The Front Page
THEATER
Review: ‘The Front Page’ Is Diverting, but Don’t Stop the Presses
THE FRONT PAGE
Broadway, Comedy/Drama, Play
2 hrs. and 45 min.
Closing Date: January 29, 2017
Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St.
From left, John Goodman, John Slattery and Nathan Lane in the revival of “The Front Page,” the Hecht-MacArthur love letter to newspapering. CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times
“Who the hell reads the second paragraph?” snarls Walter Burns, the merciless newspaper editor in “The Front Page,” examining the copy of his star reporter. And since Mr. Burns is portrayed quite spectacularly by Nathan Lane as a man whose advice you ignore at your peril, I shall state right away — with the rattling fanfare of a hundred manual typewriters — that the revival of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s 1928 classic, which opened on Thursday night at the Broadhurst Theater, is …
Dang it! (Imagine I just wrote something saltier.) That’s way too much prose for any paragraph, never mind a lead. No doubt Walter would inform me that you, my impatient audience, have already stopped reading by now. But though “The Front Page” is all about the adrenaline rush that turns journalists into deadline junkies, it’s hard to work up the proper urgency about Jack O’Brien’s production. [...]
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