FESTEN Reviews

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 6:35pm

Talkin Broadway is Mixed-to-Negative with spoilers:

"A flood of black is sweeping across the stage of the Music Box, threatening to wipe away anything and everything that dares deny its existence. The real and imaginary ghosts controlling it won't be ignored, and they can't find their rest until everyone onstage and in the house is unsettled by the macabre message they bear.

Alas, those spirits are destined to be as restless as the audience at Festen, the fitful stage adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg and Mogens Rukov's 1998 Danish film of the same name. Adaptor David Eldridge and director Rufus Norris have tried to give those portentous poltergeists a permanent home in everyone's mind by presenting a play that might satisfy those who prefer their horror any number of ways: blatant, subtle, deeply personal, or bitterly ironic. But in trying to do too much, they've accomplished too little.

It's the missed opportunities that depress more than anything else in this potentially powerful play. The solid roster of actors, numbering some major talents culled from the stage and screen, should have no trouble puncturing the mind and heart when set upon a fine, theatrical story that wouldn't be out of place in the canons of Tennessee Williams or William Inge. Yet there's a distance between performers and material, and performers and audience, that prevents this tale about the public unmasking of a child molester from catching fire.
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Festen recalls last season's Democracy, Michael Frayn's play about the political machinations surrounding West German chancellor Willy Brandt. Frayn's intriguing espionage thriller was a hit at London's National Theatre, but was sabotaged in the U.S. by a cast that couldn't find in the highly British text and production enough American analogues to allow the story to ring true for us.

That problem is even more greatly exacerbated here by a cast operating in so many different styles, it's as if someone is operating a remote control every time a new line is spoken. Superb stage actors like Larry Bryggman (as the father) and Michael Hayden (the secret-shattering son) find in the lines the proper style and attitude for communicating their complex, conflicting emotions. Screen stars like Julianna Margulies and Jeremy Sisto, as the other two surviving siblings, shine only in the miniature moments that force them to internalize as thoroughly as they might before a camera; they affect occasionally, but too often lack the properly detailed size needed to fill a theater. Ali MacGraw, as the possibly complicit mother, speaks and moves as if auditioning to be a model at an auto show; she's a deflating non-presence in a role that should provide firm anchoring for the fractured family.
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this Festen has a group of people, and actors, who aren't believably bound together by anything. This sadly subverts their ability to realistically convince us of the battle that can erupt between those determined to keep quiet and those who believe wounds are only healed by speaking out."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Festen.html

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 6:37pm

I thought it sounded intriguing, the story...

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 6:38pm

"Ali MacGraw, as the possibly complicit mother, speaks and moves as if auditioning to be a model at an auto show; she's a deflating non-presence in a role that should provide firm anchoring for the fractured family."


Perhaps we could have a contest for meanest critique of Ali McGraw. Voting doesn't close, however, until John Simon's review comes out Friday.

[Calvin]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 6:46pm

If we're including John Simon, it won't be much of a contest. But who knows? Perhaps Simon will be so distracted looking for homosexual subtext that he'll go easy on her.

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 6:48pm

If that's all John Simon wants - I can't wait for his Threepenny review.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 6:49pm

He also has a weakness for beautiful -- in his judgment -- women and the 67 year old McGraw, despite being incompetent as an actress, is certainly stunning to look at.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 7:30pm

Broadway.com is Positive:

"The built-in structure of the sit-down meal, with its endless courses and its formal toasts rung in by the tap of flatware on a water glass, gives the play its irresistible, almost dream-like shape. Even when the formality of the proceedings gives way to a half-clothed conga-line bacchanal, there's something
inevitable and right about that, too. Indeed, nearly every major exchange of this drawn-out psychodrama happens across a long dinner table, lit bleakly from the sides by Jean Kalman; the stark overall design is by Ian MacNeil. Enough horror, humor and suspense is conveyed by these scenes of expert ensemble playing that we barely notice the adaptation's one shortcoming—a slackness in the intimate tete-a-tetes, which were as important in the film as the public face-offs.

And we can almost forgive a few performance missteps. Sisto, for one, seems to think that a messed-up character calls for sloppy acting; Margulies fares better in a similar role, bringing a kind of fierce blur to Helene's rage. McGraw, her hair piled into a stiff beehive, has a deer-in-the-headlights cluelessness that makes Else more pathetic than she ought to be, while Bryggman, though relatively sharp and always precise, doesn't carry an ounce of physical threat.

