"This 'Plenty' feels as artificial and remote as a Mayfair melodrama from the 1920s...Much of this has to do, surprisingly, with Ms. Weisz...She never really registers as a serious threat. Nor does she break our hearts...The performances by Mr. Jennings and Mr. Stoll embody what’s best in Mr. Hare’s play, the ways in which seeming archetypes surprise by not hewing to type...Yet the grayness that envelops this production is less one of moral ambiguity than of hazy dramatic uncertainty."
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“Weisz is an absorbing and intelligent actor, and she traces Susan’s descent into mental illness with persuasive bitterness and glamour. Yet despite her fine work, 'Plenty' seems remote…Its urgency is at risk of losing force with the passage of time...Most of the creditable supporting performances fall into a similar trap; aside from the splendid Byron Jennings...The plenitude of Hare’s play is not well served by this production’s postures of austerity.”
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"The role’s hugeness demands a corresponding hugeness in the performer. Weisz clearly knows this, pushing hard and getting close to the mark...Susan needs to be a glamorous nightmare, and Weisz is only halfway there. In this she is not helped by Leveaux’s decidedly non-epic production...Without feeling viscerally how thrilling and ego-consuming Susan’s war was, the audience cannot properly grasp her ensuing boredom and monstrousness. Her wails of despair become little more than whines."
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"It’s a signal event, a comprehensively satisfying production that features a blowtorch-hot performance by Rachel Weisz...Ms. Weisz’s blazing performance, like the play itself, is ambiguous enough to permit multiple interpretations...Mr. Stoll is no less adept at conveying Raymond’s mounting frustration, and the ever-satisfying Byron Jennings gives a beautifully nuanced performance...David Leveaux has staged “Plenty” with a supple fluidity."
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"Neither Weisz nor her director David Leveaux meets that challenge in this revival, which in both her character and in the sense of overall emotional impact is somewhat chilly…Instead of a textured reading, the production glosses the content and is as chilly Mike Britton’s set…Least well served is Weisz. Her high-pitched, rapid-fire line readings conspire to keep Susan from getting under our skin…I left the theater not so much emotionally wrung out as merely shaking my head."
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"A sinking feeling immediately takes hold and doesn’t let go throughout David Leveaux’s sluggish production. The big issue: Oscar winner Rachel Weisz's star turn as Susan Traherne, a British secret agent who buckles under the stiff and stultifying banality of post-war England...A bleating Weisz proves surprisingly unconvincing in this tricky role."
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"Although the play’s original impact has been blunted with time, this slick revival directed by David Leveaux respects the historical moment...Weisz has a sweet quality that lends poignancy to the idealistic heroine’s bitter disillusionment with the cold realities of the modern age. She’s out of her depth, though, in the scenes that show Susan struggling to maintain her mental equilibrium within her social set...Leveaux’s strong production features solid supporting actors."
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“Neither director David Leveaux nor Rachel Weisz in the lead role satisfyingly meets the challenges of this structurally complex drama...The precise reasons why the production packs so little charge are hard to define, but a dated text and a disconnect between director and material loom large among them...Weisz gives an oddly stilted performance here, wan and distant in the scenes of relative composure and artificial in the explosive rants."
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