BROADWAY SNAP-SHOT
by Russell Bouthiller

Dateline: November 25, 2006

BUTLEY

Nathan Lane has the Midas Touch when it comes to Broadway. After last season's lucrative launch of Neil Simon's THE ODD COUPLE—a marketable reprisal of Lane's winning match with THE PRODUCERS co-star, Matthew Broderick—the short, funny fellow takes to the boards in a revival of British playwright Simon Gray's day-in-the-life portrait of a broken-down and embittered English professor, BUTLEY. So far, box office has been brisk.

Broadway audiences certainly have taken an interest in the British educational system, lately. This past June, Alan Bennett's THE HISTORY BOYS shipped back to England just about every Tony Award the American Theatre Wing has to offer for a play. No surprise, then, that a work similar in setting would seem a tempting gamble. And, with a name-brand star in the lead, such a show may prove impervious to the critic's pens. After all, it worked for THE ODD COUPLE.

Standing as heir to a role made famous by the late Alan Bates, Nathan Lane conjures up his best English accent and pours himself into the hole that playwright Gray has created for this title character. Though the play is some thirty-five years old, this robust revival under the direction of Nicholas Martin has a caustic sting and intriguing central character.

Angry at just about everyone and everything in his life, Ben Butley is racing to an emotional pitfall and desperately keen on taking down a few people with him. Making his entrance with a piece of paper blotting a bloody shaving nick, Butley's day gets off to a rough start. Though he may not be able to handle his razor with great skill, he's certainly able to cut into the folks around him and, as he does, he seems to injure himself most of all.

First to get a taste of his bitterness is his colleague and one-time protege, Joseph Keyston (Julian Ovenden) who tells Butley that he is planning to move in with his boyfriend, Reg (Darren Pettie). Though Butley already has a partner, his wife Anne (Pamela Gray), he selfishly guards his attachment to Joseph and feels deeply betrayed. The fact that his marriage is falling apart doesn't make things much better.

The wife locks horns with her future ex-husband when she tells Butley that she wants a divorce and is leaving him for a man Butley considers a complete bore. What goads him most is that Anne's new man is about to be published. So, too, is Butley's old-school colleague, Edna (Dana Ivey), who beats him to the punch in selling a T. S. Eliot tome, a notion Butley has been toying with for years.

Butley may not be the most endearing chap on campus, but he certainly has a few choice lines. And, with the rapid-fire Nathan Lane bringing him to life, Gray's sharp dialogue gets advanced placement. Supporting players vividly color the rest of the picture, with Dana Ivey giving an especially daffy performance as the antiquated professor. Sets by Alexander Dodge provide an academic patina and lighting by David Weiner give it the fluorescent glow. BUTLEY, a worthy star vehicle for Lane, now at the Booth Theatre.