Were Critics Glad They Caught Miller's Fall?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
Eric Grode in his Broadway.com Review: "Audiences accustomed to the small-scale concerns frequently seen on Broadway will reel at the size of drama Miller has bitten off and his eagerness to chew it as probingly and self-indulgently as he can. He and director Michael Mayer, who collaborated to sterling effect on the similarly sprawling A View From the Bridge in 1997, have reined in some of the play's excesses and found in Peter Krause a leading man well suited to its navel-gazing nature. Ultimately, however, the musty psychology and standoffish protagonist prove insurmountable… Miller and Mayer have substantially reworked the play, removing some characters, softening others and shuffling the order which always was a bit harum-scarum, occurring entirely within Quentin's mind. But the text still feels lashed to its 1960s setting."
Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "As the rueful Quentin, a woman-bedeviled lawyer who bears the darnedest resemblance to a playwright named Arthur Miller, Mr. Krause leads the audience through his character's life like a dutiful but bored student guide in a museum. This is not a winning attitude to bring to Mr. Miller's 1964 drama of moral disillusionment, a play that is essentially one man's cosmic yelp. And the director Michael Mayer who did well by Mr. Miller's View From the Bridge, also for the Roundabout Theater Company has done nothing to raise the evening's emotional temperature, unless you count feelings of irritation. Staged as if it were a breezy period comedy about the war between the sexes--with a chic airline terminal set designed by Richard Hoover that evokes the recent con caper movie Catch Me if You Can--the production itself suffers from the depth-denying bad faith that the play makes a point of condemning."
Clive Barnes of The New York Post: "A classic it isn't… For this production, Michael Mayer--who directed the Roundabout's triumphant staging of Miller's A View from the Bridge a few seasons back--has treated the text very cleverly. He's avoided the pure abstraction of the setting by placing the action in Idlewild now JFK Airport… Miller/Quentin's stream of consciousness, at least at first, appears well-suited to the impersonal comings and goings of an airport although you start to wonder what an airline terminal has to do with the actual play and Mayer has made a few useful shuffles of scene. Even so, the action--which jumps from the Great Depression to the misadventures of fame--lacks continuity and even dramatic force or tension. Miller's apparent agenda of guilt and redemption, especially redemption, is soggy with the arrogance of crocodile tears. Yet he is one of the great playwrights of our time, and his characters do emerge from the mists. Unfortunately, Krause fails to dominate."
Howard Kissel of The New York Daily News: "Arthur Miller's 1964 play After the Fall was always a mess. Michael Mayer's highly stylized production starring a painfully miscast Peter Krause only makes it messier… It is hard to imagine this play working under any circumstances. But Mayer has made most of the characters into caricatures--especially the women… Richard Hoover's sleek airline terminal is effective, and Michael Krass' costumes are all spot-on. The play itself, however, has not grown more cogent or likable with time."
Marilyn Stasio of Variety: "Carlo Gugino doesn't take the self-destructive Maggie anywhere near the edge of the ledge where she's hanging by the end of the play, hopelessly addicted to pills and liquor, a pathetic monster who keeps crying out for help in ways that are guaranteed to shoo potential rescuers away. Gugino also doesn't seem to have a whole lot of heart for Maggie's mad scenes… Krause, who effortlessly projects charm and intelligence on a TV screen, has no bones for this job, and his discomfort shows in his guarded expressions, wary line readings and stiff stage demeanor… But in the end, this is Quentin's play, and no matter how much he bewails his guilt, Miller doesn't succeed in convincing us that this self-absorbed, emotionally detached man feels anything but self-satisfaction, or that he deserves absolution for the grief he gave to people who took him at his word and trusted him with their lives."
Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "Gugino channels the qualities and contradictions that have fascinated Monroe fans in the four decades since her death: the guilelessly beguiling sensuality, the rueful dizziness and, above all, the breathless, desperate need to be loved. It's an exquisite, starmaking performance. Krause is less astonishing as Quentin, whose tormentors include an ex-wife and a glamorous, dead mother, respectively played by the wry Jessica Hecht and the suitably overstated Candy Buckley. At a youthful-looking 38, he doesn't project the full weight of experience and inner conflict that the role requires. Michael Mayer's staging, which uses an airport terminal as the backdrop for Quentin's journey, also can have a chilly, distancing effect. Still, the director culls supple, witty turns from his cast… In the end, though, it's Gugino's canny, captivating work that truly makes this Fall worth catching."
Gordon Cox of Newsday: "Carla Gugino embodies Maggie, Miller's fictionalized version of Monroe, with a bright energy that is the freshest thing onstage… Gugino's portrayal makes for a stark contrast opposite the wan, disjointed performance of Peter Krause in the central role of Quentin. Krause, of HBO's hit series Six Feet Under, looks too uncomfortable to listen and react spontaneously; he fails to locate an emotional core in his character's methodical self-absorption… Director Michael Mayer never manages to hide the seams of the episodic intercutting in Miller's script. He seems to have encouraged the actors to oversimplify, causing two particularly talented, idiosyncratic actresses--Candy Buckley as Quentin's monstrous mother and Jessica Hecht as his mousy first wife--to turn in committed but nuance-free work."