Theater Talkback: A Hot Ticket on Broadway, and a Cold Shoulder to Reviewers

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Al Pacino, left, and Bobby Cannavale in the Broadway revival of the play “Glengarry Glen Ross.”

Al Pacino is back on Broadway, or so I hear. I wouldn't know from firsthand experience. Unlike the many thousands of theatergoers who have seen Mr. Pacino in the revival of David Mamet's “Glengarry Glen Ross,” making it the highest-grossing straight play currently on Broadway, critics have not been invited to attend until later this week, more tha n six weeks after the show began previews.

It was not supposed to be this way. Originally the production, which also stars Bobby Cannavale (or so I've heard) and is directed by Daniel Sullivan, was scheduled to open on Nov. 11, after a little more than three weeks of previews, which is generally the norm for play revivals on Broadway.

Then along came Sandy, and suddenly the opening was postponed - not for a day or two, as you might expect, given that Broadway shows missed only a couple of performances because of the hurricane. Instead the producers announced that the official opening would be bounced back almost a month. The new opening is on Sunday. On the day after, critics will finally weigh in with their opinions on what is without question one of the most highly anticipated shows of the fall season.

By that late date, you may reasonably ask, who will care what the critics have to say?

I suspect that the producers asked themselves that very question before announcing the postponement.

The show will have played a full half of its run - it is scheduled to close at the end of January - without having to face any official critical scrutiny, an extremely rare, if not unprecedented, situation on Broadway. (That's discounting shows that close quickly in response to critical brickbats.)

I am not the only Broadway watcher to smell a rat in this highly unusual delay. Jeremy Gerard, the theater critic and editor for Bloomberg, decided to go ahead and file a review shortly after the show's first announced opening date, reasoning that with orchestra tickets running $167 a pop (the t op price is a staggering $377), it was in the public interest to allow theatergoers the benefit of some critical advice. (While praising some aspects, he said that over all the production was “stilted and self-conscious.”)

Not that theatergoers seem particularly interested in heeding critical advice when it comes to star-driven vehicles. As Michael Riedel in The New York Post and Mr. Gerard both noted, on the strength of the Pacino name, “Glengarry Glen Ross” had already been selling tickets at a fast clip, racking up an advance of several million dollars - almost unheard-of for a straight play on Broadway.

A couple of seasons ago, you may recall, a similar brouhaha erupted over the opening date of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” the troubled musical that pushed back its official opening more than once. In that case, there were legitimate technical problems that I think warranted giving the producers the benefit of the doubt - at least until the seco nd (or was it the third?) postponement, when most publications (including The New York Times) decided that enough was enough, and sent their critics to cover the show before its last opening date.

But it seems to me that the case of “Glengarry” is an even more egregious attempt to avoid critical scrutiny for mercenary reasons. The explanations given for the delay - the necessity for more rehearsal time - ring pretty hollow, considering that the show had already been in rehearsal for weeks before it began previews, and had been open to the public for three weeks already.

Sure, shows are always in the process of refinement during previews, and casts are rehearsing changes during the day that are incorporated into the show at night. But “Glengarry” is not a new play; Mr. Sullivan is a highl y proficient director; and the show's cast is made up of sterling stage performers. In theory, all artists would probably like the luxury of running for a couple of months before opening their doors to critics, but few to none have the comfortable cushion of cash that “Glengarry” has amassed.

The decision to postpone was, in my view, a cynical move inspired by the knowledge that good critical notices couldn't possibly make the show a hotter ticket - it was a hot ticket already - and while bad ones might slightly have dampened sales, more crucially, they might also put the actors in a bit of a funk.

(Jeffrey Richards, the show's lead producer, denied that quality was an issue. He also pointed to the absence of viable opening dates in the period between the originally scheduled opening and this Sunday, an argument that seemed spurious to me.)

And why do that to the cast, after the trauma of Sandy? After all, Mr. Pacino is reportedly making only $125,000 a week, so he's practically doing pro bono work here. Why not keep the star philanthropist coddled, free from the burning wounds of reviewers' potentially unkind words?

What's most galling about the postponement: the crass attempt to attribute a decision that I suspect was inspired by other factors to the disruption caused by the hurricane - a calamity that claimed many lives and caused billions of dollars in damage across the Eastern seaboard. In a word: tacky.

I won't be reviewing the show, by the way, so I don't really have a dog in this fight. But it's dispiriting that producers seem so determined to marginalize the voices of reviewers. Although artists and critics are hardly natural allies, a vigorous public discourse about theater - and that necessarily means an assessment of its quality - is vital to the health of the art form that supports them both. The “Glengarry” postponement moves Broadway one step closer to a state of celebrity-fueled decadence th at may not be reversible.

Readers, what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.