Were Critics Impressed with Miller's Picture?
Here is a sampling of what they had to say:
Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "The angry portraiture of Mr. Miller's disguised take on Monroe found in his After the Fall 1964, seen in a limp revival this summer on Broadway, has given way to a more reflective and forgiving frame of mind. This means that Finishing the Picture is refreshingly free of the shrill self-justification and self-blame of the earlier play. But it also has an oddly remote feel, as if Mr. Miller had withdrawn from the remembered pain of his past to join the more distanced, head-scratching chorus of commentators that has grown up around the Monroe mystique. There is little that is observed here that has not been brought up before... That may be Mr. Miller's point in Finishing the Picture--that stars exist as blank screens on which we project our hopes and neuroses. But it is not a proposition that makes for gripping or dynamic theater."
Chris Jones of Variety: "Given the history, there's inevitable voyeuristic appeal here for students of the popular culture--especially when we have a star-studded and flashy Robert Falls production, replete with some generally lively acting, fake movie footage, video projections and the stiff-as-a-board Modine in the guise of a Miller alter-ego… This kind of voyeuristic-gossipy appeal will, I suspect, be enough to move this play to Broadway in a commercially viable way, and even to find it an audience. But appreciating Finishing the Picture merely on that level feels like too guilty a pleasure to render satisfaction to the thinking person or to net the enterprise a bevy of reviews in important publications… Can an audience find enough universality in its themes to render its apparent myopia allegorical? And is Miller such a poignant poet of the troubled American soul that his theme matters not so much as the eloquence of the elegy? Getting to that place on both of those counts might take some rewriting, should Miller be up for that. And for many viewers, this undeniably esoteric, static and tightly controlled play simply will fail to ever arrive at either place. But longtime fans of this great author will find an affectionate place for this work."
Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune: "Twenty minutes into Finishing the Picture, as an unseen forest fire rages in the distance beyond Reno, you sense a problem. Everyone talks about the film being 'out of control.' Yet as written and directed, the pacing is leisurely bordering on languid. Too little creative tension is conveyed, either by way of Miller's small talk or his large talk. And when Miller's large talk takes over, watch out--especially coming from the likes of Matthew Modine, monotonal and not ready for prime stage time as the tormented screenwriter... In the near-mute Kitty, Miller has created a symbol and a sounding board for the other characters. Yet as the characters rhapsodize about this shining star on the decline, you wonder: Does Miller know how condescending all this sounds?"
Hedy Weiss of The Chicago Sun-Times: "Arthur Miller's new play, Finishing the Picture, which opened Tuesday night at the Goodman Theatre, is too detached to be a tragedy and too caustic to be a farce. The production, often zestfully acted under the direction of Robert Falls, and featuring ingenious 'cinematizing' by projection designer John Boesche, is closer to what the ancient Greeks might have labeled a satyr play--the sort of burlesque entertainment that often followed the performance of a tragedy and provided a grotesque comic relief… It is the blackly comic parade of self-satisfied and self-deluding characters of the play's first half that gives Finishing the Picture whatever life it has. Unfortunately, when these characters return in the play's more portentous but excruciatingly repetitive second half their faces magnified and projected over the scene as if in a film close-up, the whole thing begins to feel like nothing more than a posthumous round of exploitation."
Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Finishing the Picture can't be easily pigeonholed. The play is almost elegiac in tone, particularly in Robert Falls' stylish, cinematic direction. Maybe that's because bits and pieces of black-and-white film, mostly of desert landscapes, introduce each scene. Think Ingmar Bergman for those moody visuals. And Miller's language suggests the bittersweet yearning of Chekhov with characters articulating a sense of loss about what has happened during the filming of this misbegotten movie. Yet the production also is often laugh-out-loud funny… 'How simple it all was,' sighs the veteran, stress-out director [in Finishing the Picture]. 'When nobody in pictures talked about art ... We just did it.' Miller, author of such classics as Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and All My Sons, has done it here, coming up with an astonishing play, rich in characters and ideas. It's a remarkable achievement for a dramatist whose work was first seen on Broadway 60 years ago."
Elysa Gardner of USA Today: "Kitty's demons are as formidable as her blessings, and, through them, Miller offers a thoughtful but flawed study of how people exploit and smother each other in the name of love and art… As played by a preening Stephen Lang and a whining Linda Lavin, the Fassingers appear too cartoonish to have inspired anyone; they seem to have wandered in from a bad sitcom. Part of the problem is Miller's dialogue, which can veer awkwardly from elaborate metaphors to clumsy jokes. Director Robert Falls is a steadying force, and he culls endearing performances from Frances Fisher and Stacy Keach, ideally cast as Edna and Philip. Matthew Modine conveys Paul's troubled affection for Kitty. But like the playwright he represents, Modine seems flummoxed by Kitty, overwhelmed by this ray of light that he can neither reach nor see quite clearly."
Linda Winer of Newsday: "Deeply profound, it is not. It is, however, disarmingly entertaining - a backstage tragic farce in which doors draw blood when slammed in the faces of artistic pretensions. The movie-in-crisis ingredients are archetypically familiar, but the comedy often is brutal and after all these years, the wounds still feel raw... Robert Falls, the Goodman director whose revival of Miller's Death of a Salesman won four Tony Awards in 1999, has amassed the sort of formidable cast that Miller's new plays deserve but rarely get... At the center, always, is the paradoxical mystery of a star who makes people feel good just looking at her, yet is too depressed to go on. Along the edges are Miller's smart asides about politics, theater, movies and the unspoken promise of bonding. Why New Yorkers have to go to Chicago to see a new play by such a monumental playwright is the other mystery of the day."