still from "Hurlyburly," 1984


(excerpted from the New York Times Theater Review)


Kid Champion - play by Thomas Babe, presented by the NY Shakespeare Festival at the Anspacher/Public Theater, 1975

"The burden of the play falls upon Christopher Walken as Kid Champion, and he is brilliant in it, almost succeeding in turning a cliche into an image.  With a scorpion whim, petulant good looks, and a lazily arrogant manner, Mr. Walken comes as close as the play will permit to the pop star who is all hollow inside and all bluster outside." - Clive Barnes, February 20, 1975


Sweet Bird of Youth - play by Tennessee Williams at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1975

"Christopher Walken has also a kind of beauty to him but he invests it with a decadence that recalls Baudelaire and other doomed souls...both Miss Worth and Mr. Walken are superb - in timing, in temperament, even in dramatic temperature."  - Clive Barnes, December 4, 1975

"I should say in passing that Christopher Walken rises in turn to the challenge Miss Worth presents him; this is far and away his best work since his Caligula at Yale." - Walter Kerr, December 21, 1975


Henry IV - presented by the American Shakespeare Theater at Stratford CT, 1982

"Mr. Walken is capable of first rate work, but his Hotspur consists only of periodic bursts of hand waving bluster, with little visible passion or intelligence to give shape, point, or even sexiness to the rebel's self-destructively headstrong personality.  Mr. Walken also has severe difficulties with his posture, diction and phrasing - sloppinesses that one hopes he'll begin to remedy before undertaking the title role in Stratford's August production of Hamlet." - Frank Rich, July 11, 1982


Hurlyburly - play by David Rabe at the Promenade Theater on Broadway, 1984

"The cast could not be better...Mr. Walken, as a self-protective cynic, offers what may be his least mannered, most fully ripened comic performance ever." - Frank Rich, June 22, 1984


A Streetcar Named Desire - Williamstown 1986

"While enhancing his role with a swaggering humor, Mr. Walken sacrifices a measure of Stanley's menace.  An additional difficulty is the actor's physical appearance; his bared torso physique does not seem convincingly Stanley-like.  Despite his temperamental outbursts, Mr. Walken does not pose an ample threat to Blanche - until the dramatic rape scene, when he demonstrates that the role is within his range." - Mel Gussow, August 22, 1986


Othello - presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theater, 1991



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