A TOUCH OF THE POET (all Reviews welcome)- Page 2

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/24/05 at 1:56am

Okay, here is my review:

All in all, a wonderful production. Gorgeous sets, perfect costumes, devastating music - all the environmental pieces are just what they should be. The play itself is your typical Irish play - dark, depressing, full of the drink and dampness and poverty and want. I loved it.

All the supporting players are wonderful, special mention to Kathryn Meisle as Mrs. Harford - a role that could be endlessly boring in the wrong hands. She infuses life and humanity into every word.

Emily Bergl as Sara was the only actor who was ACTING. She seemed like a 3rd-year-drama student - all the wheels are turning, everything is thought through. She uses her hands and arms to do a lot of the acting for her, and it's distracting.

Dearbhla Molloy as Nora is, as always, a complete and utter inhabitor of the role. She is so brilliant that you can't imagine she's anything other than that role in real life.

Gabriel Byrne is also wonderful - he wrings everything out of Cornelius that there is to get. Cornelius is a complex character and very unlikable, and Byrne does a great job of finding all his dimensions.

Kitty Carlisle Hart sat right in front of me. I believe the theater was fairly full, but it could have been a lot of paper for all I know. I highly recommend this play and this production. It's running only through the end of January.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/24/05 at 2:10am

Thank you, thank you, Rath.

Great review, I can't wait to see it!

[Glebb]

Posted: 11/24/05 at 9:04pm

Thanks Rath and how fun to be near Ms. Hart.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/24/05 at 9:07pm

Peter Pan collar and all, Glebby!

[Glebb]

Posted: 11/24/05 at 9:17pm

LOL!

[alterego]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 8:38am

So good to read about something that doesn't mention Rent, Idina or Wicked!

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 10:19am

Some thoughts after seeing Poet.

Kathryn Meisle is exquisite as Mrs. Harford and manages to be both poised and elegantly ditsy at once. If you caught her role as the wife in Tartuffe at the Roundabout with Brian Bedford as the husband you'll remember the polish she brings to her roles.

As soon as Dearbhla Molloy gets down on her knees early in the play to scrub the floor you are already willing to fight for her liberation she is so invested and endearing.

I thought Emily Bergyl was charming in her role as the daughter, and it is a much different role than her classical role of Alais Capet, a young French princess and mistress to King Henry II that I saw a few years ago in the Roundabout's production of The Lion in Winter. She was born in England, raised around Chicago and was Phi Beta Kappa with a BA from Grinnell College in Theater and English.

Gabriel Byrne sets his Cornelius full of haughty vanity, preening in a mirror, quoting poetry of BYRON--which is really funny, because it seems Eugene O'Neill disliked Byron as much as I do. And when later Byrne sheds pretense and delivers the same Byron quote in a full Irish brogue it is hilarious! This is the first time I've heard this play and I couldn't help thinking back to the character of O'Neill's actor father in his most heart-rending and autobiographical piece, A Long Day's Journey Into Night. The bombast in both roles like masks or veneers that separate them from their humanity.

I thought the set was great, like a strange cavern, though when it was pointed out to me that it was supposed to be a New England inn, it bore no resemblance to the many of those I have seen, and I think that would have given the play a whole different feel and maybe been a better setting for what is largely a comedy. The cast truly finds a lot of humor in this piece and rollicks in it.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 7:51pm

Anyone else seen this yet? Planning to?

[grizzabella]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 9:03pm

I don't know if I'll get to see this, but after your review, Rath, I'd sure love to. It sounds like a truly stunning and worthwhile trip to the theatre. Thanks for the review.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 9:05pm

My pleasure. I hope you get to see it. I know there are discounts available.

[grizzabella]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 9:07pm

Thanks again. That's good to know - especially with Christmas coming.

[The Goat]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 10:45pm

Saw the Friday night performance, and while the play itself is no great shakes, I think Gabriel Byrne gives one of the most brilliant performances I have seen in some 30 years of theatre-going. Rathnait 62 is right--Byrne gets everything there is to get (and then some) from the role. Only Byron Jennings and Kathryn Meisle come anywhere near Byrne in their much-smaller roles. Overall, a solid production with a fabulous central performance.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 10:47pm

And Molloy, Goat?

[The Goat]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 11:30pm

Rathnait 62: Molloy was very good, but sometimes, during the performance I saw, she seemed not to be "in the moment," as they say, and I was noticing her acting technique rather than being compelled by the character. There were flashes when she was great, but not consistently, at least not that Friday night--she may have been having a semi-"off" night, which everyone has now and then.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/26/05 at 11:33pm

Very interesting.

