A risk-taking Blethlyn puts the mother into "Night..."

[Auggie27]

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.

Updated On: 11/7/04 at 07:52 PM

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 7:57pm

playbill had pics up from the 1st preview and then a few from later ones. in the original pics, edie's hair was her natural style like on the playbill. in the new ones, they have her wearing a wig. what was she wearing when u saw it?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 8:08pm

Falco's wig is actually most effective. It isn't intended for (up-close) photos, and looks strange in pix. On stage, it transforms her. She's quite a chameleon as an actor, and though I toute Blethlyn, Edie's work is most impressive. She finds an inner core of anger, perhaps needed to demonstrate a force of will equal to the powerful Blethlyn's. She in no way lets the play down (though much of the acid-tongued humor in Bates'take is gone) -- she merely serves it very differently.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 8:31pm

A friend saw this last week and had a similar reaction -- that the focus of the play seemed to have shifted to Blethyn who was outstanding (though her southern accent was all over the place) and he thought that Falco hadn't quite found the character yet. I'll be curious what I think when I see it in a week or two.

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 9:14pm

excellent review, thank you for that. I saw the 3rd preview and was too emotionally affected to really write a fair review. But I agree with what you've written, Edie is an amazing actor, but Brenda just takes control of the evening.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 10:20pm

I saw this today, and from the 5th row, Falco's wig looks awful. Very obvious. Maybe it reads better farther back. I hope so.

I will agree with what's been said - this is Blethyn's play. Ironically, since this country has the attention span of a flea and does not remember her brilliant performance of just a few years ago in "Secrets and Lies", she does not get entrance applause but Falco, having a much more recent dose of American fame, does. However, Blethyn gives a tour-de-force performance, where Falco is just not connected. I kept trying to see that as a character choice, but finally had to resign myself to the disappointing fact that she just isn't there. Blethyn deserves much better.

As far as her accent, Brits notoriously have a difficult time with American accents. Frankly, Swoosie Kurtz's indecisive British accent in FROZEN was much more noticeable to me.

Off to find a Brenda Blethyn icon - she earned herself a devoted fan today.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 10:26pm

I can't wait to see this show - I'm a HUGE fan of the play, but I work all 8 performances at good old BOMBAY DREAMS, so I have to take off work one day for it. I just want to see if anyone else agrees with me on this: I would find the play MUCH more effective if the daughter was much younger, like 18-mid 20's, rather than 30's. Her being closer in age to her mother makes it less effective for me, does anyone else think this?

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 10:31pm

No, I actually think it's much more effective that she's lived as long as she has. Her realization that it's probably not going to get any better is credible in her late 30's with a divorce and grown child where it wouldn't be at 18 - 20.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/7/04 at 11:03pm

For me it would be more devastating if she were younger - who knows if things could get better, and she's just giving up. It's more sad to think of the amazing life this girl could have had, not how much her life sucks and now she's dead.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 9:29am

You don't think her life could still get better in her 30's? Come on.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 9:54am

Mesdames Bates and Falco both play Jessee as 40ish -- surely 40 is anyone's definition of (still) young!

Not to sound nitpicky, but I'm fascinated that someone is a huge fan of the play, yet doesn't see how Jesse's issues are intrinsically tied to her very specific history: The woman has raised a troubled teenaged/young adult son, weathered a failed marriage -- all by the still viable age of 40. A play about a 20 year old suicide is a wildly different story, not remotely the subject matter of Norman's canvas. Part of the poignance is Jesse's assumption that she has sufficient information after a life half-lived to make this irreversable decision.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 12:10pm

Auggie, you shill, you. What a great review. I fell in love with Blethyn when she ripped my heart out in SECRETS AND LIES, on of the best performances ever caught on film. I'm glad to hear she shines in this production.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 12:15pm

Sueleen, if you're a Blethyn fan, and you live in NY or are planning a trip, you MUST put this on your list.

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 12:25pm

I went in with high expectations for Falco, having been blown away by her performances in Side Man and Frankie and Johnny. But she doesn't click here until the last five minutes of the play. By then, that's certainly not enough to pull you into her corner. Whereas Blethyn has you there within the first ten minutes. I hope this gets her back to our shores on stage more frequently. She's got a fan in me...

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 2:06pm

I know Sueleen, I've waited to become a shill, and it's happened when I least expected it. To continue the interpretation debate...

Is it posssible that this is the NIGHT MOTHER for the times we live in? That the character of Jesse simply is too "...already gone..."as Mama describes her, for us to care as deeply? I found myself re-evaluating my empathetic responses to Jesse. Oddly enough, not until she got to the speech about seeing a photo of herself as a baby -- wherein she says I'm the person that baby became -- did I feel my heart pricked by her pain. I'm not sure it's Falco's disconnect from the role that keeps us a arms length so long. The mother is presented as a life force -- a tacky, selfish, me-first one, but a life force, nevertheless. There's something about Thelma's embrace of the ordinary that makes her wining--and yes, life-affirming. When Blethyn's Thelma screams, "I don't like food! I like candy! And maybe ... tuna fish!" I found the woman almost startlingly endearing. Jesse says she'd stay if she liked one food -- rice pudding or corn flakes. Thelma quickly chimes in with "well rice puddin' is good!" What's not to love? Whereas the empty, used up Jesse is almost past pain.

