Babbitt Reviews
Washington Post- Somewhat Recommended
"...The production from Christopher Ashley, artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse (where the show premiered last fall) and the incoming AD at Roundabout Theatre Company, has moments of appealing flair. The ensemble, which also includes Nehal Joshi, Judy Kaye and Matt McGrath, does seamless and amusing work shuffling between characters (with help from Linda Cho’s smart costumes). But the style is presentational and the tone difficult to decipher."
DC Theater Arts- Somewhat Recommended
"...All of these facets and more come together to make Babbitt, directed by Christopher Ashley and now performing at Shakespeare Theatre Company, a delight to watch. But that may also be the greatest weakness of Joe DiPietro’s Babbitt, which is adapted from Sinclair Lewis’ 1922 satirical novel of the same name. More than a century later, the story’s themes are certainly still relevant, but DiPietro’s adaptation, while funny and insightful, doesn’t quite pack the punch that it aims to strike."
Talkin Broadway- Highly Recommended
"...Sinclair Lewis published his novel "Babbitt" in 1922, but-as Joe DiPietro's theatrical adaptation shows-satiric takes on political and social issues may retain their relevance a century later. Matthew Broderick capably anchors the production of Babbitt now in Washington at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Hall, with powerful support from a group of seven shape-shifting "Storytellers" who take on the roles of important figures in George F. Babbitt's life."
Washington City Paper- Somewhat Recommended
"...It’s possible that Babbitt-the-book is so subtle and interior that it resists translation. It’s certain that Lewis’ critique of middle-class striving—published just a few years before the Great Depression and a war that left as many as 80 million people dead—didn’t need anything close to a full century to start looking like a postcard from better days. Mocking the materialism and conformity of the middle class has been like kicking a corpse for decades now."
Stage and Cinema- Not Recommended
"...After all the hype about Matthew Broderick starring in the title role of Babbitt, presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company at Harman Hall, the production - which had its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse last November - is a disappointment. Yet, the fault doesn't lie solely with Broderick's acting."
MD Theatre Guide- Highly Recommended
"...The theatre season has just begun, but “Babbitt,” directed by Christopher Ashley and starring two-time Tony Award-winner Matthew Broderick, is set to be Washington D.C.’s must-see theatrical event of the year. Adapted from the satirical novel by American author and Nobel Laureate Sinclair Lewis, playwright Joe DiPietro’s dialogue is witty, compelling, and although set in the 1920s, teeming with contemporary dilemmas."
BroadwayWorld- Somewhat Recommended
"...Under Lewis’ relentless, highly critical lens, Babbitt’s brash businessman bravado is revealed to be powered by insecurities, inadequacies, and fear. Most prominently: fear of not properly fitting in. Drawing parallels between the growing standardization of American cities and the vilification of foreign immigrants, Lewis paints a portrait of an America in which conformity has taken over as the national religion and explores all the many ways in which that conformity works to hold back communal progress as well as individual self-realization."