What did you think of Bergl?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 7:30pm

Saw it this afternoon

It is a long play. Some of what is said is hard to understand due to Bryne's Irish ( as opposed to italian ) brogue

Having said that it is a very good piece of theater . Bryne, as always, is great & the rest of the cast is exceptional. The score by Sondheim really fits. The set was very good & it had the feel of the period. Bryne makes the show what it is . It dragged before he came on but whenever he is on stage it really holds your attention . O Neill is really a great playwright & seeing one of his works for the first time is a treat. It is kind of like seeing a classic movie for the first time. Bryne deserves the Tony this time especially since he should have gotten it for " A Moon For The Misbegotten"

I had never seen this work by O Neill so it was new to me. The theater ( Studio 54 ) is in horrible shape. The plasterwork near the procenium & parts of the procenium itself are missing. The main chandelier was never replaced. It is a georgeous theater in need of renovation

Updated On: 11/27/05 at 07:30 PM

[The Goat]

Posted: 11/27/05 at 9:29pm

Rathnait62: Well, I'm going to have to agree with those folks who found Bergl not quite up to the task of playing Sara Melody at this point in the run. To get the most out of this character, she needs to be played so that the audiences senses two or three layers of emotion working simultaneously much of the time (pride, shame, frustration, bitterness, disillusionment, love, etc.). Bergl, perhaps because it is still very early in the run, generally plays things in a single emotional register, even in her big scenes, or abruptly jumps between emotions. Once or twice--especially when she plays those intense scenes with Byrne in the second half of the show--I could see evidence that she can offer a more complex rendering of the character--maybe with time.
Updated On: 11/27/05 at 09:29 PM

[BigGuy]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 10:07am

I saw the play Thursday night, December 1.

O'Neill's plays are not laugh out loud entertainment. I have never lost myself in mindlessness seeing one of his plays, but fall into self-reflection. Just like when I saw Kevin Spacey in "The Iceman Cometh", "A Touch of the Poet" makes me feel disgust at failures in my own life and self-recognition of what a boor I can be -- vis-a-vis Con in 'Poet. Some of the writing, though prose, is so poetic, so perfect, that I feel guilty that I have not read the script before I've seen the show.

Yes, this is worthwhile to see and the play stays with you afterwards.

The cast is very good across the board. Kathryn Meisle was excellent as Deborah, the unseen Stephen's mother. I was not really conscious of Emily Bergl acting, as some wrote here. Gabriel Byrne's Cornelius is a late stage alcoholic, from time to time drifting into paranoia, and Byrne portrays the posture, hand gestures, and grimaces seen in late stage alcoholics.

Cornelius infatuation with his uniform reminded me of F.W. Murnau's "The Last Laugh" (1924) -- here's a reference to roger ebert on that
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000305/REVIEWS08/3050301/1023

The set of the inn is huge and a bit foreboding, but it works well for this show. Con wouldn't have had the money to own an inn as big as what we see on stage. The costumes and lighting all seem of a piece with the story and work well. The uilleann pipes -- the live music onstage -- and the prerecorded music really helped set the mood.

This morning I searched for reveiews of other productions and found this from 1958:
New York Journal-American, October 3, 1958
O'Neill Again Proves He's Incomparable
By JOHN MCCLAIN

“A Touch of the Poet,” which opened at the handsomely renovated Helen Hayes Theatre last night is not one of Eugene O’Neill’s great plays, but even as one of his lesser ones it proves again that he is majestically alone in the American theatre. One is apt to forget his extraordinary talent: the great gift of drawing characters in depth, then pitting them one against the other will all nerves exposed.

This latest of his posthumous works to be offered in America is first of all a searing character study: There is the cruel and sodden ex-officer in the British Army who is operating a tavern in the vicinity of Boston, circa 1828. He lives in a drunken dream of past glories and a gentility to which he was not born.

There is his wife, the adoring biddy he plucked from the peat bogs of his native Ireland. Her fierce devotion remains constant through all his tirades against the immigrant poor and the rising commercial aristocracy of the New World, neither of which class will accept him.

There is his daughter, resentful of his swaggering deceit, yet strangely possessed of the same pride which provokes it.

And there is the mother of a young man whose roots are deep in America, who is fighting for the survival of her son in a new society which has little use for the poetic postures of the Old World.

Finally, there is the young man. He never appears onstage, but he is the voice of a thoughtful and awakened new land.

These characters are created with intensity and full dimension, and they immediately catch us. When they are finally brought to grips we are transported by the conflict between father and daughter, his insane reaction to the patronizing Yankee mother and his abortive attempt to engage her husband in a duel.

In a gentler mood we are moved by the off-stage romance of the daughter and the poetic young man, the unreasoning love of the mother for both her husband and daughter. And the final moments in which the father, at long last, gives up his losing battle.

That it is not a much greater play is due to the fact that the people themselves, however accurately painted, are not very sympathetic.

The father is an impossible fake and a bore, the mother is just plain stupid, the daughter is humorless and nagging.

