A critical divide

Sienna Miller made her Broadway debut on Thursday just a block away from where her ex-boyfriend Jude Law is starring in Hamlet.

American Vogue editor Anna Wintour and playwright Sir David Hare were in the audience at Manhattan's American Airlines Theatre to see the 27-year-old American-born but British-bred actress play the title role in Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie.

But while Law has garnered highly favourable reviews, Miller's performance divided the critics.

New York Times reviewer Ben Brantley, the most influential on Broadway, while confessing that he was initially "rooting" for Miller, wrote: "If Julie is written as clashing chords of conflicted impulses, Ms Miller plays them like a novice at a piano, plunking down each note loudly and individually."

Only last weekend the New York Times apologised to the actress after it published an interview with her that began with a list of her former lovers which wrongly included the late Heath Ledger and Sean Combs.

Miller's performance as Miss Julie, however, wasn't without its supporters. The Associated Press said she was "compelling" while the Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones said she delivered a "gutsy" performance that was "eminently watchable".

The play centres on Miller's sexual encounter with her father's valet, played by Jonny Lee Miller, another English Broadway debutante better known to Americans as the first Mr Angelina Jolie.

It is Sienna Miller's first theatre role since As You Like It in the West End in 2005.

After Miss Julie was first staged at the Donmar in 2003 to critical acclaim.

Miller and Law are part of a new wave of British actors treading the boards on Broadway. Another of her exes, Daniel Craig, is performing alongside Hugh Jackman in A Steady Rain at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre nearby.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

Ben Brantley, the New York Times: "If Julie is written as clashing chords of conflicted impulses, Ms Miller plays them like a novice at a piano, plunking down each note loudly ... her manner is often that of a little girl pretending to be a grand lady."

Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal: "A model turned second-tier movie star, all she does is stalk around the stage striking vampy poses... she has no more business playing a classic stage role than I have posing for the cover of Vogue."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "The very model of a seducer awaiting to commence seduction. There is a relentless quality to Sienna Miller's performance, not terribly subtle or vulnerable, but compelling in its obsessiveness."

John Simon, Bloomberg News: "[Miller is] convincing enough in the title role, managing superciliousness and condescension, lust and humiliation. Yet there is some sort of ultimate aristocratic hauteur in which she is a bit lacking."