Through it all Hayden, as a wronged son seeking something tougher and purer than revenge, gives the season's most riveting performance, seething quietly, boiling over, then reaching a kind of tragic peace. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it seems only fitting to notice, with Easter around the corner, that one reason Festen gets such an extraordinary, almost subconscious grip on our imagination is that it's a death-and-transfiguration story. And by play's end, the tomb is empty."

http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=527293

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 7:31pm

Margo, I certainly hope you intend to post EVERY review, good and bad, that is written. I wouldn't want anyone to accuse you of bias if there is one positive review for McGraw and you chose to ignore it!

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 8:01pm

I agree with Sueleen. If there's one fan of the MacGraw Maw, I want to savor the critic's taste.

The Broadway.com review saying Hayden's giving the season's most riveting performance struck me as odd indeed.

But there's something about this show -- thanks no doubt to this director's ingenuity at times -- that grabs some people early, so that they root for it to improve, and dearly hope it might. I remember feeling oddly on the fence at the intermission, remember the London reviews, thinking a really stunning act two migh be awaiting us that steamrolls over the act one misgivings. I was wrong. Act one actually seemed far more accomplished than the play's loopy attempt at catharsis.

Updated On: 4/9/06 at 08:01 PM

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 8:10pm

I have lost all respect for Broadway.com

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 8:46pm

After the first act I was like, there better be more interesting surprises to make it a passably quasi-interesting evening. And when they came, I was sadly dissappointed.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 8:56pm

As much as I bemoan Brantley's narcissistic style, I must admit I'm awaiting his words on this one. (And I know -- we've already heard he's composed a pan, via the ITunes thingy, or whatever it is.)

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:02pm

Yes...Im awaiting the rest of them as well (especially Brantley) - cause I just did not like this play. It just doesn't mesh and work here for a few different reasons.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:10pm

i feel like i'm the only one who enjoyed Festen and the only one who didn't enjoy Well. i think there is something wrong with me...

i'm glad there is at least one positive review for this show!

[Piazzaslight]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:31pm

WithoutATrace: I saw FESTEN last night and loved it. You are most definately not alone in that category.

I have yet to see WELL, and don't think I will, so I can't provide anything on that. Either way, you aren't alone in that opinion about FESTEN.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:35pm

Here's Brantley (Mixed-to-Negative):

"Here, at last, was a play inspired by a film that was unconditionally and triumphantly theatrical. And when I heard that "Festen" was Broadway-bound, I figured that Mr. Norris's mise-en-scène was pretty much guaranteed to work the same magic once more. After all, it wasn't the individual performers I remembered from London; it was the landscape of shadow and light that defined their characters' fears.

There is a lesson to be learned from such assumptions: Never, ever underestimate the role of actors in any theatrical work. In appearance, the Broadway "Festen" is as unnervingly stark as it ever was. But its darkness is not the same irresistible force. How could it be when the characters onstage are no longer in thrall to it?

Embodied by an eclectic roster of the famous and demifamous from screen (Ali MacGraw, in her Broadway debut), television (Julianna Margulies and Jeremy Sisto) and stage (Larry Bryggman and Michael Hayden), the unhappy family of "Festen" now registers the approximate tension and testiness of vain people suffering from a collective bad-hair day. It's as if some well-meaning, misguided grown-up had walked in and switched on the lights in a blacked-out nursery that had been set up, with considerable care, as a spookhouse.
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What sets Mr. Eldridge's script apart from the usual dysfunction-of-the-week movie is their use of Danish rituals of revelry — the toasts, speeches, songs and games that become perverse conduits for confrontation and evasion. The childishness of silly commemorative ditties, of anecdotes about youthful misbehavior and of bouncy physical activity all suddenly, in this context, seem sinister instead of joyous or innocent. A sense of poisoned high spirits perfumes the air like a noxious laughing gas. And the titters that erupt from the audience arise from discomfort in the presence of a cruel absurdity.

