#1
Posted: 11/7/04 at 7:52pm
I'm a major fan of the Norman play, and find this production, a few ham-fisted directorial flaws aside, a very powerful new take on the text, mostly due to the extraordinary, dangerous work of Blethlyn. Some actors really do work without a net; Ms. Blethlyn is one of them.
The play was originally a tour-de-force for Kathy Bates' Jesse. Anne Pitoniak was real, and subtle, and altogether wonderful as Thelma. Yet everyone remembers how Bates quietly took control of the material and made Jesse's journey the dark arc of the evening. Now, in this interpretation, a case might be made that the play really is "Mama's." Rather than a story about a woman who commits suicide, it feels like a life-altering moment in a mother's life, as her child opts to include her in her decision to kill herself.
Major risks are taken. Blethen starts off startlingly close to caricature -- the galumphing flat-footed walk, the odd accent that hovers over several red states without landing on any southern locale in particular. She's funny, and goofy-big--almost in Carol Burnette's "Mama's Family" terrority. But that's part of her overall design--to my thinking, a brilliant one. As she must go through the Kubler-Ross scale, hearing her daughter's plan and then watching her carry it, out harrowingly tied to domestic chores, Blethlyn gradually, movingly strips away all the layers of "eccentric personality" until the simplest core of this woman--truly, a loving mother after all--is all that's left. She plays Thelma as a blathering narcissist -- someone who requires Jesse's constant attention to feel the center of things. And this take, easily in interpretive consort with the Norman character on paper, gives the play a new life. We are at first amused, and put off by, Mama's loud, brassy self-absorption, again, played almost as sit-com vaudeville. At one point Jesse tells her mom she's basically happy, and Blethlyn has taken that idea and run with it. We see how much Thelma enjoys being a kind of entertainer in her small rural universe--and then we see how how her daughter's decision to end her life cuts her to the quick, and renders her tragic in the Greek sense.
There's a moment late in the performance when Jesse goes off stage to gather up the random "gifts" she's prepared to leave. Left alone, Blethlyn must pick up the contents of her manicure box, spilled in an earlier moment of childish, self-indulgent outrage. As the full weight of Jesse's intended actions hits her, the full weight of Norman's play rests on Blethlyn's shoulders. Her pain is so accute and immediate and raw, it's almost unwatchable. As fine as Edie Falso is -- and she is quite good, throughout (never better than when her mother tells her she's "...already gone..." and we truly SEE that in Falco's hollow eyes and empty face) -- ultimately, this is Blethlyn's triumph.
Which makes it Marsha Norman's new one. Anyone thinking of staying away from this production because they've seen the play should think otherwise. Though Meyer has problems with the staging, particularly in the tentative first 20 minutes, overtaxing Falco and letting the pacing flag, it's still quite a rare bit of discovery, and a fresh way to revisit a great American play.
The play was originally a tour-de-force for Kathy Bates' Jesse. Anne Pitoniak was real, and subtle, and altogether wonderful as Thelma. Yet everyone remembers how Bates quietly took control of the material and made Jesse's journey the dark arc of the evening. Now, in this interpretation, a case might be made that the play really is "Mama's." Rather than a story about a woman who commits suicide, it feels like a life-altering moment in a mother's life, as her child opts to include her in her decision to kill herself.
Major risks are taken. Blethen starts off startlingly close to caricature -- the galumphing flat-footed walk, the odd accent that hovers over several red states without landing on any southern locale in particular. She's funny, and goofy-big--almost in Carol Burnette's "Mama's Family" terrority. But that's part of her overall design--to my thinking, a brilliant one. As she must go through the Kubler-Ross scale, hearing her daughter's plan and then watching her carry it, out harrowingly tied to domestic chores, Blethlyn gradually, movingly strips away all the layers of "eccentric personality" until the simplest core of this woman--truly, a loving mother after all--is all that's left. She plays Thelma as a blathering narcissist -- someone who requires Jesse's constant attention to feel the center of things. And this take, easily in interpretive consort with the Norman character on paper, gives the play a new life. We are at first amused, and put off by, Mama's loud, brassy self-absorption, again, played almost as sit-com vaudeville. At one point Jesse tells her mom she's basically happy, and Blethlyn has taken that idea and run with it. We see how much Thelma enjoys being a kind of entertainer in her small rural universe--and then we see how how her daughter's decision to end her life cuts her to the quick, and renders her tragic in the Greek sense.
There's a moment late in the performance when Jesse goes off stage to gather up the random "gifts" she's prepared to leave. Left alone, Blethlyn must pick up the contents of her manicure box, spilled in an earlier moment of childish, self-indulgent outrage. As the full weight of Jesse's intended actions hits her, the full weight of Norman's play rests on Blethlyn's shoulders. Her pain is so accute and immediate and raw, it's almost unwatchable. As fine as Edie Falso is -- and she is quite good, throughout (never better than when her mother tells her she's "...already gone..." and we truly SEE that in Falco's hollow eyes and empty face) -- ultimately, this is Blethlyn's triumph.
Which makes it Marsha Norman's new one. Anyone thinking of staying away from this production because they've seen the play should think otherwise. Though Meyer has problems with the staging, particularly in the tentative first 20 minutes, overtaxing Falco and letting the pacing flag, it's still quite a rare bit of discovery, and a fresh way to revisit a great American play.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 11/7/04 at 07:52 PM
