The Front Page

I have so much more to say about my gorgeous October weekend in New York City which will definitely be written about this week, but tonight I thought I'd talk about the show we saw - The Front Page.  When this show was announced, the number of HUGE actor names in it was astounding.  Nathan Lane as the headliner was enough to draw a crowd, but then add John Slattery, John Goodman, Christopher MacDonald, Jefferson Mays, Holland Taylor, Joey Slotnick, Dann Florek, and another 8 guest stars from The Good Wife, and you have quite the big ticket show.  

Seeing as it was a limited engagement, and seeing that the cast was huge I assumed we wouldn't be able to grab tickets, but it would seem that my mom is even better at ticket buying than I am and we managed to acquire some seats.  Yay! Now let me go on record as saying I LOVE Nathan Lane.  I saw him in the original production of Producers but haven't been able to see him since.  So he was the major draw for me.  Also, I didn't read much about the play before hand, so I wasn't exactly sure what it was going to be about or that it was going to be shocking/vulgar. 

All of that being said, was it fabulous?  Yes and No.  The first act and a half dragged quite a bit.  It was literally 8 guys sitting in a room playing poker and answering phones in 1928. When 8 guys are all talking over each other, it's quite hard to figure out what the heck they're saying.  Also, because of the script, Nathan Lane doesn't come out until half way through the second act (of which there are 3 for a major shock to my system!)  As the NY Tmes said, things picked up a lot once he appeared.  He's such an amazing actor that he can carry pretty much anyone along and make you forget about the time.  He did the same again as an angry and slightly crazy newspaper editor.

John Slattery as another newspaper man was also very, very funny.  The NY Times said he was annoying but I thought he may have been the best part of the show.  He definitely gave Nathan Lane someone amazing to play off of.  As for the rest of the cast, they weren't anything super special. Don't get me wrong, they were funny and great, but nothing groundbreaking. 

All in all, after almost 3 hours, nothing much happened in the show.  There were some laughs and some great set decoration, but it's definitely not a show that I'm clamoring to see again.  Though, I'm very happy I did!  When again, is there going to be such a big name cast gathered together for something other than a big budget movie?  Thank you theater gods! Keep these awesome casts coming to Broadway.  We theater nerds get very excited when you do!