Were Critics Stirred by MTC's Sight Unseen?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "With the considerable help of Daniel Sullivan's clear-eyed direction, Sight Unseen is ready to shift its attention to the play's central relationship: that between the disillusioned, self-hating Jonathan here played by Ben Shenkman and Patricia Linney, the 'sacrificial shiksa' he cast aside 15 years earlier for what seem to be all the wrong reasons. Margulies has a terrific, empathic ear for the peaks and valleys of everyday relationships, and Linney and Shenkman navigate them with consummate intelligence... Shenkman may be a tad young for Jonathan, but his gawky body language and tremulous voice are ideally suited to this gifted man-child. And Linney brings all her technical skill and emotional transparency to Patricia, a wounded character that could easily become the lead male's therapist. By now, it's practically a given that Sullivan will elicit every last ounce of pathos and humor from his actors, and he doesn't disappoint."
Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Because [Linney] gives the one unconditionally authentic performance in this production, directed by Daniel Sullivan, her character becomes the prism through which everything is refracted. Admittedly, this creates a lopsidedness that is not to the play's advantage. Still, anyone who has followed Ms. Linney's increasingly impressive career onstage The Crucible and in film You Can Count on Me, Mystic River should make a point of seeing her here. Actually, make that anyone who savors acting that is paradoxically clear to the point of transparency and as subtle as shadows at twilight... The essential problem with this production, which features handsome sets by Douglas W. Schmidt, is its Jonathan.... In Mr. Shenkman's scenes with Ms. Linney--set in the rustic farmhouse Patricia shares with her husband, Nick Byron Jennings, an archaeologist--her character's frustration and resentment are intensified by your impression that she is trying to milk responses from a human vacuum. It doesn't help that the usually impeccable Mr. Jennings brings an exaggerated comic vehemence to the part of the surly husband. Still, you can't dismiss a show that allows Ms. Linney to create such a beautifully shaded study in unhappiness."
Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "With the revival of Sight Unseen, Donald Margulies' abrasive, spiked cocktail of a play, the Manhattan Theater Club ends its very first and shaky Broadway season at the Biltmore Theater with a success, perhaps even a hit. It's not an unqualified success, to be sure--more of a messy mix of the alluring dangers of fame, the pitfalls of interfaith relationships and the phoniness of the contemporary art world. But it is beautifully acted--Byron Jennings, Laura Linney, Ana Reeder and Ben Shenkman make an impressive foursome--and staged by Daniel Sullivan with the naturalness of breath itself, abetted by great settings by Douglas W. Schmidt, Jess Goldstein's period-pointed costumes and Pat Collins' astute lighting. The play itself is somewhat thin."
Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "For a play about the life of an artist to be compelling--assuming he does not cut off his ear--the actor in the pivotal role of Jonathan Waxman has to be charismatic. Ben Shenkman, though not without charm, is too low-key to engage our sympathies above and beyond what the script tells us about him. As a result, the play seems lopsided. The characters who revolve around Waxman are more engaging than he is... Ultimately, Sight Unseen works, because it is full of ideas and verbal elegance. But the lack of chemistry between the characters leads to an evening that takes too long to ignite."
Charles Isherwood of Variety: "Perspective, which famously bedevils painters, also makes trouble for the Broadway revival of Donald Margulies' Sight Unseen. In his breakthrough play from 1992, Margulies examines the life of a successful artist through a narrative collage that collapses time to reveal the emotional crosscurrents between past and present. But Daniel Sullivan's new production for Manhattan Theater Club--which is still searching for success in its new Broadway home at the Biltmore Theater --is distorted by seriously uneven casting. The troubled artist who should stand at the center of the composition, played here by a charisma-free Ben Shenkman, tends to recede to its blurry edges, while his erstwhile muse, played by Laura Linney, remains in strikingly sharp focus, drawing the eye--and the heart--from start to finish."
Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Sight Unseen, first seen on a tiny stage at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1992, has now graduated to MTC's new Broadway home, the Biltmore. And the journey to the bigger theater, where the revival opened Tuesday, has not hurt the play, directed with a steady, sure hand by Daniel Sullivan... Reeder in a role played in the original production by Linney is effective as the Teutonic inquisitor; the lanky Shenkman less so, but then he has trouble throughout the play conveying the inner turmoil churning within his character. The actor is much better in the play's final scene--which chronologically is its first. Here we meet the budding painter and his willing young model. The sweetness of a first romance is in the air. Shenkman's joyous agitation is appealing and so is his subject's eagerness to please, delivered by a luminous Linney. It's also the play's saddest, most heartfelt moment, giving audiences a chance to see what was lost during one man's travels to adulthood."
Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "The cast thrives under Daniel Sullivan's sensitive direction. As Jonathan, Ben Shenkman, so affecting as the angst-ridden lover of an AIDS victim in HBO's Angels In America, skillfully plays another selfish but guilty creature. Byron Jennings proves a delightfully droll foil as Patricia's long-suffering mate, a relatively coarse man who makes no secret of his resentment over Jonathan's visit. Ana Reeder exudes pluck as a German interviewer--interrogator might be a better word--who gives Jonathan more than he bargained for during a press session. Predictably, though, it is Linney's effortless grace and unforced grit, her luminous, heartbreaking humanity that you'll remember most. Had Sight Unseen opened just a few weeks earlier, this year's already tight Tony Awards race for best actress in a play might have been that much closer."
Linda Winer of Newsday: "Ah, this is more like it. After a rough debut series at the handsomely restored Biltmore Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club officially kicked off the new Broadway season Tuesday with a return to quality as high as its ambitions... Linney has a translucence that allows us to watch her character simultaneously empathize with and comment on the people around her. Meanwhile, Shenkman makes it possible for us to find Jonathan charming, even as he straddles ethical chasms. Ana Reeder steps confidently out of Linney's shadow as Grete, whose two alarmingly bright interview scenes with Jonathan shake up his defenses about his work and his Jewish identity. She is more of a sexpot than Linney was, which further charges the atmosphere."