{"id":2352374,"date":"2026-03-31T04:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2352374"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:09:11","slug":"jon-bernthals-broadway-play-turns-classic-ny-movie-into-a-silly-sitcom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jon-bernthals-broadway-play-turns-classic-ny-movie-into-a-silly-sitcom\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Bernthal&#8217;s Broadway play turns classic NY movie into a silly sitcom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F03%2Fnewspress-collage-fem5p9w1t-1774914469942.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261774900204\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--review alignleft\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n\t\t<span class=\"inline-module--review__eyebrow subsection-heading-semi__label\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tTheater review\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"inline-module--review__title subsection-heading-semi\">\n\t\t\tDOG DAY AFTERNOON\t\t<\/h2>\n<div class=\"rating\">\n<div class=\"rating__stars\">\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--filled\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--filled\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--empty\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--empty\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>2 hours,15 minutes, with one intermission. At the August Wilson Theatre, 245 W. 52nd St.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>There\u2019s been a robbery!<\/p>\n<p>A new Broadway play starring Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach has stolen the title of the classic New York film \u201cDog Day Afternoon\u201d and slapped it on a midseason-replacement sitcom.<\/p>\n<p>You certainly recognize the plot, no-nonsense characters and Brooklyn bank setting from the 1975 Best Picture-nominated heist film with Al Pacino.<\/p>\n<p>But the weird show that opened Monday night at the August Wilson Theatre\u00a0has contorted it into something altogether unfamiliar: a stress-free series of drama-deflating punch lines that add up to little\u00a0more than a barstool yarn.<\/p>\n<p>For a play about a real-life 1972 bank robbery and hostage situation, the stakes are curiously medium, as if everything will magically return to normal on next week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--columnist inline-module--more--thirds\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h2 class=\"inline-module__heading subsection-heading subsection-heading--single-line \">\n\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"subsection-heading__sub\">Johnny Oleksinski<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Yet once you accept that this \u201cDog Day\u201d is a very different breed \u2014 a frivolous comedy, basically \u2014 it is\u00a0just\u00a0watchable enough.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Jon Bernthal plays Sonny in \u201cDog Day Afternoon\u201d on Broadway. <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bernthal, while not as steely as Pacino, puts his own charismatic spin on Sonny, the desperate man who traps\u00a0nine\u00a0workers inside\u00a0the Chase Manhattan Bank in Gravesend to secure $2,500 for his lover\u2019s sex-change operation.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike threatening\u00a0and shaky\u00a0Pacino, Bernthal is smooth, confident and charming. He practically flirts his way inside\u00a0the business at closing time. Driving his nice-guy image home, the \u201cWalking Dead\u201d star is dressed less like Paci and more like Chachi.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s solid. And\u00a0some of the script\u2019s extraneous jokes about doughnuts, Mister Rogers or Bellevue land. I laughed a few times.<\/p>\n<p>However, in the wake of pharma-CEO killer Luigi Mangione, it\u2019s\u00a0striking\u00a0that a play in which weapon-wielding criminals become\u00a0flamboyant\u00a0local folk heroes settles on irrelevant silliness\u00a0as its one and only tone. Fifty-one years later, the film still hits\u00a0much\u00a0harder.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Sonny and Sal (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, at right in beige) attempt to rob a Chase Manhattan Bank. <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The goal was always to depart. Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis has said his adaptation would not only borrow from the movie, but\u00a0also\u00a0incorporate more of the actual event it\u2019s based on.\u00a0Known for his quirky, larger-than-life Big Apple creations, he\u00a0wanted to add some humor. Director Sidney Lumet\u2019s film includes a riot, but it is not exactly a laugh riot.<\/p>\n<p>Well, Guirgis beefed \u201cDog Day\u201d up, all right, in a rather self-indulgent\u00a0way that comes mostly at the expense of power\u00a0(there\u2019s none)\u00a0and structure\u00a0(flatter than North Dakota).<\/p>\n<p>The burglary is bungled from the start\u00a0\u2014 and not just by the criminals. When Sonny, Sal (Moss-Bachrach) and Ray Ray (Christopher Sears) hold up the bank at gunpoint, the employees continue to chat and toss off zingers,\u00a0only louder.