Acting Reviews
Elyot & Amanda: All Alone (from Noel Coward’s Private Lives)
Playhouse on Park
Directed by Sean Harris
Co-Starring Veanne Cox
(Pictured with Veanne Cox.)
“Ezra Barnes and Veanne Cox have captured just the right style and sparkling wit to get the most out of all of Noel Coward’s delicious lines in the play. What’s even better, with the grand piano being present, the actors also get to play and sing together. They both sound terrific.”
– Zander Opper
“EZRA BARNES plays Elyot brilliantly; he is a joy to watch.”
– Nancy Sasso Janis, Naugatuck Patch
“Barnes is charming, mischievous, wistful and suave, which is exactly right for the character of Elyot. He tosses off some rather clever dialogue with energy and brio and makes Elyot and Amanda’s relationship real, focused and heartfelt.”
– Jim Ruocco, From the Desk of Jim R
“The show feels much more like the invasion of privacy that perhaps Coward
intended than any onstage version could likely manage.”
– Donald Brown, New Haven Review
Queen by Madhuri Shekar
Geva Theatre Center
Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh
(Pictured with Marina Shay.)
“As professor and director of the lab, Barnes is imposing and,
perhaps, has the most surprising character arc.”
– Leah Stacy, City Paper
“Barnes turns in a strong and believable performance as the “good guy”
who ultimately has little conscience about viciously
stinging those who oppose his will.”
– Carol White Llewellyn, Beyond the Nest
Ezra as Donald Trump in
Transparent Falsehood by Gil Kofman
Ars Nova
Directed by Richard Caliban
“This surrealistic and satirical fantasia inspired by Donald Trump showcases Ezra Barnes’ terrific non-impression performance.
The bright spot is the 15-minute segment ‘Without Precedent.”’ It’s the title of Trump’s imaginary HBO comedy special and is the highlight of Ezra Barnes’ performance...Barnes does not attempt to replicate his vocal or physical mannerisms. Instead with his slim physique and mellow voice Barnes is more like Fred Rogers on speed... Holding a microphone and wandering around the stage and into the audience Barnes goes off on free associative riffs with the force and cadences of a polished comedian."
– Darryl Reilly, Theatrescene.net
“The talented Ezra Barnes, who plays Trump, doesn’t give us a full caricature. And yet, this is one of the most chilling, disturbing and—somehow—spot-on characterizations of the president you’ll likely see. It’s as though Barnes and director Richard Caliban—throwing off the expected cosmetic trappings of the Trump reality-show persona—have found the grotesquerie in Donald J.’s inner life."
– Mark Dundas Wood, Stage Buddy
“The shining light in the production was its casting of Ezra Barnes as Trump... Barnes crackles with an earnest, natural gusto."
– Jana Jones, Theatre That Matters
Breakfast With Mugabe by Fraser Grace
Signature Center & Theatre Row
Directed by DAVID SHOOKHOFF
(Photo by Joseph Henry Ritter. Pictured left to right:
Michael Rogers, Che Ayende, Roslyn Coleman & Ezra Barnes.)
“Trenchant, magnificently acted…an unshakeable Ezra Barnes”
– Catherine Rampell, New York Times (Critics’ Pick)
“Fraser Grace’s taut meditation on guilt and power…
an excellent cast…”
– David Cote, Time Out New York (Critics’ Pick)
“Scrupulously acted by a strong ensemble.”
– David Cote, NY1
“The electrifying four person cast sizzles and explodes with emotion.”
– New York Magazine
“The actors are all outstanding, with the main kudos going to Ezra Barnes as the independently minded, principled psychiatrist, Andrew Peric…”
– Stu Brown, Stu on Broadway
“A stellar ensemble cast.”
– Josh Ferri, Broadway Box (Editor’s Pick)
“Peric, the incessantly estimable doctor played by Ezra Barnes,
is undoubtedly the star of the show.”
– Stage Buddy.com
“Ezra Barnes as Dr. Peric, using a believable colonialist British accent,
is a perfect foil for Mr. Rogers.”
– Samuel Leiter, Theater’s Leiter Side
Ezra as John Barrymore in
I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick
Signature Center & Theatre Row
Directed by Vince Tycer
(Photo by Rich Wagner.)
"Ezra Barnes commands the stage...equally comfortable in the role of provocateur, lush, and Casanova."
– Broadway World
"Resembling a combination of Kevin Kline and Kyle MacLachlan, Ezra Barnes fully embodies this extravagant, larger-than-life character. Just to watch him demonstrate how to give a proper onstage bow is almost a show in itself."
– Talkin' Broadway
Barnes wisely resists any temptation to create a caricature of the figure, instead imbuing his Barrymore with just the right amount of unreserved confidence and cynical authority."
– Hartford Examiner
"Ezra Barnes’ Barrymore truly was phenomenal, knock-down, drag-out hysterical as the alcoholic, sword-wielding swine...he successfully managed to overact without overacting!"
