Brief Encounter BROADWAY REVIEWS

• NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  Arm’s-Length Soul Mates, Swooning but Stoically Chaste

  Ben Brantley

  September 28, 2010: The acrobatics of love are performed in high style in “Brief Encounter,” which is surely the most enchanting work of stagecraft ever inspired by a movie. It’s not erotic, Kama Sutra-style contortions that I’m talking about. The physical activities that occur in this exquisite British-born production, which opened on Tuesday night at Studio 54, are both more everyday and exotic than that, routinely described but seldom enacted.

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• THE HUFFINGTON POST REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  A giddy 'Brief Encounter' livens the dark

  Mark Kennedy

  September 28, 2010: Doomed extramarital affairs are usually heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, squalid little disasters. They're not fun to be in, and not fun to watch. They do not end prettily. Then how does one explain a Broadway adaptation of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter" – the classic 1945 film about a secret affair – that is utterly infused with happy energy, facetious wackiness and outsized hilarity?

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• BACKSTAGE REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  'Brief Encounter'

  Erik Haagensen

  September 28, 2010: When Kneehigh Theatre's multimedia stage adaptation of the classic Noël Coward–penned film "Brief Encounter" played St. Ann's Warehouse this past December, this Coward fan attended with great trepidation, only to fall head over heels for it. I felt similar trepidation when I heard that Roundabout Theatre Company would bring the show to Broadway at Studio 54. St. Ann's is a decidedly intimate space. Would the show fill a much larger house? Happily, the answer is ringingly affirmative.

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• VARIETY REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  Brief Encounter

  Steven Suskin

  September 28, 2010: We've seen any number of stage attractions derived from motion pictures, and some of these have incorporated actual footage -- either vintage or shot-to-order -- into the proceedings. But Broadway doesn't seem ever to have seen live actors interact with, and actually step directly into, the movie.Kneehigh Theater's production of Noel Coward's "Brief Encounter" might lose some of its impact in its relatively large Main Stem house, especially on the extreme sides and in the mezz; previous runs in London and Brooklyn played venues that were well under 500 seats. Even so, the play should get a warm reception here.

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• HOLLYWOOD REPORTER REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  Brief Encounter -- Theater Review

  Frank Scheck

  September 28, 2010: Bottom Line: Technological gimmickry never overwhelms the charms of this adaptation of the classic film. London's Kneehigh Theatre has had more than a brief encounter with "Brief Encounter," its exhilarating multimedia adaptation of the classic David Lean film written by Noel Coward.

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• NEW YORK DAILY NEWS REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  'Brief Encounter' review: Surprise is lost in overly lengthy romance

  Joe Neumaier

  September 29, 2010: The new Broadway season got off to a romantic start last night as "Brief Encounter" opened at Studio 54. The show arrives there by way of the U.K., where it was created by the Kneehigh Theatre company in 2008, and St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. There, it proved to be a 100% charmer last winter.

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• THEATERMANIA REVIEW OF Brief Encounter

  

  Brief Encounter

  David Finkle

  September 28, 2010: In 1945, master imp and conscientious keeper-of-British-values Noel Coward adapted his one-act Still Life into Brief Encounter, the seminal stiff-upper-lip-tearjerker film now beloved by millions. Coward's work has now been reinvented once again as Brief Encounter, which England's Kneehigh company is presenting for the second time in New York, this time on Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Studio 54 space.

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