As expected, the producers of “China Doll” announced a two-week postponement of the Broadway opening of the new David Mamet drama starring Al Pacino. The show, which began previews on October 21, will now bow on December 4 instead of November 19. The limited engagement is still due to close, as scheduled, on January 31.With Pacino in the lead role, the two-hander about Mickey Ross, a semi-retired billionaire buying an airplane, has been doing brisk box-office at the fairly intimate Schoenfeld Theatre. Since beginning performances, it has grossed over $1 million per week and the average ticket price of its last week — $165.94 — was second only to the $171.73 per ticket for “The Book of Mormon,” and topping the $147.07 for “Hamilton.”Call it “Pacino Power,” which has been sustained even though there were early reports, particularly in the New York Post, about the star’s inability to remember his lines and the use of Bluetooth devices, Teleprompters, and other aids to get him over the hump of Mamet’s highly-stylized dialogue. After all, Pacino is now seventy-five years old and carries much of the entire play on his shoulders with only an assistant (Christopher Denham) to occasionally break up his virtual monologues.Moreover, “China Doll” is a new play that comes to Broadway never having had a previous try-out engagement, a rare exception these days. It is also the first major Mamet production to be directed by a woman, Pam MacKinnon (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”), an interesting wrinkle for a playwright whose often been accused of misogyny.Mamet is the only contemporary writer who has consistently been given the opportunity to develop new work on Broadway. That is because the producers of “China Doll” — Jeffrey Richards, along with his partner Jerry Frankel — have made an unprecedented commitment to the playwright. Beginning in 2005, when they revived “Glenngarry Glen Ross,” they have presented six productions of his plays, including another revival of “Glengarry” in 2012, a 2008 revival of “Speed-the-plow,” a 2010 revival of “A Life in the Theatre,” and three new original plays: “November,” “Race,” and “The Anarchist.” The latter, starring Debra Winger and Patti LuPone, was a quick fold, but “November,” with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, did well, as did “Race,” with Kerry Washington, James Spader, David Alan Grier, and Richard Thomas.There is little doubt that “China Doll” will recoup given “Pacino Power.” Since the show is opening on a Friday, that means the critics will file their reviews on Saturday, when they are likely to get even less attention. What little impact they may have had on the commercial prospects of the show are now even more diminished. But word is that the stumbles in the early previews have been corrected. Pacino’s performance has grown more confident and the rewrites have apparently gone far in righting the ship. And an original play on Broadway by a major playwright, whatever its failings, is always good news. That’s something that legendary playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Arthur Miller never had in their later years.
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