The question is, in today's world (don't worry, I won't say "post 9/11") ... is NUMB really a quality we can be sufficiently moved by? Yes, her life is wasted if she dies -- but it almost becomes an intellectual sense of waste, not an emotional one. Whereas we care DEEPLY about how Mama will ever get past this awful night, her dead daughter in the next room. Maybe it's me -- I am 20 years older, that much closer to Thelma's age ... and some days, I know rice pudding is a gift.

Updated On: 11/8/04 at 02:06 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 2:09pm

In the script, the film, and apparently (because I haven't seen another production of the play) every other production of this play, Jessie is the one you feel for. Not Thelma.

I felt nothing for Falco's Jessie. Not sadness, not annoyance, not a thing. Just - nothing. Whereas Blethyn's Thelma is a three-dimensional character - a real person. And that was reflected in the rest of the audience by when the sniffling and tissue-rustling occurred.

I felt that Falco was doing a cold reading of the script. And not a very good one at that.

Updated On: 11/8/04 at 02:09 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 2:20pm

I hear you Raith. I saw the Kathy Bates Jesse twice in 83, and each time left deeply shaken by her sense of tragedy.

But if Thelma is truly lovable in her own way -- someone we want to spend time with -- we do feel she's the "victim" of an act that leaves her alone and guilty. And let's face it, this character will never get over this death in her home, no matter how much Jesse claims otherwise. If Thelma's empathy quotient is ratcheted up, the play just tilts in her favor. All two character plays have a casting-specific impact. (DRIVING MISS DAISY, though we 3 characters, is really a two-hander, and was a wildly different experience for me with the extraordinary Jessica Tandy being driven.

I would posit that even if Falco's Jesse grows -- and I've no doubt she's grown since she began -- this production's values may be set, all do to what Brenda brings to the mix. That strange alchemy of actor and role is mysterious, and in this case, has "reinterpreted" a play perhaps without anyone being aware. Though Falco's quick return to b'way after FRANKIE was the "event" here ... remember, for a while, there was talk of Cameron Manheim (THE PRACTICE) playing Jesse. But I don't she'd necessarily be more winning that Falco up against Blethyn's life force.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/8/04 at 2:25pm

She's going to have to grow about 1000%. There's a difference between choosing to be a disconnected character, and actually being disconnected from the character.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:18pm

Okay, how interesting is this - Falco speaking at a recent press junket:

"Playing Jessie is a departure for me. She is not a wife or mother and she's not ethnically or socially specific."

Jessie's not a mother? Huh? She really IS disconnected...

[GirlfriendFromCanada]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 5:34pm

Blethyn made the show for me. Jessie was practically a supporting character in comparison. I didn't even think to wonder why it wasn't Jessie's story I was witnessing, it just seemed so natural to be so much more invested in Thelma. I was very impressed with Brenda Blethyn's work, much more so than Edie Falco's (though she did a fine job as well). The reason why the end hit so hard was not because of being invested in Jessie, it came from being so invested in Thelma.

As for the wig, I was in the back of the orchestra, and it looked ok. Not great, but I don't think it was supposed to look great.

I spent some trying to figure out who Falco's speaking voice reminded me of (accent plus sound). I couldn't grasp it, though it was entirely familiar, and since I don't watch the Sopranos, she wasn't reminding me of herself.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 6:37pm

Boy Rathnait, you seem to have a real case against Falco. In the interview, I think she very likely meant that the character is not presented doing any present-tense mothering chores; son Ricky is long gone. The character isn't remotely maternal, which is part of the case she makes for dying early before Ricky reveals more of himself, positive or negative. Jesse is so cut off from her only child, she reduces her legacy to a ring so that he might buy a meal or some good dope.

I raised the issue of Blethyn's comparable strengths to point of the difference balance, and how it alters the interpretation. You're entitled to your take, but I don't really feel it's Edie bad, Brenda good. It's about focus and emotional impact.

Updated On: 11/10/04 at 06:37 PM

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 11/13/04 at 10:24am

Saw 'NIGHT MOTHER last night, and I have to say all my sympathy was with Blethlyn. Falco - surprisingly - left me cold. She seemed surly and petulant throught. I never WANTED to understand why she was so intent on suicide, and was more compelled by the Mother's flailing attempts to realize exactly how and why she failed her daughter.

I frankly couldn't wait for Falco to pull the trigger.