– Onstage
"He even looks good in tights!"
– Two on the Aisle
In White America by Martin Duberman
New Federal Theatre
Directed by Charles Maryan
"...exquisite revival of Martin Duberman’s 1963 play...this haunting, intimate portrait of endurance, suffering and, rarely, triumph...given an outstanding production by Charles Maryan on a bare stage with six extraordinary actors playing everyone from abused slaves to Thomas Jefferson."
– Broadway, "Hamilton" & Beyond: The Best Theater of 2015
Jeremy Gerard, Deadline
The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord by Scott Carter
Chester Theatre Company
Directed by Byam Stevens
With Michael Sean McGuinness and Rik Walter
(Photo by Richard Teller.
Pictured left to right: Michael Sean McGuinness, Rik Walter and Ezra Barnes)
“Ezra Barnes is the brilliant interpreter of Thomas Jefferson. His physicalization of the man is superb as he struts and poses and looks like a five-dollar bill come to life. He has one of the best moments in the play as he breaks down having come to an understanding that his motives may not have been the purest when dealing with his 600 slaves and his mistress Sally Hemings.”
– J. Peter Bergman, The Berkshire Edge
The Dining Room by A. R. Gurney
Playhouse on Park
Directed by Sasha Brätt
(Pictured left to right: Susan Slotoroff, Jay William Thomas, Susan Haefner & Ezra Barnes.)
“The delightful Ezra Barnes can switch from a crotchety old grandfather in one scene to a kid at a birthday party in another to a thoughtful psychiatrist, with only minimal costume changes and employing different ways of speaking and carrying himself onstage.”
– Zander Opper, Talkin' Broadway
Ezra as Harpagon in
The Miser by Moliere
Brave New World Rep
Directed by Alice Reagan
(Photo by Joseph Ritter.)
“The Miser comes to Brooklyn’s Grand Prospect Hall”
Read Online
– The Daily News
Final Analysis by Otho Eskin
Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Signature Center
Directed by Ludovica Villar-Hauser
(Photo by John Quilty. Pictured with Elizabeth Jasicki.)
“Ezra Barnes as Mahler is quite sympathetic as the everyman who tries his best to
pursue two things he thinks he wants.”
– Ed Malin, nytheatre.com
“…Mr. Barnes’s monologue about being Jewish, which he delivers with appropriate vexation…”
– Dmitri Zvonkov, stageandcinema.com
The English Bride by Lucile Lichtblau
59e59 Theater
Directed by Carl Wallnau
(Photo by Bob Eberle. Pictured with Michael Gabriel Goodfriend.)
“Ezra Barnes captures the coolness of Dov, a hardened Israeli Mossad agent.”
– Iris Greenberger, Show Business
“…a solid, well-turned out and penetrating performance by Ezra Barnes...”
– Carole DiTosti, Blog Critics
“An expert cast…And Dov, as splendidly created by Barnes? His kindness, his gentleness, his sympathy, all tools of his trade, feel less like lies when he has achieved his goals. It’s a dirty job and he loves it.”
– Eugene Paul, Theatre Scene
“Barnes finds the cool aloofness in Dov as well as the confidence of someone
used to the upper hand.”
– Edward Karam, Off-Off Online
Cool Blues by Bill Harris
New Federal Theater
Directed by Ed Smith
(Pictured with Marcus Naylor and Terria Joseph.)
"Ezra Barnes is effective as the doctor, first appalled
then slowly seduced by 'B'."
– Daniel M. Gold, The New York Times
Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare
Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
Directed by Rick Sordelet
“Sordelet has cast his production with dazzling insight and shrewd instinct...
Ezra Barnes' Escalus finds nuance and a character-driven integrity
that reaches well past the obvious..."
– The Reading Eagle
Breakfast With Mugabe by Fraser Grace
Quantaum Theater, (U.S. premiere)
Directed by Karla Boos
“Barnes is superb as Peric, modulating his moral outrage
for the sake of dispassionate analysis.”
– Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“From the moment "Breakfast with Mugabe" begins, you can feel the tension. Director Karla Boos keeps her cast in restless motion as they prowl and stalk the set. Ezra Barnes portrays Peric, the psychiatrist, with a clarity of conflict.”
– Alice T. Carter, Tribune-Review Theater Critic
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Brave New World, Brooklyn, New York
Conceived and Directed by Claire Beckman
“Mockingbird lives or dies with its Atticus Finch, a role made indelible by Gregory Peck in his Oscar-winning film turn. Ezra Barnes inhabited Atticus with a pitch-perfect blend of decency and decorum, strength and constraint; he revealed a man who was unyielding but never unfeeling.”
– Jeff Coplon is a free-lance writer living in Brooklyn.
His work has been published in The New Yorker, New York Magazine,
The New York Times Magazine, and Rolling Stone.
