Did Drama Critics Cherish Woody Allen's Second Hand Memory?
Woody Allen has returned to the Atlantic Theater Company, where his Writer's Block ran last year. His new play, A Second Hand Memory, is a domestic drama set in 1950s Brooklyn. It features Kate Blumberg, Dominic Chianese, Beth Fowler, Nicky Katt, Erica Leerhsen, Elizabeth Marvel and Michael McKean. Did critics cherish this Memory?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "In his new off-Broadway play, Woody Allen returns to his Brooklyn roots. The setting and the period, the early 1950s, bring to mind the hilarious scenes of a family living in a house under the Coney Island Cyclone in Allen's Annie Hall. If only A Second Hand Memory had a tenth of the humor of that film. Instead it's a rather dreary domestic drama about a family's ups-and-downs… The play shifts back and forth in time effectively, and the characters are all believable. It's just too bad that Allen muzzled his sense of humor in this straightforward drama. The actors generally do well, though a few are still having trouble with their lines."
Charles Isherwood of The New York Times: "Wallpapered in woe, this drama about two generations of defeated dreamers in 1950's Brooklyn is narrated by Alma Wolfe Elizabeth Marvel, a beatnik haunting its fringes in a haze of cigarette smoke, a glass of gold liquor in hand… She lives with a permanent hangover, losing herself in a series of one-night stands in European cities, dreaming of a writing career as she endlessly searches for the love she never got from Dad, who wanted a son. That's just one of the many gloomy clichés that gather like dust balls in the corners of this disappointing play, which awkwardly and sometimes confusingly shifts between time periods in unfolding the unhappy saga of the Wolfe family… [Allen's] vision of life as a series of empty dreams and emotional dead ends feels etched in stone in A Second Hand Memory. The play's disillusioned perspective is too hermetic to admit the possibility of contentment, let alone fulfillment."
Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "Uncharacteristically for Allen, the quiet desperation of these characters is seldom leavened with humor. For audiences who assume Allen is supposed to provide laughs, Memory will be a disappointment. But the play suggests a new willingness to confront themes like betrayal and the cost of stifled anger, which may yield richer returns down the road… Sometimes Allen's attempts at seriousness ring hollow. Here the unrelieved pain reflects something genuine. Some moments of humor would be welcome, but clearly Allen is trying to deal with issues that matter. Allen directed the play himself and has drawn some wonderful performances from the cast, especially McKean as the slimy agent and Fowler as his grating sister."
Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Some dreams die hard. Others just fall with a thud. In A Second Hand Memory, Woody Allen's sour domestic drama, they collapse in anger and recrimination. Allen's play, which opened Monday at off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company, is surprisingly clunky in plot and language, and its characters shrill and unpleasant… [Elizabeth] Marvel, at least, has a sexy presence, enhanced by a throaty voice. Since she is somewhat removed although not completely from the verbal fisticuffs that erupt throughout the play, she comes across as the play's most interesting character. You feel sorry for the other actors--all consummate professionals--who have a hard time sustaining the play's fevered pitch. Allen also directed the evening, and he's not much help to his own play. Sputtering on its own acidity, this Memory would have been better off locked away from the present."
