Random Notes on Recent Plays
And that's not to mention the fact that I was lucky enough to see that original Broadway production, with its original cast, in previews, and from the third or fourth row of the orchestra. No revival can possibly have the impact on me that that original production had.
I found the 1976 Broadway revival, directed by Albee himself and starring Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara, lacking in depth, with too great an emphasis placed on comedy. I found the current revival, staged by Anthony Page, acceptable but uneven. Kathleen Turner is a natural for the rambunctious, comic Martha of the first act, but doesn't quite rise to the dramatic heights of the final act and Martha's big solo scene. While Bill Irwin's George has its effective moments, it's chilly and sometimes a less than plausible match for Turner. David Harbour makes a fine Nick, but Mireille Enos's Honey sounds like a caricature of Sandy Dennis, who played the role on screen.
That the play unfortunately somewhat trimmed, to keep the running time to three hours holds up well demonstrates that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is indeed the sort of contemporary classic that allows for new interpretation. Still, it's hard for me to get the sounds of Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill out of my head.
Considering that Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie is one of the solidest and most lucid of modern theatrical classics, it's remarkable that it keeps on getting into trouble each time it returns to Broadway.
Perhaps it was because it marked the first time I saw the play in the flesh, but the 1960s revival I attended remains the only one that seemed to me to capture all of the play's poetry and beauty. That version starred Maureen Stapleton, George Grizzard, Piper Laurie, and Pat Hingle. When Stapleton revived The Glass Menagerie in the '70s for Circle in the Square, she was encouraged to play for laughs, something that Stapleton never had any trouble getting, and the play's delicacy was damaged.
Since then, I've seen two more Broadway revivals, both with towering actresses, but neither the Jessica Tandy nor Julie Harris productions was fully satisfying. Better were TV versions with Shirley Booth and Katharine Hepburn. Starring Jessica Lange, the current Broadway revival must rank as the least effective Menagerie I've seen.
One senses that Lange might have made a respectable Amanda. Here, though, she seems to be alternating between playing two of her previous roles, Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire and Mary in Long Day's Journey Into Night. Christian Slater is loutish rather than a poet in the making; Sarah Paulson seems more slow-witted than painfully shy; and Josh Lucas's Gentleman Caller lacks the sense of a young man who peaked early and is already past his glory days.
Still, that lengthy scene between Laura and the Genleman Caller is the only time the production does anything like justice to the play. For the most part, David Levaux has staged an often perverse production, with bizarre suggestions of incest between the son and his mother and sister, and scenes curiously performed in silhouette behind curtains.
In my days as a high-school English teacher, I used to teach Julius Caear to my students, and always found it to be one of Shakespeare's least complex, most straightforwardly compelling dramas. But Daniel Sullivan's modern-dress, fascist-police-state production at the Belasco is a bit of a muddle, with performers acting in a variety of styles and noise substituting for drama in the power struggles of the second half.
Of course, Shakespeare would not be back on Broadway at the moment were it not for the presence of Denzel Washington, taking up the role of honorable Roman Brutus. Washington is clearly committed to the part and makes a decent attempt at conquering it. But there's a tentative, bland quality to the performance, particularly when it's contrasted with Canadian Colm Feore's Cassius, a highly confident portrayal in the traditional Shakespearean manner. Jack Willis steals scenes as a sarcastic, gossipy Casca. Eamonn Walker's Mark Antony has power but is not always intelligible. In the title role, William Sadler is less than imposing.
Some may feel that if Washington brings a new audience to see Shakespeare, the production will have served its purpose. But this staging tends to shortchange the play, with Washington but one of its problems.
There's no sense trying to fight Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias. For all of its manipulation and contrivances, the play works, and will be performed in regional theatres forever. But there are at least two ways of doing it, and the original 1987 off-Broadway production at the institutional WPA Theatre, transferring to the Lucille Lortel and the current Broadway revival illustrate the difference.
The original was performed with a lovely naturalism, so that even the most overt one-liners seemed to issue organically from the characters. The original featured no stars and was all the better for not having them. Directed by Jason Moore, the new Broadway production is a sleek summer-stock package, played straight to the audience for laughs and tears. There's little subtlety in the performance, and while the play still works, it's both less amusing and less affecting than it can be.
Frances Sternhagen's Clairee seemed to me the most successful of the Broadway impersonations, while Rebecca Gayheart makes a curiously resistible Shelby. Christine Ebersole's work as M'Lynn is always intelligent, although it's somehow not as moving as one would expect. Lily Rabe is a solid Annelle, but Ouiser's epic grumpiness doesn't come naturally to Marsha Mason. Delta Burke knows her way around Truvy, but her trademark TV persona peers through.
Like the Julius Caear revival, a new production of On Golden Pond is on Broadway simply because a male star wanted to take on a juicy role. And it's true that in playing cantankerous octogenarian Norman Thayer, James Earl Jones in his return to Broadway is having himself a field day.
Like Steel Magnolias, Ernest Thompson's Pond is an indestructible, laughter-through-tears, life-goes-on crowd-pleaser. Leonard Foglia has staged it effectively, and Jones gets warm support from Leslie Uggams. But pleasant as it is, I wasn't convinced of the necessity for a Pond revival, especially with the existence of a film version that improves upon the stage script. Still, as an opportunity for Jones to display his still-potent stage chops, this Pond serves its purpose.
I did not see Doubt during its initial New York run at the Manhattan Theatre Club. That's because, as soon as John Patrick Shanley's play opened to raves, it became apparent that Doubt would have to move to Broadway. Seeing it at the Walter Kerr Theatre, I wasn't sorry that I had waited, for Doubt plays well in its larger venue.
And everything you've heard about Doubt is true. It's a gripping, rewardingly old-fashioned drama, the kind of play that leaves you with something to ponder and argue about. Doug Hughes' production and its four-member cast are flawless. Above all, Doubt gives Cherry Jones the opportunity to once again demonstrate that she is the closest thing we have these days to those wonderful Broadway actresses of the '50s and '60s, like Julie Harris and Geraldine Page. If such performers currently have fewer Broadway opportunities to show off their skills, Jones demonstrates here that she is a mesmerizing actress of enormous conviction.
And finally there's the season's wildest, most complex and most imaginative Broadway play, The Pillowman. With considerable assistance from John Crowley direction, Scott Pask sets and costumes, Brian MacDevitt lighting, and Paddy Cunneen music, Martin McDonagh's play has the quality of a nightmare from which one is only half able to wake up. Intricate and creepy, The Pillowman both enhances the horrific quality of earlier McDonagh plays like The Beauty Queen of Leenane and finds the author moving in a new, broader direction.
Unlike the season's other National Theatre import, Democracy, where one felt one was seeing a performance inferior to that of the London company, The Pillowman's Broadway cast satisfies, with particularly touching work from Michael Stuhlbarg. The Pillowman will not be to all tastes; there were walk-outs at the performance I attended. But it's a genuine original, a play that has the ability to haunt.