"The simplicity that has felt clarifying in Doyle’s best work feels stingy here. The piano accompaniment strips 'Cradle' of much of its sostenuto beauty; what’s left is further eroded by singing that sometimes grates the ears. The staging is largely static and, where musical theater razzmatazz is called for, totally underwhelming. Too much of the acting seems deliberately wooden....Just as you begin to fear that denying pleasure has become a point of pride, the production coalesces.”
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"Doyle has assembled a small but talented cast who all manage to nimbly navigate their multiple roles. The spare set using metal barrels moved around in different configurations in tandem with the Brechtian announcements of scene are enough to establish place. The costumes turn out to be the only problem here. "
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“Doyle seems to be approaching his current production by rote. It’s a plodding revival...Doyle’s use of his purposefully limited aesthetic vocabulary here seems mechanical rather than ingenious. We’re never surprised, either by Blitzstein’s tale or by Doyle’s use of the scenic world to tell it...The missed opportunities feel especially palpable. If this is a kind of people’s parody of wealth and privilege, why not go further with the acerbic, handmade pageantry of it?”
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"Doyle is exceptionally good at staging small-scale musical revivals, and he knows exactly what to do with shows like this...This production is sung without amplification, and Doyle has cast actors who can sing rather than singers who can act...It’s important that you be able to hear the lyrics in order to follow the action, and you will often find that hard...Not only are Blitzstein’s clear-cut tunes full of off-center harmonies that light up every phrase, but his lyrics are as sharp as a switchblade."
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"It's a joyous tale of regular people defying fearsome institutions, and singing in the face of power. It's a pity none of that comes through in Doyle's dispassionate, soporific revival...Doyle does his production no favors by falling back on old tricks...With this semi-intelligible production, Doyle seems to assume that his audience already knows this rarely revived play, robbing newcomers of the opportunity to discover the work in its full clarity.”
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“”The Cradle will Rock’ is quite a revolutionary piece...For Classic Stage Company's sturdy revival...Doyle abstains from his frequent practice of stripping down the texts of deceased authors...allowing Blitzstein's work to speak for itself...Though there's the occasional lack of tension that makes the 90-minute production tend to lag at times, individual performances are quite good, and the climatic confrontation...is fiercely played.”
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"Seeing John Doyle's revival, you may have trouble understanding why the piece was considered too hot to handle, so much so that the opening night only took place following a concerted effort to suppress it...Clearly, this revival means to draw parallels to today's fraught politics, but the resemblances are often blurry...And in Doyle's fretful, low-energy production, a show that should have the hammerlike impact of a propaganda poster often seems to be looking for a style."
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“A lifeless production which, despite an abundance of talent at his disposal, never explodes with rage under Doyle's flaccid direction...Not even the mighty, triple-threat Yazbeck can save this revival...There's no energy or vitality propelling the storytelling of Doyle's production and, as a result, the audience's interest and attention-span flags. The pieces just don't fit...’The Cradle Will Rock’ deserves better than its current mounting at Classic Stage.”
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