Dear Ezra,
We loved it--and you--completely. It was wonderful. The entire experience, of course, and the piece itself, the wonderful way (I had forgotten) that the play knits its morals against racism and lynching into solid middle class values (a strategy that's been forgotten by the left). But just as theatre, too, it was fabulous. Great performances. You were magnificent. Thank you so much.
All the best,
– Chuck Mee (playwright)
Around the World in 80 Days by Mark Brown
Bristol Riverside Theatre
Directed by Keith Baker
“Director Keith Baker has a small miracle in his cast...Ezra Barnes plays the unflappable Phileas Fogg with cool assurance...”
– Anita Donovan, The Times
Ezra Barnes is a cucumber-cool Phileas Fogg, tall and stern
but with a big heart that conceals its size.
– Howard Shapiro, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“a wonderfully unruffled Ezra Barnes”
– Philadelphia Weekly
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Brave New World
“Walt Whitman’s words, first penned in 1856, only gain more poignancy with each passing generation that reads “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,"‘ feeling it was written especially for them...The show begins with Whitman, played with splendid serenity by Ezra Barnes, reciting the 26-stanza long poem aboard the ferry, as a soliloquy.”
– Phoebe Neidl, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Far And Wide by Arthur Schnitzler
Mint Theater Company
Adapted and Directed by Jonathan Bank
With Hans Tester
“Sophisticated, riveting storytelling doesn't get any better than "‘Far and Wide,’ the current offering at the Mint Theater Company. This is, believe it or not, the New York premiere of a play written by Arthur Schnitzler nearly a century ago; how this smart and fascinating drama—the theatrical equivalent of a compulsive page-turner—got away is a mystery. It's here now, though, elegantly adapted and staged by Jonathan Bank... Don't miss it: it's the most compelling new play in town... Kudos, too, to Ezra Barnes as Mauer, who gives us a surprisingly dense mass of complexity as the doctor,... Far and Wide ranks among the very best work this company has done, once again proving the value of a good story, well told, in the theatre.”
– Martin Denton, nytheatre.com
“...this production by the Mint Theater offers us the pleasures of discovering a classic in its wisdom and humanity... Most interesting among the cast is Freidrich's best friend, the physician Dr. Mauer (Ezra Barnes), who provides the play's moral ballast as the couple's flirtatious games spiral out of control... the acting measures up to this flawless adaptation (by Jonathan Banks) of a timeless play about love, lifelessness, and human pain.”
– Nina daVinci Nichols, TheatreScene.net
“...Ezra Barnes brings the right mix of yearning and disgust to the role of Doctor Mauer...”
– Elyse Sommer, CurtainUp
“...Particularly effective is Ezra Barnes in the role of the friendly family doctor (the only character with integrity)...”
– Irene Backalenick, Backstage
The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge by Mark Brown
Bristol Riverside Theater
Directed by Keith Baker
“Director Edward Keith Baker draws standout performances from a stellar cast...Back from portraying Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in 80 Days,” Ezra Barnes makes a splash as another kind of Englishman, one who has a dreidel to keep him warm as he fights for the rights of Christmas ghosts.”
– Gwen Shrift, Courier Times
The Tempest by Shakespeare
Shakespeare on the Sound
“a strong performance by Barnes as Prospero... played majestically...”
– Mark Ginocchio, Stamford Advocate
My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe
Weston Playhouse
“Barnes is an excellent Higgins...he creates a character that despite all his self-delusions and thoughtlessness evokes our interest, if not our sympathy.”
– William Menezes, Brattleboro Reformer
“As our present Professor Higgins, Ezra Barnes is very much his own interpreter, not merely trying to imitate Harrison. Barnes has a strong stage presence and a dominating voice, used to good advantage in numbers such as the tender “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”
– Bob Couture, Bennington Banner
“Barnes’ soliloquies (particularly ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face’) are very musical...His phrasing and timing contain wondrous insights.”
– Stephanie Rowe, The Message
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
Pioneer Theatre Company
“The acting ensemble, some of whom appeared in the London or New York productions, handle the demands of Wilde’s language and the play’s more serious emotions with equal finesse. Ezra Barnes and Kathleen McCall play Robert and Gertrude with a combination of conviction and confusion that makes them very human.”
– Barbara Bannon, The Event, Salt Lake City
The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare
Shakespeare on the Sound
“Artistic Director Ezra Barnes has a field day with the verse, as well as business, as the dissembling Hortensio...”
– E. Kyle Minor, Stamford Advocate
The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie
Cincinnati Playhouse
“...it appears that in spite of the play’s years of popularity many in the audience were kept guessing about the identity of the murderer. The reason? Many of the actors keep their roles fresh and interesting, avoiding the well-worn choices of previous performances in the genre...Barnes and Mahony-Bennett are refreshing and realistic as the newlyweds caught in a frightful situation in their initial outing as the manor’s innkeepers...”
– Dale Doerman, Cincinnati City Beat