At least, that should be the way the show works. But the painful uneasiness of the cast members here seems to emanate less from their characters' awareness that something's rotten in this home in Denmark than from the sense of performers adrift in uncharted seas.
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Yet for you to believe, as you are asked to, in the existence of the many rooms and corridors of the hotel (part of the family business) where "Festen" takes place, it is essential that the cast generate an unfailing confidence in knowing the geography of the place. And confidence is in short supply among this ensemble. Lines are recited dutifully and sometimes with tremulous emotion. But seldom does their delivery seem inevitably shaped by the tics and jealousies and terrors of individual characters.

Michael and Helene, Christian's brother and sister, are meant to be, in different ways, eternally on the edge of breakdown. Yet as Mr. Sisto and Ms. Margulies portray them, they seem more agitated than anguished. Ms. MacGraw, who became famous as a film star of great beauty and winceably self-conscious acting, still looks beautiful and acts winceably.

As the principal adversaries of "Festen," Mr. Hayden and Mr. Bryggman come closer to suggesting the interior shadows of their characters. Although Mr. Hayden's theatrical plumminess of diction undercuts his credibility, he exudes the affecting aura of a man emerging by degrees from a life-long state of shock. Mr. Bryggman, a veteran of Shakespeare, makes adroit use of the premise that one may smile and smile and still be a villain.

But aside from Christian's first birthday toast, which Mr. Hayden does very well by, the big moments that are supposed to generate shivers and gasps feel lukewarm and unfulfilled. And you never sense the damning connectedness of these people. The one relationship I really believed in was that of Christian and his dead twin. It's only when Christian looks at his brother's little girl (alternately played by Meredith Lipson and Ryan Simpkins), who clearly reminds him of his beloved sister, that ghosts walk in "Festen." Otherwise, this empty house is still waiting to be haunted. "




http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/theater/reviews/10fest.html

Updated On: 4/9/06 at 09:35 PM

[Thesbijean]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:37pm

I was hoping he would trash it.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:54pm

No surprises here.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 9:58pm

The AP is mostly Negative:

"As one of the main characters says midway through "Festen," the English import based on a Danish film that has arrived on Broadway with an American cast: "Welcome to this curious birthday party."

"Curious" is not the half of it. Think "unlikely," "unsavory" and, at times, "unwatchable" because of some flagrant miscasting. In other words, "Festen," playing at the Music Box Theatre, is no cause for celebration.
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"Festen" has opened in New York carrying a suitcase full of good reviews from London, so expectations were high. Yet its homegrown cast, which features such actors as Larry Bryggman, Michael Hayden, Julianna Margulies, Jeremy Sisto and, in her Broadway debut, Ali MacGraw, proves to be a handicap.

They bring a variety of open, all-American acting styles (and in the case of MacGraw, not much nuance at all) to a parade of Scandinavian characters who are pencil-thin in depth. Only Hayden, as the deeply troubled Christian, manages to make something out of the meager details that Eldridge's script provides.

MacGraw, her hair swept back and wearing a rich red gown, looks regal. But her role is minuscule and so is the impression she makes, particularly in an ineffective second-act speech in which she chastises her three children.

Margulies, the remaining sister, seems to be playing a brassy, tough-minded New York career woman. And Sisto, best known for portraying the demented Billy Chenoweth on HBO's acclaimed "Six Feet Under," does an even more hyper version of that role here. He portrays the volatile younger brother who browbeats his own wife and hurls racial insults at his sister's black boyfriend.

Bryggman, too, a fine actor in such plays as "Proof" and the recent revival of "Twelve Angry Men," appears stymied by the play's most enigmatic part, the father. It's almost a passive role and Bryggman is never able to bring the man to life.
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Director Rufus Norris, who oversaw the London production, does the same here with sporadic, often confusing results. Scenes overlap, often taking place simultaneously on the same set, as the histrionics are ramped up to highest degree of agitation.

The production design, sets by Ian MacNeil, costumes by Joan Wadge and lighting by Jean Kalman, has a simplicity that the rest of the evening lacks. A long dining-room table glides effortlessly from the back of the stage to the front with surprising grace. It's about the only note of tranquility you will find in this overwrought dysfunctional-family melodrama."
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/wire/sns-ap-theater-festen,0,5262926.story?coll=sns-ap-entertainment-headlines

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 10:18pm

Now these are more like what I expected. Brantley still doesn't mind the play, just now see's its flaws with poor casting choices (although, I though JM was the strongest in her role).

