Festen (play) - New York Production

New York Production

The U.S. production ran at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway from 23 March until 9 April 2006.

The production retained director Norris, designer McNeil and co-producers Kenwright and Rubin, but was recast with American actors. It opened to mixed reviews, and a lack of sales success has meant that it remains the only U.S. production of the play.

A The New York Times reviewer stated that the "indifferently acted" staging on Broadway caused problems for the credibility of the work as a whole. He continued:

the painful uneasiness of the cast members here seems to emanate less from their characters' awareness that something's rotten in this home in Denmark than from the sense of performers adrift in uncharted seas.

The Variety reviewer suggested that the production was better suited to the English national character than the American one:

In its successful London run, the chilly composure and rigid politesse of the characters in David Eldridge's "Festen" were like a second skin to the cast, and Rufus Norris' deceptively stark staging shaped the drama into a striking marriage of darkest emotional turmoil and perversely juicy intrigue. But American actors tend too often to want to be liked. That's just a part of the problem with Norris' curiously ineffectual Broadway reworking of the production.