Producer Jeffrey Richards had no trouble raising the money for “China Doll,” the new David Mamet play starring Al Pacino. What a perfect match — Mamet, celebrated for writing tough, ruthless, violent characters in such plays as “American Buffalo” and “Glengarry Glen Ross”; Pacino, celebrated for playing tough, ruthless, violent characters in such movies as “The Godfather” and “Scarface.”
Investors quickly ponied up the $3.5 million production cost, while theater-goers snapped up tickets. Before “China Doll” played its first preview, in October at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, advance sales hit $5 million.
But what looked like a winner on paper has turned out to be this year’s “Moose Murders,” the 1983 flop by which all Broadway catastrophes are judged.
Poisonous word of mouth, scathing reviews, Pacino’s heavy reliance on teleprompters and angry patrons demanding refunds at intermission have made “China Doll” the stage equivalent of a car crash.
“Now that the reviews are out, people know it’s bad,” says a production source. “They’re coming to see just how bad.”
What went wrong? Start with the playwright and the star. Neither is at the height of his powers anymore.
Pacino blazed hot in the 1960s and ’70s, winning Tony Awards for “Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?” and “The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.” But after a storied career in film, his intermittent appearances on stage have been hit-or-miss. Critics liked his Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” in 2010, but, ominously, panned his shaky performance in a recent revival of “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
At 75, he’s found it impossible to memorize the pages and pages of dialogue in “China Doll.” (Pacino and Christopher Denham, who plays his assistant, are the only two characters on stage the entire show.)
“He was frightened from the start,” says a production source. “He really felt he’d taken on more than he can handle.”
When production insiders first got the “China Doll” script, they didn’t know what to make of this two-hour monologue delivered by a rich man who doesn’t want to pay taxes on his private plane. Mamet is an avowed conservative. He swung right, he once said, after listening to too much National Public Radio. One charitable interpretation of “China Doll” is that it’s a diatribe against the IRS.
A less charitable interpretation is that it’s just the latest lousy play by David Mamet. In the estimation of many critics, he hasn’t written a good play since 1997’s “The Old Neighborhood” — and even that baffled audiences.
None of Mamet’s recent plays — “November,” “Race,” “The Anarchist” — has had the enduring power of “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “American Buffalo” or “Speed-the-Plow.”
When it came to concerns about the “China Doll” script — and Pacino’s struggles with it — Mamet was not helpful, sources say. “David delivers the play, and that’s it.
“He’s done. He doesn’t do rewrites.”
Meanwhile, director Pam MacKinnon, insiders reveal, has been ineffectual from the beginning.
“She’s nice, but she’s incredibly literal and unimaginative,” one person says. “And she can’t handle stars. She cedes control to them, and they run right over her.”
Around Broadway, her nickname is “The Elk” — because “she’s too big for the room and she runs around banging her antlers into the wall,” a source says.
MacKinnon did not return an email seeking comment.
She was extremely deferential to Pacino during rehearsals. Someone close to the show explains: “She’d say, ‘How about if you tried this, Al?’ And he’d say, ‘Well, I have to look at this newspaper over here, so I’m going to do it this way.’ And she’d say, ‘Fine.’ He really directed himself.”
The one time MacKinnon pressed a point, Pacino barked, “I’m not your f - - king puppet, Pam!”
When it became apparent that Pacino couldn’t learn his lines, teleprompters were installed in the wings of the Schoenfeld. They were also embedded in the set (there’s one behind a couch). Whenever the actor would lose his place, he’d “drift to the nearest teleprompter,” a source says. Since Pacino spends most of the play talking on a Bluetooth earpiece, his lines were fed to him that way as well.
And his timing was off, which is deadly for Mamet’s famous staccato rhythms.
That the production was shaping up to be a disaster became apparent at the first dress rehearsal. Mamet’s son, Noah, came with friends from his high school — “and several left after the first act,” one person says.
