NEW YORK (Reuters) - Julia Roberts is still Hollywood's ultimate "Pretty Woman" but her first venture onto a Broadway stage failed to convince the critics whose verdict was "modest," "flat" and "lackluster."
Hundreds of fans gathered outside the theater for Wednesday's opening night of "Three Days of Rain" and stars who turned up for the hottest ticket on Broadway included Oprah Winfrey, Tim Robbins and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The play is the first professional stage role for the Oscar-winning Roberts, 38. She remains Hollywood's highest-paid actress, commanding $20 million a film, according to The Hollywood Reporter's list of the movie industry's top players.
"For the record, Roberts does not deliver a train wreck of a performance," the Toronto Star said in a review on Thursday headlined "Pretty Woman pretty flat." It said she failed to bring her Oscar-winning screen charisma to the stage.
"Her face, so luminous on screen, barely registers onstage," the review said.
New York Times critic Ben Brantley, whose reviews can make or break a play, confessed to be a "Juliaholic" and said he was nervous on entering the theater "as if a relative or a close friend were about to do something foolish in public."
"Your heart goes out to her when she makes her entrance in the first act and freezes with the unyielding stiffness of an industrial lamppost," Brantley wrote.
No comments:
Post a Comment