Broadway's "Dog Day Afternoon" Is a Dog

The stage adaptation of 'Dog Day Afternoon' struggles to replicate the emotional complexity of Sidney Lumet's film. Lead actors Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, passionate about the project, aimed to honor the original. The play is based on a 1972 bank robbery by John Wojtowicz, which turned into a chaotic standoff. Despite the potential for a lively performance, the adaptation ultimately falls short, lacking the depth and nuance of the source material, resulting in a disappointing experience.

"The stage version of 'Dog Day Afternoon,' which has been in development for a decade, is clearly a passion project for its lead actors, Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, close friends and Meisner-method devotees."

"The play, like the movie, is loosely based on a robbery that took place in 1972, on a boiling-hot August day, when an eccentric, deep-in-debt Vietnam veteran named John Wojtowicz entered a Chase bank in Brooklyn with a gun and two accomplices."

"Sadly, I'm obliged to report a tragic pileup on the Belt Parkway. The adaptation ultimately falls short, lacking the depth and nuance of the source material."

Read at The New Yorker