Ben Stiller returns to Broadway stage

Hollywood actor Ben Stiller has returned to Broadway for a revival of John Guare's play, The House of Blue Leaves.

Stiller, 45, originally appeared in the play in New York in 1986, when he had a supporting role.

He now plays the role of Artie, a zookeeper who dreams of making it as a songwriter in Hollywood, opposite Edie Falco, who plays his mentally ill wife Bananas.

According to Associated Press drama writer Mark Kennedy, Artie is "wonderfully played" by Stiller, who "beautifully captures the push-pull of a man still in love with his wife and yet pining for a new, free affair".

The "brilliant" Falco is also praised for her performance, in which she "radiates neediness in her shabby nightgown and wild hair".

Jesse Oxfeld of the New York Observer is slightly less enthusiastic about Stiller's Artie, describing him as "nicely weak and subdued but always with an edge of stifled rage, not the defeated gentleness the script describes".

The House of Blue Leaves was first staged in 1966 and its latest revival is due to run for 16 weeks.