Landscape of the Body Faces New York Critics

What's tragic, comic and includes a dead singing narrator? The John Guare play Landscape of the Body! The piece is now being revived at Signature Theatre's Peter Norton Space in a production headlined by Sherie Rene Scott and Lili Taylor. The mounting officially opened off-Broadway on April 16. Were critics carried away by the story?

Here's a sampling of what they had to say:

William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "John Guare's bizarre 1977 play Landscape of the Body combines so many genres that it's difficult to know what to call it. Is it a noirish murder mystery or a black comedy? Is it a musical featuring torch songs written by Guare himself or a serious drama about loss? Is it a floor wax or a dessert topping? Well, it's not the latter two, but Guare incorporates elements of all the above genres in his sometimes funny, frequently unsettling and occasionally exasperating play. While the Signature Theatre Company has mounted a strong revival headed by Lili Taylor and Sherie Rene Scott, this jumble of a play doesn't hold together."

Ben Brantley of The New York Times: "Mr. Greif, doing his best work since he made his reputation by resuscitating Sophie Treadwell's Machinal in 1990, unerringly finds the real emotional substance beneath the tinsel of Mr. Guare's pop poetry. I thought Mr. Greif did just fine by Landscape when he first staged it with Ms. Taylor and Ms. Scott at the Williamstown Theater Festival nearly three years ago. Since then, though, he has honed his interpretation to the kind of pinpoint fineness that long acquaintance and obsessive rethinking afford. He is also blessed here with a supporting ensemble that is blissfully cast. Though Landscape is unmistakably of its era, Mr. Greif presents it convincingly as a play for the ages, unmatched in locating the loneliness in the celebrity-besotted American culture of the late 20th century."

Frank Scheck of the New York Post: "Not nearly as funny as it was intended to be, Landscape of the Body is best appreciated as a time capsule of a more freewheeling theatrical era. While it provides frequent displays of Guare's mordant wit, it lacks the focus and creative discipline of his far superior House of Blue Leaves and Six Degrees of Separation. Greif's staging lacks the imagination to elevate the play's burlesque into a higher realm, but he's elicited wonderful performances by the two leads."

Marilyn Stasio of Variety:. "[Sherie Rene] Scott is one of those thesps who can do no wrong, and she is a radiant presence as the role model for a new, sexually liberated generation of women who thumb their noses at convention. Although Rosalie's joie de vivre is not much help to Betty, Scott's presence brightens the gloom of a joyless period.For all the outlandish things they are called upon to do in this existential fantasy, Taylor, Scott and the rest of the well-cast thesps are perfectly safe under Greif's sure-handed direction."

Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press: "John Guare's Landscape of the Body is a weird amalgam of murder mystery, musical theater, other-world fantasy and sordid family drama. Those ingredients make the play hard to categorize, but in the Signature Theater Company's strong revival, which opened Sunday, it becomes an oddly compelling, if occasionally puzzling, evening of theater."