So it is that Betrayal, which is playing a strictly limited season through January 5 at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre (seating capacity: 1,058) but has a stellar line-up of James Bond’s Daniel Craig, his wife Rachel Weisz and Rafe Spall, is now commanding prices – through its official box office channels – of up to $499 each.
Given that the play runs for barely 90 minutes, that means that patrons booking those seats are paying around $5.50 a minute for the experience (so you could see an entire movie at a Times Square cinema for less than the price of three minutes of Betrayal). Mind you, that is still cheap at the price: there are tickets available online via vividseats.com for $3780.00 each, in Row H of the stalls.
So someone is cashing in, and it isn’t necessarily the producer, his creative team or stars that have invested all their time, talent and financial risk in making the show happen in the first place.
But it is certainly the case that the insanity of these prices casts a bitter pall over what should be a celebratory event: the fact that three actors, each of whom have a substantial stage pedigrees, are returning to their stage origins in one of Pinter’s most complex and satisfying plays is one that serious theatregoers will want to enjoy.
And Mike Nichols’s production, which I saw last night, is a visually stunning realisation of this great play – only Broadway could spend this sort of money (because, of course, it is making it too) on sets that seamlessly and miraculously change locations in a nano-second.
But unless you moved fast when tickets first went on sale, the possibility of seeing it now at anything like a reasonable price is all but extinguished. Nor is it a surprise, therefore, that Betrayal is the top-grossing of all plays on Broadway at the moment – last week it took $1,103,682 at the box office.
That put every other play in the shade – A Time to Kill ($247,168), Romeo and Juliet ($363,076), The Glass Menagerie ($734,661), The Snow Queen ($251,343), The Winslow Boy ($230,058) and Twelfth Night ($669,342), with new productions of Macbeth and Waiting for Godot not playing a full week as they’d only just begun previews.
I haven't seen his review yet but it should appear this weekend.
Scott Rudin has replied to this.....
The point you neglected to mention in your Betrayal column is that both Salesman and Betrayal offered steep discounts when they went on sale.
Theatregoers who bought either show during their first two months on sale had the chance to see it at meaningful discounts — and from good seats. What has happened on Broadway is that most theatregoers expect discounts to continue throughout the run, and so they feel little or no need to act quickly.
And when the discounts are sold out — which they were in both of these cases by the end of the first round of the on-sale period — the prices went up, and by then the secondary market controlled a great deal of the inventory.
But rather than accuse the secondary market touts as behaving greedily (which they don’t, since they can’t afford to go dead with tickets, and hence ONLY ever sell them for their provable value) or the producers for pricing too high (again, prices go down as well as up), you would do well to encourage a smart ticket-buyer to act quickly on a limited run with stars.
120,000 people in a city of 11,000,000 (and that’s just NY residents) — that’s one percent — can see this show. In what world would the demand for it not cause the secondary-market prices to go where they’ve gone? It bears no more than a nano-second of calculation —- there are a thousand seats to sell 8 times a week. That’s nothing.
Smart secondary market buyers bought everything they could and the premium prices are selling now at a fraction of what the brokers have available —- but had a desirous theatregoer acted when the brokers did, they could have had the same seats for vastly less than they cost now.
In fact, in this instance, I opened the box office for a week (six weeks before the planned date) because I kept hearing from people who were complaining about the credit card mark-up, and so we gave them the chance to buy at the window without the mark-up since the show was selling so fast that all the really first-rate inventory was going to be gone by the planned box office opening. We grossed $700,000 at the window that week — so, in that instance, people who by then knew the show would be a sellout responded quickly and saved themselves a needless sales commission.
But it only happened once the show was so hot that you were hearing about it everywhere. Smart audiences would do well to act on their instincts about what they want to see and to move swiftly when something exciting goes onsale. There are frequently very good values available if one looks for them and doesn’t wait for the herd to anoint the show as hot.
