THE ROSE TATTOO Previews

Previews start tonight September 19 and opens October 15. Previously played Williamstown.

Interested to hear comments.

I wasn’t a fan of this. It’s much too long and very tedious. Marisa Tomei did a great job but the material doesn’t hold up well.

I was there too.

yes it was a bit long. Got out around 10:45 but it did start about 8-10 min late.

i enjoyed the set but if you seating in first row, I believe you will get sand on you.

Marisa Tomei was very good. Specially milking comedic moments out of the script. She should do more comedy. I also enjoyed Emun Elliott. I wish play would cut first act n just be second act with them too.

they have actress sing Italian songs thru out show. And if anyone seen previous productions, I was wondering if that’s in script or added by director?

i could of done without the Kids running through stage at certain times. I saw no point to them.

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT





I saw last night's performance from a distant ACCESS10 seat (for which I am nonetheless grateful), and I also think that huge improvement during the preview period is likely. In addition, I enjoyed most of the interaction between Marisa Tomei and her two main male co-stars (playing her boyfriend, and her daughter's boyfriend).

Having said that, I would agree with some others that much of the show is currently TERRIBLE.

In an attempt to find out who was to blame for the many things I disliked, I read the play for my first time this morning. In most respects the production seems to stick close to the text, except for the deletion of two characters -- Doctor and Priest. The Doctor role is small, but the missing Priest (even when many of his lines have been given to other characters) may be a more significant loss. There is no central male 1950s Catholic authority figure for Serafina to be rebelling against anymore -- just a lot of neighbor women in an overly stylized sort of busybody chorus, wearing black and running in packs to superficially distinguish them from the lonely Serafina, who usually has on lighter (though not necessarily bright) colors.

Also, this (as I remember) totally female, singing and dancing chorus replaces the text's call for a lone male "Sicilian folk-singer" -- just one of many examples of cheesy vulgarity that bursts out of the current production, and another example of seemingly intentional minimizing of male roles.

Another questionable directorial touch is Tomei's strange, almost voodoo style dance moves, which I at least don't remember from the text (although black magic is certainly mentioned).

A few other points:

- annoying children constantly running around is part of the text, and the director has even toned down some of their antics;

- the text does feature a fairly large role for a goat, and I just wish they had either brought on a real one or let us imagine one, totally unseen. As it is, they have a small child running around with goat horns strapped to his head, which I found to be just about the worst choice I can remember for live-animal replacement;

- the set (many pink flamingos, projections of waves on the beach, a house without walls that appears more like part of a boardwalk trail) didn't work at all for me during the daytime scenes, but it was much more effective at night, with the many candles suggesting an apt, starry night.

- a scene toward the end that Williams characterizes as comic is played in this production melodramatically, with (to my ears) absurdly inappropriate "suspenseful" and "menacing" scoring -- then within moments, everything is light and breezy again. So, this production takes an already weak scene and makes it far worse -- instead of wondering whether Serafina's new boyfriend will accidentally, drunkenly jeopardize their new relationship, a reasonable viewer might well have been wondering if the boyfriend is a psycho killer.

- Last, in another example of subtlety vs. vulgarity (although, in this case, not one that bothered me), the text ends with Serafina running off happily toward her unseen new boyfriend's call; in this production, the show ends with Serafina jumping into the boyfriend's arms, very much like (if I recall) the last scene of An Officer and a Gentleman -- except instead of Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes we get some overly obvious Italian-American pop song (Louis Prima's Buona Sera, I think).

This was basically universally hated at Williamstown. Only reason it's on Broadway is because Trip Cullman has everything fall into his lap.

Hard to understand why this has transferred to Broadway. Saw it in Williamstown and was really disappointed. Acting was all over the place, and Tomei was not able to transcend the comic moments and the melodramatic ones successfully. Probably not one of Willams' best plays, but I was lucky enough to see this many years ago at City Center with Maureen Stapleton (the original Serafina) and Harry Guardino, and they were amazing.

Saw it this evening also.

For me, the direction was off. Even as slow as the first act felt, I was invested in the story. Had the pace been picked up, the end of Act I would have had a bit more of an impact. I also feel that the direction takes away from (Well, what I got from it) the children and the daughter (Who's accent is different). Act II picks up considerably. It is even funny at times. It was nice to see the comic side of Tomei in act II.

The performances were fine but there were times when there seemed to be dead space. And it didn't lend to the story.

The set is really nice (Although I cringed every time an adult actor exited down the wooden walkway.) I also enjoyed the music.

I sat house left row K in the orchestra second seat in from the outside aisle. Didn't really miss anything but there is a pole onstage that obstructs a bit and you see one end and half of the back of the bench.

The entire evening ran 2 and a half hours with the intermission.

Glad I saw it. It has a really good story. If I picked up on the things I was supposed to, it is a shame they didn't dawn on me until I left and the night air perked me up.

Was going to buy a magnet until I found out it was $15.00. I have gotten used to $10.00 but no way am I paying 15.

Just my random thoughts!

Updated On: 9/29/19 at 12:23 AM

I recently saw this play without knowing anything about it (didn't even realize it was a Tennessee Williams play). The plot itself was meh but I really enjoyed Marisa Tomei's performance! Superb acting especially the comedic moments.

I myself didn't really connect with the play but still enjoyed Marisa's performance.

Saw it Tuesday, not knowing anything about it going in. I found it to be a good play in a scattershot production, which sadly I must blame entirely on director Trip Cullman. It felt like each scene existed in a vacuum, there was little to no consistency in tone from one scene from the next. So it made it feel like sometimes Marisa Tomei, who is putting in a great performance, was completely out of place depending on the scene. (It also made some performers who I generally love also feel out of place, without the benefit of being able to perform in a later scene to justify their talents.) I do think the actress playing Rosa is suffering from the same problem of swimming through different scenes like Tomei, but as of Tuesday I just didn't feel she was able to deliver a consistent performance throughout the night, which I feel is to miscasting or misdirection with the actress. All that said, I'm glad I saw it to see this script, but it was just a roughly uneven show from start to finish, so when each act ended, I was like, "Okay, that happened."

BJR said: "Oof. Tomei remains a talent who has not had a production worthy of her.

I won’t say more because I’m sure they’re still working, but this ain’t it."

Maybe it’s karma..shes got quite a....erm, reputation..