In his review for New York Timescritic Vincent Canby wrote about Sidney Lumet Noon on Dog Day“If you can allow yourself to laugh at the desperation that has turned into serious madness, the film is funny, but mostly it is reported to be effective and clear, with a no-nonsense way of writing that avoids speculation.” He’s right, of course: Lumet’s 1975 masterpiece is, at times, uncannily funny, the flimsiness and fragility of ordinary life interrupted by the bleak and uncannily extraordinary.
However, often, Noon on Dog Day It’s a sober thriller (Canby called it melodrama) about a young Brooklyn bank that explodes into a foreclosure crisis and a city-wide fascination, about a man made hard by the system, who, for a few bright and dangerous hours, almost frees himself by bending the system to his will. There are a lot of deep emotional stirrings in the film, given the intense anger of its tense moments. It roars rapidly, murmuring with fierce sorrow.
But the creators behind the new Broadway production of Noon on Dog Day looks like you’re stuck on the funny side. Adapted by Pulitzer-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, this Dog Day it’s the old comedy of bumblers and eccentrics, of bad humor and weak attempts at revival. It’s a depressing picture, Guirgis and everyone else involved in this folly looking at the close-up neorealism of Lumet’s film and saying, “Let’s turn this into a big Broadway hit.”
There were reportedly conflicts over the sound during production; the Times reported that Guirgis was, for a time, banned from the gym. Which may show that at some point before the preview showed that maybe not everything in this true story should be a joke. However, the production continued, and what resulted was a huge disaster of sound and tempo, dull and grating at once.
Perhaps the first sign that something is wrong comes at the beginning, when the young, shy person who would be the third criminal Ray Ray, says that he does not have the courage to continue the robbery. In the movie, lead singer Sonny (Al Pacino then, Jon Bernthal now) just sighs and lets her go. Which ends up happening on stage, too, but not before Ray Ray complains loudly about his stomach issues and promptly shuts himself down. We, I believe, were meant to laugh at this sad show – look at these bozos, who are already ruining the bed – instead of seeing, as we do the film, the weak humanity of those who were about to be made by the media and the police while the animals are being destroyed.
Such cheap jokes multiply as the game progresses. The police chief’s last name has been changed to Fucco, presumably so that a mysterious FBI agent can refer to him as “Fucko”. Bank teller characters — women of various ages who fear for their lives as they bond with their captors — are turned into floozies or sardonic sitcom mothers. Sal, a ruthless and unpredictable criminal played with gentleness by John Cazale in the film, is made in 2026 to be a man who knows nothing about Bear‘s Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who bothers someone from that show. When I was playing in the game, I kept thinking, “Wait, i what kind of movie is it?” After that I watched the movie again and I can confidently say that, no, of course not.
Guirgis would seem like a natural choice to adapt the film. His best games – Jesus Jumped on the ‘A’ Train, Between Riverside and Crazy – are vivid portraits of New Yorkers, many of whom suffer from crime and consequences. He can flit between kitchen-sink drama and poetic-comedic fugue with ease. Indeed he, so rooted in the argot of the city in the middle of Dog Dayhe can find a way to massage Lumet’s limited style into something that might fill a Broadway house just as well. But his instincts fail him badly here. Worse, he seems lonely to the characters in this story, often mocking them when sympathy would have a more positive effect.
The way Guirgis deals with Sonny’s second wife, Leon, – a woman who recently tried to kill herself – is absolutely amazing. It’s another thing that a movie from 50 years ago is more concerned with the complex relationship between Sonny and Leon than a game made today. Guirgis paints Leon (played by Esteban Andres Cruz) as a flighty, violent, sex-crazed man. It’s a big thing, it’s something crazy to connect with others – like, say, a funny joke about how one bank teller should see it. Deep Throat and her husband, or how one slept with their strict boss. (I probably don’t need to remind you, but none of that is in the movie.) Guirgis wants to ask us not to take anyone too seriously, for what reason I can’t fathom.
Director Rupert Golding doesn’t deserve to moderate that satirical impulse. Gold has done great things on stage (King Charles IIIamong others) and respectable things in the film (Judyfor which Renée Zellweger won her second Oscar), but this situation does not favor any of her strengths. The sequence of actions, if we can call him that, is the leaves, he shouted. There is a constant tension to be found throughout this supposedly furious process. Gold doesn’t do much with the actual David Korins set but rotates back and forth depending on whether we’re in or out of the bank. And he directed most of his actors in elaborate performances, favoring loudness and volume over anything that could match the measured realism of Lumet’s ensemble.
Bernthal, at times, registers as a real person in moments of desperation. He maintains a springy energy even as the play around him slows down. Jessica Hecht, as head preacher Colleen, combats her wrongdoing with good grace; she finds ways to turn canned linens into everyday items. Jon Ortiz gives Fucco (sigh) a certain air of spontaneity that evokes Charles Durning’s brilliant performance in that film. Honestly, though, I was very taken with Spencer Garrett Mad Men fame, who nails the badass, dysfunctional voice of an FBI guy brought in to fix the NYPD’s mess. He has a real sense of the time and place of the story, while many others play for the studio people.
That audience is made to meet perhaps the worst crimes of this production. Gold chose to change “Attica! Attica!” moment from the film – where Sonny revels in anti-authoritarianism – crowd participation. Bernthal stands on stage, waves his hands and asks the audience to repeat “Attica!” and applaud (or perhaps repeat) him when he says “Fuck you, NYPD!” I don’t know that the Broadway audience (especially the people I was in) is the right group to try to face such public displays of chaos, and so this moment is exhausting and unpleasant.
More importantly, though, this hammy call-and-answer completely elevates what makes the film’s moment so electric. Yes, Sonny starts the Attica song – evoking the brutal pressure of the prison riot that happened last year – but he responds with the already existing enthusiasm of those who gathered in the bank to provoke Sonny, to give their support to the workers. Lumet captures an ailing town with tension, its citizens enraged by the police and corrupt politicians, clamoring to assert their humanity in the eyes of the Man. It’s a rousing, spontaneous, and unfortunately short-lived cry for change.
However, on Broadway, Noon on Dog Day trying to force that on the audience instead of getting it, turning Sonny’s call of a carefree hero into an empty advertising slogan with absolutely no meaning. Maybe some moviegoers will put down their $30 cocktails to clap and cheer, immediately deciding to buy “Attica! Attica! Attica!” bag in the guest room when they check out, I’m glad to have Dog Day experience. But Sonny in the movie would surely be surprised to see such a thing. I think the hostages will be there too.
Venue: August Wilson Theatre, New York
Actor: Jon Bernthal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Jessica Hecht, Jon Ortiz
Director: Rupert Gold
Author: Stephen Adly Guirgis
Set design: David Korins
Costume designer: Brenda Abbandandolo
Lighting design: Isabella Byrd
Sound design: Cody Spencer
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