Did The Frogs Make Critics Leap with Joy?

Famously staged in a swimming pool at Yale in 1974, The Frogs has made the leap to Broadway. The Aristophanes play which was set to music by Stephen Sondheim and freely adapted by Burt Shevelove and "even more freely" and recently adapted by Nathan Lane opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center on July 22. What would Aristophanes think of this comic spectacle staged by Susan Stroman and starring Lane and former Producers co-star Roger Bart? Nevermind, Aristophanes--what did New York drama critics think?

Here's a sampling of what they had to say:

Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "They did it. Nathan Lane, Stephen Sondheim and Susan Stroman took the soggy 1974 curiosity The Frogs, believed to be all but unsalvageable as a theater piece, and whipped it into delightful shape. It may not qualify as a gift from the gods--Lane's new adaptation of the Aristophanes play is scattershot, and the piece has been padded beyond what it can comfortably handle. But just when you thought the Sondheim canon had been strip-mined of every property remotely worth producing, along comes this highly entertaining look at what fools these immortals be."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "After dwelling with such craven procrastination on the fine ingredients that make up The Frogs, I am forced to concede that what should have been a zesty, airy soufflé is a soggy, lumpy batter that never shows the slightest signs of rising. Staged in 1974 as a publicity-garnering, hourlong novelty by the Yale School of Drama--around and in the university gymnasium swimming pool, if you please--this bauble of a show has been reshaped to fill two and a half hours. The results suggest that to stretch something this slight is to shatter it."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "It's here and it's croakin'! But even with the ineffable Nathan Lane as its star, with the tireless Susan Stroman providing athletic backup, The Frogs--which opened last night at Lincoln Center--needs all the help it can get."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "Stephen Sondheim's version of Aristophanes' The Frogs started out 30 years ago as an academic exercise for the Yale Drama School. A new, expanded version, with help from Nathan Lane and Susan Stroman, turns out to be merely collegiate… The evening is redeemed by some of the comic performances, especially that of Roger Bart, who, astonishingly, took over the role of Dionysos' sidekick barely a week before the opening, when Saturday Night Live alum Chris Kattan was fired. Peter Bartlett is delicious as Pluto, who is a kind of oily lounge emcee. John Byner is similarly hilarious as Charon, the crusty boatman on the River Styx. Daniel Davis is so perfect as Shaw that you wish he did a whole evening of his work. Alas, Michael Siberry, as his opponent, Shakespeare, doesn't deliver his 'own' verse very well. Burke Moses has spirit in the thankless role of Herakles."

Marilyn Stasio of Variety: "Gleefully raiding from the bulging grab-bag of American musical-comedy tradition, Nathan Lane, Stephen Sondheim and Susan Stroman concoct a brash and breezy style covering everything from burlesque and vaudeville to Broadway extravaganza. While contributing six new songs to this version, Sondheim has wisely retained and smartly updated his hilarious "Instructions to the Audience," warming up the crowd with cheeky lyrics like "When there's a pause, please/Lots of applause, please./And we'd appreciate/Your turning off your cell phones while we wait." And once the principals make it to the underworld where the Frogs await in William Ivey Long's gloriously gaudy Day-Glo costumes, helmer Stroman pulls out the stops and delivers a production with so much manic energy and cheerful vulgarity that it should be obvious why the theater crowd is always dying to get into hell."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Nathan Lane, last seen on Broadway as the rapscallion Max Bialystock in The Producers, now finds himself playing a Greek god, Dionysos, in The Frogs, which opened Thursday at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in Lincoln Center. That's not as strange as it might seem because the high-flying Lane is truly Olympian in his comic artistry. The show doesn't quite scale those heights, but it does produce enough laughs and thought-provoking ideas to make for an original, entertaining piece of musical theater. The Frogs is an unusual concoction of low comedy and high-minded satire that lists as its creators Aristophanes, Burt Shevelove, Stephen Sondheim and Lane himself. That's quite a quartet battling for space on stage, and the musical, under the guidance of director and choreographer Susan Stroman, could use some pruning."

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "The newly restored musical The Frogs, which opened Thursday at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater, takes place in a land where, we're told, corrupt and not especially articulate leaders have saddled their people with "a war we shouldn't even be in." Sound familiar? If not, don't worry: In this updated and expanded version of Burt Shevelove and Stephen Sondheim's 1974 adaptation of Aristophanes' play, the central conceit is beaten over your head so thoroughly you may need an ice pack afterward."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "Despite the richness of the bloodlines, this Frogs is merely a summer lark, more sweet-natured than sublime, more plain silly than deeply ridiculous. Lane clearly cares about the story's seriously satirical streak and the quest for great artists in times of crisis. The line about leaders whose "simplest words" fail was applauded at Tuesday's preview. Dionysos describes a "war we may not be able to win, a war we shouldn't even be in." The style, which Sondheim and Shevelove also plumbed in 1962's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, is meant to be packed with groaners. We expect Dionysos and his second-banana slave, Xanthias, to toy with propriety while trying to save humanity. But too many unfunny things happen on the way to hell"