Thanks Sylvia's Girl and cassandra for some very interesting read (Daniel's view on technology - well, I knew his attitude towards it before, but thanks for posting; and the articles about ticket prices - very informative).
As far as the drawing is concerned - Daniel is "done" best in it. Rachel looks like Cruella indeed
Yes, thanks SG. For me, it's nice to read Rudin's response. I bought my tickets online at 7am, the second they went on sale. Everyone had their chance, and a number of people on the forum took advantage of that. What baffles me now is that the first two rows AA and BB were not considered Premium. They were $145. The Premium tickets rose to $275 from A (third row) back to sone pint where they dropped to $145 again. Then they dropped below that for father back and upper levels. I guess the double-row tickets are considered too close. Despite the fact that Daniel can never be too close, neither can the play. The front row seats are actually far back enough except maybe to see their feet.
tapeworthy ‏@tapeworthy 16m You know why Betrayal is doing so well on Broadway? My non-theatre friends in Hong Kong know about it and are going to see it.
sf2la wrote:What baffles me now is that the first two rows AA and BB were not considered Premium. They were $145...... I guess the double-row tickets are considered too close. Despite the fact that Daniel can never be too close, neither can the play. The front row seats are actually far back enough except maybe to see their feet.
I got my tickets on the first day, 139$ row aa, center....for me the best seats available, becasue as you said you can never be too close to Daniel
I got rather nervous that day, because the line went down a few times and the third atemp was successfull and I used the Amex card of a friend.
I only got the confirmation via mail from telecharge a few days later when I was in NY back in June.
Sylvia's girl wrote:tapeworthy ‏@tapeworthy 16m You know why Betrayal is doing so well on Broadway? My non-theatre friends in Hong Kong know about it and are going to see it.
I really would like that guy have a go on his twitter name tapeworthy
I do love being in the front row. I was at a performance years ago for an obscure play and the lead, I think it was Val Kilmer, had gotten really into his dialog and spit on me, literally. He stopped the performance to apologize. It was pretty funny.
Elaine_Figgis wrote:I do love being in the front row. I was at a performance years ago for an obscure play and the lead, I think it was Val Kilmer, had gotten really into his dialog and spit on me, literally. He stopped the performance to apologize. It was pretty funny.
Kenneth Turan ‏@KennethTuran 17m Admired Daniel Craig on stage in "Betrayal." Yet another reminder of what a fine actor he is. His Ted Hughes in "Sylvia" a personal favorite
(Kenneth Turan is a film critic for the Los Angeles Times.)
Craig, dressed in sweaters and khakis, feels at home on the stage. He is simultaneously terrifying and sexually enchanting to both the players and the audience. His facade of self-control, which breaks in silent, angry moments with Weisz, reveals the ever-present pressure to maintain social politeness.
There is no doubt that this play is relevant and perfectly pointed for any generation. The additional homosexual overtones added by Craig and Spall in the form of a light touch or an overt line delivery makes the plot all the more enthralling. Their perceived relationship alienates Weisz further from any sort of control in the action, and leaves the stage oozing with lust.
Craig, dressed in sweaters and khakis, feels at home on the stage. He is simultaneously terrifying and sexually enchanting to both the players and the audience. His facade of self-control, which breaks in silent, angry moments with Weisz, reveals the ever-present pressure to maintain social politeness.
There is no doubt that this play is relevant and perfectly pointed for any generation. The additional homosexual overtones added by Craig and Spall in the form of a light touch or an overt line delivery makes the plot all the more enthralling. Their perceived relationship alienates Weisz further from any sort of control in the action, and leaves the stage oozing with lust.
the critic didn't like Rachel's performance, though....
Although it's a shame she didn't like Rachel's performance, one thing all the latest reviews have confirmed for me is that Daniel was right when he chose to play Robert, not Jerry. I think he gets more satisfaction from playing dark than playing charming. And he obviously does it very well, I so wish from reading this that I could witness that terrifying sexual charisma onstage!