\u00a0They are barely alarmed by possible death.<\/p>\n<p>Theirs is the sort of cute terror found in the song \u201cCoffee Break\u201d from \u201cHow To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,\u201d when the 9-to-5ers can\u2019t get their afternoon java.<\/p>\n<p>Like in that wacky workplace musical, the women are personality types, not people.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Jessica Hecht plays Colleen, the bank\u2019s head teller. <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Their stalwart leader\u00a0is Colleen\u00a0(Jessica Hecht), the stern head teller who sees protecting her girls as her duty. While\u00a0Hecht is always a welcome and formidable presence, even she can\u2019t hoist up her cinder-block cashier.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0banky\u00a0bunch\u00a0becomes\u00a0fast friends with their captors. Everybody\u2019s comfy. It may be 95 degrees outside on this sweltering day, but in here it\u2019s cool and relaxed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Take when Sal, a largely unnoticeable Moss-Bachrach, hits the manager, Mr. Butterman (Michael Kostroff), on the head with the back of his shotgun. The combat is so feathery\u00a0soft and obviously fake, you get the sense they\u2019re trying to spare the delicate audience any trauma.<\/p>\n<p>We mustn\u2019t let their pulses race!<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cDog Day Afternoon\u201d the play doesn\u2019t hold a candle to the movie. <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Everywhere you look, edges are being sanded down.<\/p>\n<p>Guirgis bulks up a\u00a0dumb\u00a0squabble for dominance between street-smart NYPD Detective Fucco (John Ortiz) and\u00a0interloper\u00a0FBI Agent Sheldon (Spencer Garrett). The writer chose the name Fucco so his rival can\u00a0keep calling him \u201cF\u2013ko.\u201d Hardy har har.<\/p>\n<p>And I was let down by Esteban Andres Cruz\u2019s performance as Leon, Sonny\u2019s \u201cwife\u201d\u00a0who should be the emotional center of the story.\u00a0That the character is heightened and unmoving isn\u2019t all the actor\u2019s fault.\u00a0The speech, as written, has a removed stand-up-routine quality.\u00a0And director Rupert Goold hasn\u2019t staged the scene vulnerably enough.<\/p>\n<p>How remarkable that a half-century-old movie treats a trans character with more sensitivity and nuance than a brand-new play.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Esteban Andres Cruz plays Leon, Sonny\u2019s \u201cwife.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Even the main gimmick is\u00a0half-assed. At the end of Act 1, ticket buyers become the mob outside the bank. As working-class New Yorkers begin siding with Sonny\u2019s us-against-the-man message instead of law and order, Bernthal eggs on the audience to chant \u201cAttica! Attica!,\u201d in reference to the 1971 upstate prison uprising.<\/p>\n<p>Some do, some don\u2019t.\u00a0Many\u00a0giggle. The buildup\u00a0to the chaos is weak, and the unnatural, forced effect resembles an old sitcom staple: the \u201cApplause\u201d sign.<\/p>\n<p>Britain\u2019s Goold, who\u2019s directed a lot of dogs, either doesn\u2019t know how to create tension, or just doesn\u2019t want to. His tendency, as it was in the PTSD-bad musical \u201cTammy Faye,\u201d is to amp up American characters into unbelievable \u201cIt\u2019s a Small World After All\u201d cartoons. Sure, they say funny lines, but we don\u2019t care about them.\u00a0They don\u2019t engage us.<\/p>\n<p>The ending,\u00a0so\u00a0chilling and tragic on-screen,\u00a0elicits\u00a0nary a gasp here.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s astonishing is that the people in charge keep allowing Goold to hold up Broadway theaters.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theater review DOG DAY AFTERNOON 2 hours,15 minutes, with one intermission. At the August Wilson Theatre, 245 W. 52nd St. There\u2019s been a robbery! A new Broadway play starring Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach has stolen the title of the classic New York film \u201cDog Day Afternoon\u201d and slapped it on a midseason-replacement sitcom. You [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2352375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[344468,21741,323593,24047,345886],"class_list":["post-2352374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-broadway","tag-entertainment","tag-jon-bernthal","tag-theater","tag-theater-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Jon-Bernthals-Broadway-play-turns-classic-NY-movie-into-a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2352374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2352376,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2352374\/revisions\/2352376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2352375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2352374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2352374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2352374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}