Were Critics Won Over by Michael Frayn's Democracy?

Michael Frayn, the playwright who has brought audiences everything from the intellectual Copenhagen to the farce Noises Off, is back on Broadway with Democracy, which opened at the Brooks Atkinson on November 18. The political play was a hit at the National Theatre and in the West End. It has been completely recast for Broadway and is now being headlined by American actors James Naughton and Richard Thomas. Did critics cast their vote for this Democracy?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "Shortly after comparing West Germany to the 11 ferrets in a bag, Kretschmann goes on to denounce the country's multiplicity and lack of discipline: 'Sixty million separate egos.… All trying to guess which way everyone else will jump. All out for themselves, and all totally dependent on everyone else. Not one Germany. Sixty million Germanies. The tower of Babel!' When Frayn hands the stage over to the two distrustful, deeply flawed men at the core of Democracy, he offers as intellectually vibrant a voice as you'll find in today's theater. But when the other characters join them, the result is often as chaotic as Kretschmann describes. In Democracy, as in democracy, everyone gets to be heard. And in both cases, some people have less to say."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "After many months of serving the theatrical equivalent of half-thawed TV dinners, Broadway has finally delivered a juicy gourmet's banquet of a play. Michael Frayn's Democracy, which opened last night at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, is one of those rare dramas that don't just dare to think big but that fully translate their high aspirations to the stage, with sharp style and thrilling clarity. For New York theatergoers who have endured the recent spate of dutiful revivals and misconceived star vehicles, watching Mr. Frayn's gripping study of the fraught glory years of Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany and the spy who loved him is like riding a wave after dog paddling in shallow waters."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "Two-and-three-quarter cheers for Democracy, opening last night at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, and three more, rather louder, for Michael Frayn, its rare and beautiful playwright. The performance is a good A-minus, but the play--a true-to-life version of a modern Julius Caesar with a touch of Othello thrown in--proves an A-plus, even though its subject seems unlikely… Blakemore's staging catches perfectly the cinematic shifts of scene and action that characterize the fast flow of Frayn's almost novelistic play."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "On one hand, it is about the intricate interplay of policy and chance that determines history… On the other, it is a study of the backstage machinations that make politics, if not farcical, at least wryly, sometimes poignantly comic. This juggling act is what makes Democracy such a breathtaking play. Very quickly the characters take on their own identities, apart from the historical particulars. We are concerned with powerful yet vulnerable men, not just figures in the news. The structure of the play is fascinating. Sometimes the actors address us directly. Sometimes they have scenes with each other. Nevertheless, the narrative never seems disjointed; it has a powerful sense of flow and inevitability. Michael Blakemore, who has directed Frayn's other plays, has done a brilliant job with Democracy, starting with the casting."

David Rooney of Variety: "While Copenhagen made distinct gains in its transatlantic crossing, acquiring warmth and texture, the Broadway transfer of National Theater hit Democracy loses out on several counts… It doesn't seem too much to ask that 2½ hours of uninterrupted talk from 10 men in suits should yield deeper relevance. Questions of the play's strengths aside, it has to be noted that certain texts simply hold greater sway coming from the mouths of British actors… As Brandt's chief of staff, Richard Masur strikes an especially discordant note, coming across as some kind of brash Yank business tycoon rather than a seasoned Teutonic political operator. But the insurmountable problem at the center of the New York production's uneven cast in James Naughton as the chancellor."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Intrigue has never seemed so gray, and that may be the intent. But grayness of another sort pervades the American premiere of Michael Frayn's Democracy, a thoughtful, intelligent, well-made play trapped here in a bland, personality-free production. The drama, which opened Thursday at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre, was a big hit in London, but the trans-Atlantic crossing, featuring an all-Yankee cast, has, unfortunately, diluted its impact…. Naughton, perfectly coifed to look weirdly like Bill Clinton, gives a wooden, detached performance, unable to capture what made Brandt the outsized, magnetic personality he must have been. Thomas fares better as the smarmy, obsequious Guillaume, a lower-level party functionary suddenly given proximity to Brandt during the time Brandt was in office 1969 to 1974, when the spy scandal drove him from power. Yet even though Guillaume is the play's most fully realized character, Thomas comes off as something of a cipher, never finding the ambiguity and the anguish in a man spying on a leader he eventually grows to admire."

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "Democracy, which opened Thursday at Broadway's Brooks Atkinson Theatre, first premiered at the U.K.'s National Theatre, where audiences found it similarly accessible and entertaining. That may owe something to history's tendency to repeat itself, but it's also a tribute to Frayn's brisk eloquence and Michael Blakemore's potent direction of a first-rate cast. In the Broadway production, for which Blakemore enlisted a new company of American actors, James Naughton is robustly unsentimental as the flawed hero, Willy Brandt… You needn't be a policy wonk to appreciate Democracy--just someone who realizes that history can be stranger than fiction, and at least as compelling."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "Michael Blakemore, Frayn's invaluable, longtime collaborator, has recast his National Theatre production with American actors. Much like the current revival of Twelve Angry Men, the all-male ensemble has the great faces and shaded depths of experience. We wish James Naughton didn't make us miss Roger Allam, whose big bow-wow head and massive charisma suggested the Brandt who seduced a nation… Naughton is commanding as the romantic Brandt on the rise, but he gets small instead of tragic in defeat. Still, it is revelatory to hear Brandt's own words in speeches - compassionate intelligence that, ironically, made East Germany regret that its own espionage brought him down. The supporting cast is splendid, articulating the petty and world-shaking divisions within a government with the conversational quality of truth."