Reviews of Accent on Youth!

[lemur]

May 30, 2009 11:51:17 GMT -5 @iluvcioffiiluvtea said:

Here's one I just found today:

In a Broadway season that has seen true love blossom from a farting contest and a schoolgirl with a crush offer to show the object of her affection her "hoo-hoo," how refreshing it is to have a revival of Samson Raphaelson‘s light 1934 comedy, Accent On Youth, to bring a little adult romantic charm to the street. While comparisons to that Noel Coward masterpiece playing a few blocks downtown are inevitable, and the decades-old characters are comfortable clichés to modern audiences, director Daniel Sullivan's neat little drawing room production is finely polished and performed by a company that accents the play's clever dialogue.

David Hyde Pierce, always excellent at this sort of sweetly droll humor, plays a successful 51-year-old author of comedies ("No children but 19 plays!"), whose colleagues are concerned that his newest piece - a drama about a man in his 60s winning the heart of a woman in her 20s - would be seen as distasteful by audiences. But when he makes a slight plot alteration based on a May/December situation that has cropped up in his own life, the play becomes a smash and its elderly leading man (Byron Jennings, delightfully distinguished as ever) becomes a matinee idol. But the success of the play winds up having an adverse effect on the playwright's love life with his younger secretary turned leading lady. (Mary Catherine Garrison is quite adorable as his mousey, efficient assistant who evolves into a believably unnatural imitation of Broadway elegance.)

Admirable contributors to the shenanigans include Charles Kimbrough as a foxy gentleman's gentleman who is quite adept at Indian wrestling, David Furr as an actor impeccable at playing society love interests, Rosie Benton as a leading lady leading the ever-so-madcap life and Lisa Banes as a seasoned actress more concerned with winning the audience's sympathy than serving the story.

While placing a single intermission after the first of the play's three acts lopsides the evening a bit, the abundance of snappy dialogue ("You write your women awfully well. Funny that you should be so stupid about them in life.") flows smoothly, with Jane Greenwood's comfortably stylish costumes and John Lee Beatty's unit set (the playwright's study lined with wood panels and neatly organized bookshelves) beautifully adding to the casual elegance of the period.

Now, if they could just do something about that bit of business where Pierce shakes his fanny at the audience.

Thanks iluvcioffi ... where's this from?

[iluvcioffiiluvtea]

That's from a blog called Showtime! by Michael Dale.

[lemur]

I think Variety pretty much sums up the critical reaction to Accent On Youth:

David Hyde Pierce's mellow charm and effortless comic timing made the quaint 1934 artifact Accent on Youth palatable, if not quite justifying its return to Broadway.

LINK

[lemur]

Found this on the MTC website - an interview with Joel Raphaelson, the playwright's son. He says some very kind things about David's performance:

I don’t know how it would compare with Nicholas Hannon who played the part when it first opened, but I can’t imagine anybody would have been better than David Hyde Pierce. I think my father would have been very pleased with David’s elegance and seriousness. He lets humor arise out of the play itself and not any tricks of performance.