This week was a two-show deal. Both the new stage adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and the strangely titled new musical Hands on a Hardbody opened.

"Holly Golightly does not. Go lightly, that is," read the opening of the New York Times review of the former. The proposition of this becoming a critical hit was always a long shot, from the day it was dreamt up. The reputation of Capote's gossamer novella of an ethereal, mysterious good-time girl in 1940s New York — or, more correctly, the beloved 1961 Blake Edwards film starring Audrey Hepburn — is so solid, that is was always doubtful that the production by playwright Richard Greenberg and director Sean Mathias would meet the high expectations of critics and fans. It was even more doubtful that their choice to play Holly, Emilia Clarke, would pass muster as literature's most fascinating gamine. After all, the stage has already struck out twice with this material: once with a would-be David Merrick-produced musical in the 1960s; and more recently with a different adaptation again directed by Mathias, in London a few years ago.

The critics commended Greenberg's script for being more faithful to the book than the film was, but otherwise said the play was flat-footed. "The many scenes stubbornly refuse to add up to much and it remains as flat as Golightly is supposed to be effervescent," wrote the AP. "Greenberg's entire first act is a slog," said Entertainment Weekly, "bogged down with dreary exposition and the introduction of far too many quirky but uninteresting characters...There are too many scenes that just sit there, failing to delight and robbing the play of any semblance of narrative momentum."


And, of course, there were lots of punning jabs about the show not being up to Tiffany's levels. "More like Breakfast at Woolworth's" quipped New York magazine.