But against this you have the author’s magnificent skill in the construction of scenes like the one in which the daughter is trying to tell her mother that she has that night been deflowered while the mother, reverting to type, is only preoccupied with what she hopes her husband has done to the police. Them dirty rats!

[zelda]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 11:55am

As I am O'Neill fan through and through I loved the show and loved everything but the set. The set was to much...too big ...to flat. and needed just a bit more levels to make the pictures more interesting but the acting superb, the lighting wonderfully sensitive onstage (now if 54 would gel down the audience lights instead of blinding us the experience would be nearly perfect.
This is a must see masterclass work

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 2:03pm

Thanks BigGuy, for the long and thoughtful review. I find I have a different interpretation of the characters than in your statement

"The father is an impossible fake and a bore, the mother is just plain stupid, the daughter is humorless and nagging."

You see I think O'Neill believes the father's unhappiness is caused by his pretentious facade, which separates him from the people around him. And when he gives it up, he is freed to be of the people around him and to love and be loved by them, even changing his political affiliation in the process. He seems to have become a whole man.

I find the mother clings to her faith and that is what keeps her going. Her faith in loyalty to her husband and the choice she has made. She does use a lot of denial to keep going, too.

Rather than being humorless and nagging, I found the daughter, with the impudence of youth, willing to challenge her surroundings and choose her future.

I found Byrne's transformation as the father and the eventual confrontation with his daughter to be the most fascinating part of the play.
Updated On: 12/2/05 at 02:03 PM

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 2:54pm

I saw it while in New York. Here is the review I entered on the thread I started with other reviews of "...Purple", "Sweeney" and "Five Course Love" along with "Poet".

A Touch of the Poet 11/17 - Let me start by saying that the pace of the show is quicker than I expected. It is listed as running 2 hours and 40 minutes. Last night's performance let out at just about 10:30pm. The story - I walked in knowing nothing of the story except for the synopsis of the show I had read. Suffice it to say, this is a story of a slightly dysfunctional family. This dysfuntion is brought on by the father (Byrne) who is living in the past. We were all in discussion about his past when we left the show. I was sitting in the mezz. and unfortunately with the Irish accents the actors used, some dialouge was lost. But not enough to not understand what was going on. An aside...for the time period that this show takes place, the car horns and subway rumblings under the theatre were a bit of a distraction. At one point during the show as they were waiting for Cornelius Melody (Byrne) to return from his confrontation with the father of the son his daughter Sara (Emily Bergl) was taking care of, a blare of car horns went off and, for me, it was a bit of a clash of time periods. Act one, of course, sets up the action in act 2. I don't want to give too much away as there was a discussion about the battle Cornelius fought in and if he did in fact participate in that battle. But the main "action" has to do with a man we never see that Sara is taking care of and plans to marry. There is a "plot" to get money from the man's family for the marriage that backfires, so to speak, and sets off the action in the second act. However, this is not what the play is really about. As for the performances, they were pretty solid with one exception. That exception was miss Bergl. Her accent constantly slipped in and out. At points she was speaking clearly without an Irish accent and then suddenly it got so thick that you almost could not understand her. Dearbhla Molloy turned in a fine performance as Nora Melody, the wife of Cornelius and Sara's mother. Byron Jennings also turned in a fine performance as Jamie Cregan Cornelius' whom we find out fought in this battle with Cornelius and is also a friend of his. Mr. Byrne, of course, has the most challenging role of all as Cornelius. In my opinion, a fine performance. This character runs a small gammut of emotional changes. He could have played this as a wilder crazier man but it is being played with restraint. This, I am sure, is Doyle's choice and a good one. Although, somewhere in the middle of the second act, his performance did slightly get away from him. A number of people around me noticed that during the curtain call Mr. Byrne did not step forward to receive applause. He walked onstage with the cast, standing slightly behind them, took his bows and was gone. He did not have a very positive look on his face. He seemed rather annoyed and distracted. The first thing out of a number of peoples mouths was that it was evident that he was not happy with his performance. I would say that this stemmed from the second act. The actors also stumbled a bit on their lines. They have until December 11th to tighten this play up. I am sure once this happens, it will be an even better evening at the theatre. In my opinion even though their performances were good, the chemistry between the three leads, (Byrne, Bergl and Molloy) is what needs the most work.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 3:22pm

Actual, Ms. Bergl as the daughter is supposed to turn her brogue on and off, as that is what is called for in the script. She puts the brogue on at times to annoy her father, who wants her to present herself as being of a more genteel class than the peasant Irish.

[wexy]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 3:35pm

I'm going tonight,will report back. I met Emily Bergl, the last time she was at the Roundabout at one the post play parties, shes a nice person but I'll see how she does tonight.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 3:44pm

Going December 11.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 3:59pm

Thank you for the clarification. It makes a lot of sense now. And looking back, I seem to remember that she did it when she was annoyed with him. I will share this with the people I saw it with.