Burleigh Grime$ "Strong sell" recommendation

Wall Street comedy play gets panned:  We noted n April that a new comedy play called "Burleigh Grime$ focusing on a hotshot Wall Street trader, would be opening soon.   It opened the other night, and from the accounts we've heard, it's a bomb.  In today's the New York Times the reviewer issued a "strong sell" on the production.  We also came across an online review from a theater blogger who hated it so much that he walked out mid way.  Not even the cameo video appearance by Mad Money's Jim Cramer saves it.....

From the NY Times:

Critics might fancifully be described as analysts offering advice to small investors in the cultural market. So if I may borrow a little vocabulary from the business pages, I am hereby putting a strong sell recommendation on "Burleigh Grime$," a feeble-witted comedy about dirty dealings on Wall Street that opened last night at New World Stages.

Written by Roger Kirby and directed by David Warren, the play features a pair of skilled actors known for recent television work: Wendie Malick of "Just Shoot Me" and Mark Moses of "Desperate Housewives." Incidental music is by David Yazbek, who wrote the score for Broadway's "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." These putative assets are, unfortunately, painfully ill served by Mr. Kirby's play, which is long on ludicrous plot and short on fresh humor.

The play tries, strenuously, to make sizzling comic entertainment of the tangled romantic and professional relationships among a hotshot stock trader, a television market analyst and their gender-matched protégés. Mr. Moses, who plays the creepy killer Paul Young on "Desperate Housewives," is the title character, an investment banking big shot who runs his own firm. (The name is apparently a tribute to the famous spitball pitcher of history.) Ms. Malick is Elizabeth Bigley, who smirks for the television cameras while delivering stock-market gossip for a financial news network....

Cast: James Badge Dale (George Radbourn), Wendie Malick (Elizabeth Bigley), Mark Moses (Burleigh Grimes), Ashley Williams (Grace Redding), Nancy Anderson (Coffee Girl, Dancer, Wife), Jason Antoon (Hap) and John Lavelle (Buck); with cameo video appearances by Jim Cramer.

And here's a review we found from a blog called "Theater Thoughts NY":

So here's a first. I may actually be posting this before the show I was at actually ends. Yup, that's right folks. We left at intermission. This is the first time I've ever done this. But we decided we'd rather be walking home in the rain than sitting in a comfortable theater watching this show. In fact, I'd rather be cutting my arm off with a rusty spoon than watching this show. Let's put this in context. I stayed through the entirety of "Good Vibrations." I turned to Lydia about 15 minutes in and said, "I think I liked 'I Love You Because' better..." About 30 minutes in a cell phone rang, and I turned to Lydia and said,

"Oh, that helps." Yeah, it was bad. No, it was worse than bad. It was awful. Wait, wait - MIND-NUMBINGLY AWFUL. Good. I don't even know where to begin. The writing was awful. And the staging. And the acting. Okay, so it was about this bad man on Wall Street who was in cahoots with a TV reporter. This heart-of-gold assistant wants to get to the bottom of the fraud. I don't know what happens next. I should have stayed. Ouch. My brain just hit me for thinking that.

So the jokes were really bad, they were just put in randomly, and they weren't funny. And lines that were supposed to be funny were delivered really badly, with really, awk, ward pause, s. Oh, and there was music! Music written by David Yazbek, who is a respectable Broadway composer. So in the middle of a scene, music would start, like they were supposed to sing, but they really didn't. Instead, they like spoke in rhythm, or spoke during breaks, or just seemed really awkward presenting bad dialogue with music in the background. It was like watching a puppy drown and not being able to help it. Of course, instead of singing, they would dance. And not like, oh cool, good theater dancing. No, like junior high dancing where the kid with really bad BO is trying to dance with the girl who's four inches taller than him, but they're trying to impress everyone by doing a spin, no, a turn. While they're talking about trading stocks or something....

'Burleigh Grime$': A Vengeful Financier and His Clueless Apprentice - New York Times

Burleigh Grime$ - Theater Thoughts NY

Wall Street moves Off Broadway - Wall Street Folly