JAMES GANDOLFINI - GANDOLFINI IMPRESSES CRITICS WITH RETURN TO BROADWAY

GANDOLFINI IMPRESSES CRITICS WITH RETURN TO BROADWAY

JAMES GANDOLFINI has won rave reviews for his return to Broadway in YASMINA REZA's play GOD OF CARNAGE.
The multiple Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning actor stars alongside Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden in the production, about two warring couples.
The star-studded cast is "a marvellously giving, balanced ensemble", according to a critic at The New York Times - in one of several reviews hailing the show's official opening on Sunday (22Mar09) at Manhattan's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
Gandolfini's run in God Of Carnage marks his first return to the Broadway stage since a six-month stint in the 1992 production of On the Waterfront.
It is also his first major role since finding fame as fictional mob boss Tony Soprano in hit TV drama The Sopranos, which ended in 2007.
A critic from the New York Daily News adds: "(Gandolfini) is one of four first-class actors at the top of their game in the combustible comedy God of Carnage... When you first see his character, he's all mild-mannered and sheepish smiles, not remotely thuggish."
The New York show appears to be on the same successful path as the London production, which won critical acclaim for its star, Ralph Fiennes, and a Laurence Olivier award for best new comedy.
A theatre critic for the Associated Press adds, "It's one of those swell, showy comic portraits that has Tony nomination (and probably the prize, too) written all over it."