Damian Lewis enlivens 'sluggish' American Buffalo

A revival of David Mamet's black comedy American Buffalo, starring Damian Lewis and John Goodman has opened to mixed reviews in the West End.

Mamet's 1975 play about small-time schemers in a junk shop has won numerous awards and was adapted into a film starring Dustin Hoffman in 1996.

Dan Evan directs the latest West End production, in which Coen Brothers regular Goodman plays junk-shop owner Don, who has sold a coin – a buffalo nickel – to a customer, but now suspects it is more valuable than he realised and plans to steal it back.

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Lewis, best known for his roles in Homeland and Wolf Hall, plays Don's scheming poker-partner Teach, while his assistant Bob is played by Tom Sturridge.

Critics have praised Lewis's performance, but are less enthusiastic about the production as a whole, which one reviewer labelled "sluggish".

Michael Billington says the play, a "far-reaching fable about the jungle of American capitalism", is a "a showpiece for stars". Goodman is "brilliant" and Lewis "excellent", he writes in The Guardian, and the production is "meticulous in its psychological and physical detail".

His one "cavil" is that the rhythm of Mamet's language is affected by having only one authentic American accent (Goodman's) in the cast.

In the Daily Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish describes the production as "perfectly capable" but says that, like the election campaign, it "hasn't yet translated into something that sets pulses racing". Lewis, however, "can't be faulted for accent or technical accomplishment", says Cavendish.

Dominic Maxwell says that Lewis is an expert for characters that who put up good fronts, but he wishes the actor had offered less facade and more heart in this "surprisingly sluggish revival".

He overdoes the idea that Teach is a man forever giving a performance, he writes in The Times, and is "too blatantly a berk". Goodman, on the other hand, is "marvellous", says Maxwell, but the evening is "disappointingly lukewarm".

The Arts Desk, however, has nothing but praise for the production. Demetrios Matheou writes that from the first gasp-inducing moments, Mamet's rummage through the junkyard of the American Dream "has you in a vice-like grip". And Lewis, says Matheou, "tears up the stage".

American Buffalo is at Wyndham's Theatre until 27 June.