual) dialogue, in which matters of right and reason — and consent — continually send clouds scudding across the moonlight of romance."
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"'Frankie and Johnny' tries so hard to delight us with uncompromised frankness and cleverness and moment-to-moment unpredictability that it begins to spin out of control and out of our willingness to give a hoot. The biggest obstacle this production has about two ordinary people is that neither McDonald nor Shannon can alter the fact that they are not ordinary but rather extraordinary actors simply having a good time romp."
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"Given references to 'Prizzi's Honor,' 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar,' Haagen-Dasz Vanilla Swiss Almond, and VCRs, the otherwise effective revival of 'Frankie and Johnny' can feel rather dated. The play debuted, after all, in 1987, and McNally's ambition for realism makes such references natural, if not exactly necessary. But it's still a substantial look at a one-night stand between Frankie, a waitress, and Johnny, a short-order cook at the same off-stage restaurant."
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“McDonald and her smashing co-star Michael Shannon perform a pas de deux that is perfection. McDonald’s outbursts are nothing short of an aria. Positively inspirational. Not to mention hilarious...McNally has bestowed a grace on these two lunatics. It is as if once they enter the arena, they are exposed to a kind of magic that engulfs them...Arbus's direction releases just the right amount of lunacy in these characters so that they end up willing to leap off the cliff of ‘possible.’”
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