Sienna Miller controversially divided critics on her Broadway debut last night as part of a new wave of British actors treading the boards in New York.

Mixed reviews: Sienna Miller takes a bow with co-stars Marin Ireland and Jonny Lee Miller on the opening night of After Miss Julie on Broadway

After a starry opening night with American Vogue Editor Anna Wintour and palywright Sir David Hare among the audience at Manhattan's American Airlines Theatre, some heavyweight critics tore into Miller's performance in the title role of After Miss Julie, although others praised her gutsy' performance.

Backstage: the stars look glamorous in the after show party

American born, but British-bred Miller, 27, stars as an aristocrat's daughter in the play by Patrick Marber, a reworking of Strindberg's 1888 classic Miss Julie.

Sparkle: Sienna seems pleased with her performance

Just a block away, Miller's former lover Jude Law is acting in the Broadway transfer of Hamlet while another ex — Daniel Craig — is performing nearby alongside Hugh Jackman in A Steady Rain.

Back in the theatre game: Sienna has returned to the stage

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

It is 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 aclaim.

New York Times reviewer Ben Brantley, the most influential critic on Broadway, while confessiing that he was initially rooting' for Ms 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.” By contrast, he and other critics praised Johnny Lee Miller's performance.

Only last weekend his paper had to apologise 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.

Among her supporters, the Associated Press said she was compelling' while in the Chicago Tribune
critic Chris Jones said she delivered a gutsy' performance and that both Millers were eminently watchable.''

What the critics say
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 i