Total Rating: 
**1/2
Opened: 
October 29, 2003
Ended: 
November 30, 2003
Country: 
USA
State: 
Massachusetts
City: 
Boston
Company/Producers: 
Huntington Theater Company
Theater Type: 
Regional
Theater: 
Huntington Theater
Theater Address: 
Boston University: 264 Huntington Avenue
Phone: 
(617) 421-9674
Running Time: 
2 hrs, 30 min
Genre: 
Comedy-Drama
Author: 
Simon Gray
Director: 
Nicholas Martin
Review: 

A bit of Broadway buzz comes to Boston's Huntington Theater as Nathan Lane assays the title role in Simon Gray's seminal dark comedy, Butley. In retrospect, the play feels like the bridge between Harold Pinter's grim view of male relationships in the 60s and the explosion of gay theater in the late 1970s. Alas, the piece has little else to recommend it these days, as its look at one long, bad day in the life of a burnt-out professor of literature has the structure of a poignant—or at least spark-filled—character study, but proves merely a long day's journey into doldrums.

Nathan Lane, being Nathan Lane, tries to make all the punchlines zing home, but Gray is not Gelbart or McNally, nor is he trying to be. Apart from a few laugh-out-loud ripostes, the humor isn't meant to be stand-up-comedy "big" (Lane's specialty) but rather desperately acerbic. As Butley copes with students demanding tutorials he can no longer dodge, an ex-wife moving on with her life, and a male lover (Benedick Bates) with whom he will soon no longer share either a bed or an office, we're supposed to feel empathy for the life crumbling before us. Instead, we just keep checking our watches and wondering when any of this is going to be more than fleetingly engaging. Jake Weber, tall, magnetic, slightly creepy and blessed with an oddly compelling voice, adds oomph to the second act, but just a little.

Neither hilarious nor poetic, Butley now seems consigned to the dustier shelves of modern theater history.

Cast: 
Nathan Lane (Butley), Benedick Bates (Joseph), Pamela J. Gray (Anne), Austin Lysy (Gardner), Marguerite Stimpson (Miss Heasman), Angela Thornton (Edna Shaft), Jake Weber (Reg Nuttal).
Technical: 
Set: Alexander Dodge.
Critic: 
David Lefkowitz
Date Reviewed: 
November 2003