Did Richard Greenberg's Naked Girl Please New York Critics?

Like Neil Simon, Richard Greenberg is scheduled to have two of his plays seen on Broadway this season. First up is A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, which is making its Broadway premiere in a Roundabout Theatre Company production headlined by Jill Clayburgh and Richard Thomas. Greenberg's second offering, a revival of Three Days of Rain starring Julia Roberts, will open on the Great White Way in the spring. The comedy, directed by Doug Hughes, opened on October 6 at the American Airlines Theatre. Were New York critics crazy about this Girl?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Rob Kendt in his Broadway.com Review: "The minor family disharmonies sounded by this well-made near-farce have the comforting ring of sitcom bickering, albeit of a flatteringly literate quality. If Greenberg's ambition is to give a loving tweak to a bunch of rich liberals summering in 'some Hampton'--a milieu we might jokingly label 'incestuous' and be closer to the truth than we suspect--then A Naked Girl can hardly be counted a misfire. It's a pretty modest aim, though, for a playwright who, at his best, can be as probing as he is entertaining. If the play lacks sufficient friction, director Doug Hughes' otherwise fleet-footed production supplies one noticeable dissonance of its own. As Bess and Jeffrey Lapin, a bien-pensant boomer couple with a trio of multi-racial adopted children, Jill Clayburgh and Richard Thomas make a thoroughly unpersuasive pair."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "It's true that A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, directed by Doug Hughes and featuring Ms. Clayburgh who deserves better in her first appearance on Broadway in two decades, brings to mind a long, blurred roster of dysfunctional family comedies, from Soap to Arrested Development. It's not just television, either, that has kept extending the genre. Christopher Durang, John Guare, Nicky Silver and, more recently, Paul Weitz have all created toxic comedies of eccentric, unhappy families for the stage. What makes Naked Girl, a Roundabout Theater Company production, stand out from the warped domestic pack is its stunning lack of a cohesive style. A sense of disconnectedness pervades everything, from the limping parade of witticisms to the performers' relationships with their roles. Even the title, a reference to a mysterious vision on foreign shores, feels ill at ease with itself, a mixture of 1960's-style continental titillation and literary epiphany."

Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "There's virtually nothing wrong with this play except the play itself. Comedies need some kernel of truth, a nugget of possibility, either in the credibility of characters or the interplay of situation. And, like all drama, they need dialogue that's convincing... Doug Hughes, with his perfect timing and ear for nuance even where it scarcely exists, has staged the play as if it made as much sense as the architectural, unlived-in splendor of John Lee Beatty's setting and the spot-on aptness of Catherine Zuber's costumes. Clayburgh--her eyes lit up in perpetual amazement of the world's wonders, while her voice tentatively chirps their praise--makes us wonder how we did without her all these years. Thomas, at 54 that must be some portrait he's got in his attic!, is her perfect match. For a play not worth seeing, it's been extraordinarily well done."

Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News:: "In Appian Way, everything is fake--especially the emotions. Instead of emotional satisfaction, you get shock... Needless to say, all the surprises, which are supposed to shock us, quickly grow tiresome. So does the overly rarefied language they all speak, sprinkled with French and full of fancy words at the end of punch lines. Director Doug Hughes can do nothing to make any of this believable. Part of the charm of old-fashioned drawing-room comedies was their effortlessness. Here everything--except the gorgeous set - is painfully effortful."

David Rooney of Variety: "Richard Greenberg's old-fashioned boulevard comedy in pseudo-provocative clothing is suffocated at every turn by artificiality. It's hard to discern the subject of this toothless play about incest that's not really incest. Maybe the endless capacity of the rich for complacency, denial and rationalization? The functional dysfunction of the happy family? In any case, it seems a flimsy skeleton on which to hang the playwright's erudite wit... With the writer's usual verbal aplomb, he tosses in one-liners and self-consciously clever observations about the complexities of love, family and relationships. But he neglects to add the fundamental condiment of emotional truth."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Most of the people in A Naked Girl on the Appian Way are lightly sketched. Even the considerable star power of Clayburgh and Thomas can't turn the befuddled parents into more than moderately amusing creatures, shaken by the actions of their very different children... Director Doug Hughes, the skilled hand behind such plays as Doubt and Frozen, gives the play a stylish spin. But despite its attempt to be provocative about the nature of family, style and spin seem to be what A Naked Girl on the Appian Way is all about."

Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "Jill Clayburgh and Richard Thomas imbue Bess and Jeff with effortless warmth and wit. Matthew Morrison is beguilingly guileless as the sweetly dopey Thaddeus, while Susan Kelechi Watson and James Yaegashi amuse as the sensible Juliet and wry, self-pitying Bill. John Lee Beatty's scrumptious set makes the Lapins' home especially inviting. You'll enjoy their hospitality, even if you leave their gathering a little confused."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "Naked Girl on the Appian Way is a throwback to domestic sex comedies that, during the ancient evenings before TV sitcoms, kept Broadway and the dinner-theater circuit in business with naughty-but-nice titillations, identifiable stars and single-set realism. Indeed, this 100-minute play, which opened last night at the Roundabout Theatre with the cheerfully competent Jill Clayburgh and Richard Thomas, gets opening applause for the scenery.... Clayburgh, back on a New York stage for the first time in 20 years, maintains a blithe sense of distance as celebrity foodie Bess Lapin... Watch how she can smile and wince at the same time. Thomas, perhaps taking a break after his virtuosic series of twisted characters, is pretty much wasted as the absent-minded brilliant author who responds to shocking news from the kids by having what is meant to be an uproarious asthma attack. Hughes doesn't seem to know what to do with these two lovely actors on such a huge set. So they bellow quirky quips and padded exposition at each other across the massive domicile."