Keira Knightley's Broadway tragedy causes 'giggles'

Keira Knightley (centre) and cast members Judith Light and Matt Ryan were all-smiles at the curtain call for the opening night of Broadway's Therese Raquin on Thursday

Keira Knightley's Broadway debut as Therese Raquin has been met with a mix of critics' bemusement and praise.

Emile Zola's story of adultery and murder is notoriously dark and tempestuous but many critics seem to have suffered an attack of hilarity.

Though most feel Knightley puts on a brave show, the staging of the Helen Edmundson script is described as "giggly" by more than one reviewer.

Gabriel Ebert and Matt Ryan also star in the play at Studio 54 until January.

In Zola's 1867 story, bored housewife Therese begins an obsessive affair with her drippy husband Camille's best friend, leading to catastrophe and a descent into madness.

According to Variety, however, members of the audience should be excused if they find they want to laugh at the "histrionic staging" of the first act.

Gabriel Ebert, who won a Tony for his music-hall turn as Mr Wormwood in Matilda, is "goofy" as Camille in the Roundabout company's production, says Variety.

And Knightley "like a kindergarten teacher who has spent too much time romping with the kiddies... infected with the same stupid-bug".

But by the end of the production, reviewer Marilyn Stasio is won over as the second half redeems the first, concluding that "Knightley and Ryan are ravishing - and articulate - as these fierce bourgeois Macbeths, undone by their own greed and passion".

'Oddly flat'

Alexis Soloski of the Guardian is of much the same opinion as Stasio, saying "something has gone wrong with the Roundabout's lugubrious and giggly adaptation".

Though acknowledging that Knightley can do much better as a stage actress, based on her two previous West End outings in The Misanthrope and the Children's Hour, Soloski says she is "oddly flat" in this production.

But concludes, the actress is "charismatic for all her lack of effect".

According to Jesse Green of Vulture magazine the production "suffers from a typical case of adaptation sickness".

Though "the set-ups are lovely", the play ultimately labours under a "hasty glut", says Green.

The Hollywood Reporter offers a kinder analysis of Therese Raquin, and Knightley in particular.

It describes her performance as "bristling" and that she displays a "tremulous commitment that prevents you from taking your eyes off her".

In conclusion, it says the production would have benefitted from "restraint" to keep it "anchored in reality rather than melodrama" and tighter - its running time is two-and-a-half hours.

But ultimately it "provides a feast for the eyes".