And the Ali McGraw disdane grows!

[bythesword84]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 10:43pm

I just got home from the opening tonight and I agree with Thesbijean. When intermission came I actually said "That was it?" There was nothing left but hope that it would have something really interesting happen in the second act.

Still, there wasn't and it was the most uneventful play I've seen in a long time. The one performance that I actually thought stood out was Michael Hayden's Christian. Everyone else was just mediocre but I thought he did a lot and that really his character was the only one that managed to become three dimensional.

As for everyone panning Ali McGraw, lets be serious here, she deserves every pan she gets. Granted her role is small, but the fact that she only has one substantial speech should mean that she can handle it. I felt like I was watching cardboard.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 10:48pm

Theatremania is a Rave:

"If you like your theater truly and madly theatrical, have I got a show for you! If you like your theater Shakespearean or, better yet, brutally and bloodily Jacobean, I can suggest a production that will sate your appetite no matter how ravenous you are. It's Festen, Rufus Norris's firestorm treatment of the 1998 Dogme film Celebration, with a script by David Eldridge adapted from the screenplay and play by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov, and Bo Hr. Hansen.
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Festen is after big fish; that's why director Norris and adapter Eldridge use broad strokes to get what they're looking to land. The cast obliges, with familiar Manhattan faces like Bryggman, Hayden, Preston, Kunken, Kelly, and John Carter (as the out-of-it grandfather) working wonders. Margulies and Sisto, who spend more time in Hollywood than on the east coast, also prove to be sturdy stage performers; though MacGraw, striking in Joan Wadge's stylish frocks, has a by-the-numbers manner. The proof of the thesping expertise on view here -- and that includes 2005 NYU acting program graduate Davis, making her Great White Way bow -- is that as the ensemble plays the script's final, silent moments, the audience remains quiet enough to hear a catharsis drop.

Still, the evening's hero is Norris, whose only previous work seen in New York was his grizzly interpretation of Sleeping Beauty. He's a genuine find, and right up there with this year's other amazing English import, John Doyle. Norris scored with Festen when he first put it on at London's Almeida Theatre with an English cast. Now, having so marvelously guided the stateside players, he has neatly repeated his slam-bang success."

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/8018

[JerseyScoundrel]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 10:59pm

Im glad Broadway.com gave Festen good notice. I loved the show as much as I loved Well.

[JerseyScoundrel]

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:01pm

YES! Festen is a rave on Theatermania!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:53am

Variety is Mostly Negative:

"At the risk of making reductive generalizations, there are certain national affinities that make some plays a better fit for British actors -- and audiences -- than for Americans. In its successful London run, the chilly composure and rigid politesse of the characters in David Eldridge's "Festen" were like a second skin to the cast, and Rufus Norris' deceptively stark staging shaped the drama into a striking marriage of darkest emotional turmoil and perversely juicy intrigue. But American actors tend too often to want to be liked. That's just a part of the problem with Norris' curiously ineffectual Broadway reworking of the production.

Malevolent humor is as intrinsic to Eldridge's play as are the shame, denial and psychological scarring in which it traffics. But that humor should surface as a nervous response to the supremely uncomfortable interpersonal dynamics and ugly revelations of the Danish family gathering being chronicled.

The play opens with an audio staple of horror movies -- the eerie voice of a giggling child singing a nursery rhyme, here accompanied by the sound of running water -- but it's clear from the first scene that there's no menace in the mood. At almost every point through the production, tension is diffused by actors either lobbying too blatantly for laughs or simply showing an awkward disconnect from the material.
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But there are crucial holes in the cast that sink the production. Sisto is too manic, too untethered from his first moment onstage, apparently still in character from "Six Feet Under" and off his meds. In a Broadway debut that's inauspicious to say the least, MacGraw is insufficiently skilled to channel her stiffness into the character's artificial poise and deep denial. Else has only one important speech, but it's painful.

The most debilitating weakness, however, is Bryggman. Often a fine actor, here he is such an innocuous, unthreatening figure that despite Helge's cold authority, his refined vulgarity and moral depravity, the character remains remote. Instead of presenting a steely figurehead of hollow respectability, Bryggman hobbles the play by merely tracing a wan outline.



http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117930184?categoryid=33&cs=1

Updated On: 4/10/06 at 12:53 AM