Brokeback Mountain: Lucas Hedges and Mike Faist play receives middling reviews

A new stage adaptation of Brokeback Mountain has received middling reviews from critics after receiving its world premiere in London.

The play, based on the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx, has previously been made into an Oscar-winning film.

US actors Lucas Hedges and Mike Faist play the two leading roles in the show, which is not a musical but features a live band who perform songs throughout.

Most critics awarded three stars to the show, which is playing at Soho Place.

"Here comes another play riding on the coat-tails of a successful film," wrote Clive Davis in the Times. "The results are mixed."

"There are certainly some positives. Mike Faist, who made such a strong impression in Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story, is convincing as the shepherd Jack Twist. Lucas Hedges wins sympathy as his ultra-laconic lover, Ennis Del Mar."

But, he concluded: "I'm not sure this new version brings as much to the table... A camp fire burns at one side. It's just a pity that the production as a whole smoulders fitfully."

The show has been billed as "a play with music". While the characters don't sing themselves, there is a house band at the side of the stage scoring many of the scenes.

The band is fronted by vocalist Eddi Reader (formerly the lead singer of Fairground Attraction), and composed by Dan Gillespie Sells, who had previously enjoyed West End success with Everybody's Talking About Jamie.

"This is a gem of a show, marrying two arthouse-cool American actors with an oddball selection of offstage talent to produce something quietly moving," he said.

The film version of Brokeback Mountain starred Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger. Released in 2005, it won three Oscars including best adapted screenplay and best director for Ang Lee.

The stage adaptation is directed by Jonathan Butterall, with a script which has been adapted for the stage by Ashley Robinson.

"At just 90 minutes without an interval, the story also feels rushed," she said. "Because the pacing is so fast, there is little chance to explore the lives the men live away from the mountain, or the expectations upon their masculinity, or the homophobic society in which they live.

"It's a frustrating approach, given Hedges and Faist are such a coup," she concluded.

City AM's Adam Bloodworth said: "There is much to love about Jonathan Butterell's vision. He has got the atmosphere absolutely right: it's hard not to compare this stage version to the film, in which the silences speak louder than the words.

"The duo don't have the right chemistry to bring the two lovers to life. Laying arm in arm, I just couldn't buy that these were two men who were deeply in love.

"There's a coldness to the pairing that is neither actor's fault. The bizarre decision to leave all the moments of passion and intimacy off stage leaves them nothing to work with."

Faist is best known for appearing in Steven Speilberg's 2021 adaptation of West Side Story, while Hedges has appeared in Lady Bird, Manchester By The Sea and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

"The moment where the two men stand, arms around each other, in the moonlight, as the music floods around them is a sign of what this play with songs could have been," she said.

"It remains a story full of feeling, but never quite rising to the heights of poetry and meaning that you expect."

Sam Marlowe of the Stage also awarded three stars, writing: "The women in this world are marginalised; it is a shame we see so little of Ennis' sometime-wife Alma beyond a poignant cameo from Emily Fairn, and virtually nothing of Jack's.

"Robinson's play struggles to muster the scale, sweep and ultimately the tragic force that this love story demands; still, it is a finely drawn musical miniature of quiet compulsion."

"The glitzy new Soho Place Theatre, which has the soulless, empty sheen of a space-age conference centre, has been roughed up to resemble the windswept wilds of Wyoming," he noted.

"The night I went, there was no queue for the ladies loo. The house was packed with gay men of a certain age, expecting something special. But I watched as yawns set off yawns... Adapting a much-loved film is no safe bet."

But Soho Place, which is the first new West End theatre to open in 50 years, was deemed to be a fitting venue for Fiona Mountford of iNews.

"The in-the-round intimacy of the Soho Place auditorium is the perfect fit for the understated emotion of Proulx's narrative," she said.

"I say with certainty that we'll be hearing much more of this show."

However, he praised the way music had been incorporated into the show.

"A herd of achingly lovely country ballads are shepherded into our affections by a soulful-voiced, guitar-strumming Eddi Reader and small band, set beside the stage," he said.

"Pedal steel guitar strains tremble in the air, piano chords cascade like brooks, an ethereal harmonica conjures a mood of wailing longing. Beautiful."