She made her name in Hollywood blockbusters and was a triumph as Woody Allen's muse.

Now Scarlett Johansson has proved she can cut it on stage after critics hailed her theatre debut an “enchanting” success.

Reviewers described her as “effortlessly assured” in A View From The Bridge.

Curtain call: Scarlett Johansson as Catherine in A View From The Bridge

She was watched by a star-studded audience at the Cort Theatre last night, including her husband Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts and Ellen Barkin.

The New York Times's Ben Brantley wrote: “In recent years Broadway's stages have been littered with dim performances from bright screen stars, including Julia Roberts and Katie Holmes ... By comparison, Ms Johansson melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears.”

In Arthur Miller's 1956 play, Johansson plays Catherine, a 17-year-old orphan living in Fifties Brooklyn with her aunt and uncle, played by Jessica Hecht and Liev Schreiber.

Taking the applause: Johansson with fellow cast members

Her life is transformed when her aunt's cousins Rodolpho and Marco arrive illegally from Italy.
She begins to fall in love with Rodolpho, played by Morgan Spector, much to the chagrin of uncle Eddie, with whom she has a destructive relationship.

Brantley added: “That the excellent stage veteran Ms Hecht holds her own with Mr Schreiber is no surprise. That Ms Johansson does — with seeming effortlessness — is.”

Many high-profile actresses have fallen foul of the critics on their Broadway debuts.

When Katie Holmes took the stage in Arthur Miller's All My Sons in 2008, the New York Daily News called her “strangely shrill”.

And after Sienna Miller's debut in Miss Julie, Brantley 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.”

The first Broadway turn of Julia Roberts was in 2006 in Three Days Of Rain. But Brantley described her as being fraught with “self-consciousness [and] only glancingly acquainted with the two characters she plays.”

Star following: Hugh Jackman was among the audience

Johansson, 25, is an established screen star whose CV includes Lost In Translation, Girl With A Pearl Earring, and Woody Allen films Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

USA Today's Elysa Gardner said of her stage work: “Johansson — in a brunette wig — [makes] an enchanting Broadway debut in Arthur Miller's sobering fable.

“Only afterward will you likely realise the actress's youthful sensuality and capacity for good-natured goofiness constitute a perfect fit for this sheltered 17-year-old.”

The Washington Post's Peter Marks said Johansson “proves to be capable of far more than collaborating in eyebrow-raising star casting.

“She's got the broad vowels and engaging innocence for Catherine, and she makes you believe in the teenager's flickering awareness of Eddie's inappropriate attraction.”

Bloomberg's John Simon described Johansson as “assured and quite convincing ... looking less cosmeticised than she does onscreen.”