The New York Times - Highly Recommended
"...Yet this revival, its third on Broadway, is too compelling to permit complacency. Directed with gleeful energy by Neil Pepe, it keeps its attention on the music of the dialogue. Indeed, that's the only music you get, as Mamet does not allow the regular kind or even amplification. (There are no mics and no sound designer.) Not to worry: With the audience on three sides of Circle's capsule-shaped stage, everyone is close enough to hear just fine as the actors get their mouths around the characters' baroque constructions."
Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"...American Buffalo unfolds over the course of a single day. The first act is in the morning, around breakfast time, and the second is a little before midnight. That tight time frame coupled with the cluttered set, littered with collectable items and old wares, add to the play's claustrophobic nature."
Vulture - Highly Recommended
"...Is the production good? Oh, certainly - it holds up Mamet's 1975 text like a coin, making it wink in the light. But is the play good? There, now, there you have me. Because American Buffalo works as it used to work (or at least every time I've seen it) as a vivid comic indictment of warped American posturing and language. It's just that now we wonder - given its creator's wild fall from sense - if its raillery might also have some other function."
New York Theater - Somewhat Recommended
"...In this third Broadway revival of David Mamet's "American Buffalo," which feels like at least one revival too many, Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss portray three low-life losers who view themselves as savvy businessmen but can't even seem to finish their sentences, much less follow through on a burglary they all agree is a good idea."
Variety - Highly Recommended
"...This is, incidentally, why Mamet's words, in his real life, sting more than a random political pundit's. And it's likely why he seems to go unchallenged by those in his orbit - because it is perceived that he has earned the right, through his track record of success, to defy questioning. But canonical playwrights, if they are to remain central to our culture, deserve to see their work altered, changed, presented as vivid and vital. This production, laden with reputation, demonstrates the way we stage the works of the unquestioned greats, without quite convincing us why Mamet is among their league."
New York Post - Highly Recommended
"...Not exactly Earth-shattering stuff. Yet Mamet's 47-year-old play hits harder than the many self-important staged newspaper op-eds of today. Most Americans continue to inhabit suffocating spaces, are glued to their work and will do anything for some quick cash. Now more than ever. We might not all buy and sell used lampshades, but "American Buffalo" feels as if it's about us."
amNY - Highly Recommended
"...Notwithstanding, if you can still bring yourself to see one of Mamet's plays, you are unlikely to do better than the excellent Broadway revival of "American Buffalo" starring Lawrence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell, and Darren Criss."
Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...The script is a work of genius, of course, and a much-misunderstood masterpiece. And this revival - although lively and highly entertaining and far better cast than the 2008 attempt - doesn't delve so deep into the real emotional core of the drama. Pity. It has the horses to do so."
Time Out New York - Highly Recommended
"...Directed by Neil Pepe with the expert eye for appraisal that the characters lack, this production is vastly superior to American Buffalo's last Broadway incarnation, which ran briefly back in 2008. The play itself, which marked Mamet's breakthrough, is as thin as a dime, but it's got great atmospherics. Scott Pask's set and Dede Ayite's costumes plunge us into the shabby world of the action; seated around the thrust stage at Circle in the Square, the audience can almost smell the mix of dirt and desperation. Although not much happens in the play, which is less a thriller than a loiterer, it somehow seems fast-paced, thanks in large part to the three crack performers who bring it to life. They stride the stage with the game confidence of actors who know exactly how to make Mamet's monte look full."
The Wrap - Highly Recommended
"...It's almost as if Mamet had foretold his own evolution from a champion of the underdog into his current public incarnation, a pro-Trump conservative who defends the one-percenters and spouts bizarre QAnon-like theories that all teachers are "inclined" to pedophilia. And that evolution may make "American Buffalo" all the more revealing of the shift in the culture of this nation."
Deadline - Highly Recommended
"...Superbly performed by Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss, with director (and longtime Mamet collaborator) Neil Pepe finding every comic beat and threatening glare, American Buffalo - opening tonight on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre - retains a vitality that eluded some recent equally starry revivals of works by Mamet's bad-boy contemporaries (here's looking at you, True West)."
TheaterMania - Recommended
"...The most noteworthy aspect of this revival is that it reminds us of what makes American Buffalo a formidable work in the first place. This is a down-in-the-dumps working-class vision of the American dream, and Mamet invites us to observe these oblivious, hypocritical dreamers with equal parts amusement, empathy, and skepticism. Whether this play has any fresh revelations to offer the more "woke" world of 2022, however, is a question that this production never really bothers to ask. For better or worse, this new production mostly offers the not-inconsiderable spectacle of a job well done."
TheaterScene.net - Highly Recommended
"...The 1975 play American Buffalo, now onstage at the Circle in the Square Theatre in a crackling revival, remains the quintessential Mamet experience, the one that should be seen to fully appreciate what has been lost. Essentially a two-hander masquerading as a three-hander, it’s a character study short on plot and long on self-delusion as a couple of small-time crooks imagine themselves as much more than they are while planning an ambitious heist. To say they’re all talk gets to the satirical heart of Mamet’s play."
NY Theatre Guide - Somewhat Recommended
"...Staging American Buffalo in the woke era of 2022 is a brazen choice. The third Broadway revival of David Mamet's 1975 play is now open after being put on hiatus in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, nearly two years later, the production playing at the Circle in the Square puts the controversial playwright and his chaotic play about three crooks back in front of audiences during a time when patrons are calling for new and diverse works. What comes of this is a cluttered repurposing of a play oozing with testosterone and woman-bashing that doesn't hold its weight with the rest of the thoughtful productions open this season on Broadway."
Theater Pizzazz - Highly Recommended
"...Who better than David Mamet can sum up the essence of American society and its values in only two words and make them sound so eloquent!? As articulated at the end of Act I in American Buffalo, now playing at Circle in the Square in a smashing new revival, they bring down the house with a bang-one that confirms the play's status as an American classic."
StageZine - Recommended
"...The redeeming grace of the evening is the solid work of the three actors, each giving stellar performances. As loathsome as Sam Rockwell's character Teach is, his performance is as powerful as it is menacing. Having seen the original Teach, Robert Duvall in 1977, Al Pacino in 1983 and John Leguizamo in the disastrous 2008 revival (which only lasted for 20 previews and eight regular performances), Mr. Rockwell's performance is by far the most nuanced and pulsating with seediness and rage."
Broadway News - Somewhat Recommended
"...Beyond the bungled burglary plot, which is straightforward (and predictable), the substance of Mamet is in the talk. Under the direction of Mamet's longtime collaborator Neil Pepe, Fishburne and Rockwell are engrossing, agile sparring partners, and there's satisfaction in observing well-matched pros face off in a flurry of language."
Theatrely - Somewhat Recommended
"...Staging American Buffalo in the round at Circle in the Square would appear an obvious fit. A 1981 revival starring Al Pacino, back when the theatre had a different space downtown, seems to have fared well. But whether because of a certain endlessness of chaos in Pask's set, or Pepe allowing his characters to gaze into a distance where there should be the shop's wall, it doesn't provide the proper caging this wild beast requires. Instead of bulls in a china shop, we're left with three stars in an airless planetarium."
New York Stage Review - Recommended
"...There's a reason that David Mamet's American Buffalo has been performed innumerable times since its 1975 premiere. This drama about a trio of low-level hustlers offers a smorgasbord of acting opportunities for its three male leads, and with its central character Teach, a histrionic role to rival Mama Rose in Gypsy. Except that Teach doesn't deliver a showstopping 11:00 number, but rather a veritable aria of four-letter words."