“This show is horrible!” one patron screamed.
“A mob mentality set in,” says a production source. “I think our staffers were afraid for their safety.”
For those who stuck around, there were a few laughs, though they were unintended. The loudest guffaws greeted the climactic scene during which Pacino bashes in Denham’s head with a “metal” model of his plane. The model was cardboard, and when Pacino hit him, it crumpled like a coffee cup from a Greek diner.
At subsequent previews, up to a hundred people bolted at intermission. Pacino became despondent. Friends who visited him backstage said they’d never seen him so depressed. He hated the ending — in which Pacino had to pretend to cut himself during the altercation with Denham — but said of Mamet, who left after the second dress rehearsal: “I’ve worked with David long enough to know you can’t change a word of his play.”
The Elk — MacKinnon — took to pacing at the back of the theater, “looking as if she were going to throw up,” an insider says.
The first inkling I had that “China Doll” was in trouble came while I was strolling past the theater on a balmy Wednesday afternoon in October. Act I had just ended, and a woman came up to me. Offering me her ticket, she said, “Are you Michael Riedel? Here, take this. You should see what’s going on in there.”
I slipped in and watched — gleefully, I must admit — Pacino drift from teleprompter to teleprompter. I had no idea what the play was really about, but I laughed when the cardboard plane crumpled on the head of the long-suffering Denham.
When The Post broke the story of Pacino’s reliance on teleprompters, the producers panicked, sources say. They begged Mamet to come back from California for rewrites. They also announced a two-week postponement. Originally slated to open Nov. 19, “China Doll” would now open Dec. 4. Since the date was a Friday, cynics snickered that the producers were hoping to bury the reviews in the Saturday papers.
Mamet reappeared. The producers claimed he was doing extensive rewrites. But production sources say that, aside from changing a few lines here and there, he didn’t do much.
The property department made a new model airplane, however. It no longer crumples when bashed into Denham’s head.
Despite the bad press, people still bought tickets during previews, paying up to $350 for an orchestra seat. “China Doll” was posting weekly grosses of more than $1 million.
“A lot of the audience were European,” says a source. “They just want to see Al Pacino.”
Since the play’s producers had already booked the Redeye Grill for the original opening date of Nov. 19, they went ahead with their party — which was a dreary affair, sources reveal.
Pacino slipped in through a back entrance to avoid any photographers and spent the evening upstairs in a cordoned-off area.
The critics outfoxed the producers by publishing their reviews on Friday, Dec. 4. The Post said, “Al Pacino’s Broadway show is even worse than you think.” The Times called the play “saggy.” Only the Wall Street Journal found a few nice things to say about Mamet’s script.
Poisonous word of mouth, scathing reviews, Pacino’s heavy reliance on teleprompters and angry patrons demanding refunds at intermission have made “China Doll” the stage equivalent of a car crash.
Since the reviews came out last week, the number of walkouts has increased, sources say. But now people are leaving during the first act.
The Wednesday matinee has been cut, but Pacino still finds the two-show day on Saturday exhausting. Lately he’s been chauffeured to his house in Nyack between shows. Getting back in time for the evening performance is hair-raising because of the traffic. Last Saturday, Pacino jumped out of the car at 49th Street and ran down to the theater on 45th Street. He walked through the stage door five minutes after the 8 p.m. start time.
He’s also getting shots of vitamin B-12 after the Saturday matinee to keep his energy up, sources say.
The box office is holding steady for now, but production insiders expect the reviews to take their toll in the next few weeks. Discounts are quietly being prepared.
Jeffrey Richards, the lead producer, says: “We’re doing solid business. We wrapped six figures the day the reviews came out. I believe in the play and in the artistry of David Mamet, Al Pacino and Pam MacKinnon.”
Mamet did change the ending — Pacino no longer appears bloodied — and added a new line. Pacino now falls to his knees and screams, “Will no one help an old man?”
Apparently not.