“Doyle’s production...is full of enlivening moments of actorly glee. The eight ensemble members here are delightfully resourceful as they become an entire population of corrupt thugs and government officials...Yet all the cast’s resourcefulness isn’t enough to keep confusion and tedium at bay...Esparza doesn’t fail to amuse in the role...What I was most conscious of was the hard-working ingenuity of a director and his creative team trying to elicit sparks from a cumbersome, ice-cold allegory."
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“Doyle’s production is certainly streamlined, and it boasts a wonderful Ui—Esparza plays the part just at the edge of clowning—but his directorial choices also make this character-crammed epic harder to understand...This is the kind of ride that’s hard to get back on once you’ve fallen off...Happily, most of the players are extremely strong...The play weakens in the second half...But I’d still recommend it. So much of this difficult, angry play is actually a great entertainment.”
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"A sly, fearsome sideshow, a deceptively humble, hugely exciting piece of work...It’s ‘Richard III’ meets Jimmy Cagney by way of the vaudeville circuit, and in the hands of Doyle and his actors, it’s both rollicking and frightening...Esparza is on fire from word one...And he never skips a beat. Doyle smartly pushes the tempo of the genre-rich dialogue...Our heart rates rise as we sit forward in our seats, struggling to hold onto the reins as their plotting and scheming and finagling run amok.”
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"John Doyle’s sober revival of Bertolt Brecht’s 'The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui' couldn’t be more timely, though whether that timeliness enhances or diminishes its message I can’t quite decide...The production’s stripped-down realism has mixed results. It can pay to highlight Brecht’s stylish extremity. If Doyle vacillates between embracing and undercutting the play’s inherent cartoonishness, it is perhaps because our own daily reality has long since surpassed it."
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“Its relative rarity, and the superb performance by Esparza...are the main reasons to see CSC's revival...The play itself is problematic in both structure and style...The play is difficult to pull off under the best of circumstances. Doyle's stripped-down approach does it no favors...The production lacks vivid atmosphere and feels sluggishly paced. While all the actors are effective one time or another, few of them are successful at carrying off all of their disparate roles.”
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"It's great to see Raul Esparza back on a New York stage...especially playing a role that takes advantage of his skill for creating steely tension while hinting at traces of madness...His Arturo Ui has the kind of working class charisma that charms uneducated masses...While Doyle's concept isn't always clear, the ensemble work is sharp, especially when Brecht's moments of silliness blend into uncomfortable reality."
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"Esparza confidently mines the script for every available bit of bitter irony and shivery parallels to current politics...Does anyone at CSC really think that a single member of its audience requires updating on the dangers of a corrupt, norm-breaking, fear-mongering, would-be tyrant?...A better, more intensely focused production might highlight strengths that are missing here, but the director, John Doyle, doesn't seem to have a secure grasp of the material."
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"Unfortunately, there's little to cheer in the uneven revival Doyle has mounted...Despite a hard-working cast, and a terrific performance by Esparza as the title character, Doyle's production, which he directed and designed, feels flat and tedious...Sadly, audiences don't need Brecht's play to point out that our current truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's also a hell of a lot scarier, too."
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