FESTEN Reviews — Page 2

Newark Star-Ledger is Negative:

"Water gurgles in the darkness as "Festen" begins. Its noise evokes a nasty family secret, soon to be revealed.

As "Festen" unfolds, however, viewers may realize that the intermittent sounds of trickling actually represent how the entire show is fast going down the drain.

A London stage success based on "The Celebration," a 1998 Danish film, "Festen" opened yesterday at the Music Box with an American company. An unpleasantly sordid story, a display of foreign customs that few Americans will appreciate, dreary visuals and some poor acting make for a thoroughly grim attraction that doesn't appear long for this Broadway world.
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Perhaps British actors typically can give a more eloquent face to the brooding silences that mark playwright David Eldridge's glum adaptation, but the Americans employed here at least should be believable at dealing out its furious outbursts. But usually they're not, indicating scant rapport with director Rufus Norris, who staged the Almeida Theatre's original in 2004.

Alternately sullen or screaming, these 14 actors often scramble about looking like desperate passengers hunting for scarce life-jackets.

Not ideally cast, an amiable Larry Bryggman portrays the father with injured dignity. Since Michael Hayden's stolidly suffering Christian recalls the frozen-faced mortician of "Six Feet Under," it's scarcely a surprise to see that series' madman, Jeremy Sisto, violently writhing amok as his tightly-strung brother. Reading aloud a crucial note with delicacy as their sister in a key scene, Julianna Margulies more often succumbs to the production's heavy-breathing hysterics. Making her stage debut, Ali MacGraw offers a glassy performance that hints the family matriarch may be sedated.
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A preposterous melodrama about something rotten in Denmark, "Festen" is a stinking misconception on Broadway."


http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1144644231303080.xml&coll=1

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Updated On: 4/10/06 at 01:04 AM

This show is SAD news.

Mixed to negative, for the most part...strangely, even after reading the reviews, I'm still curious about it.

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Without a Trace,

There are two of us! I didn't like Well at all but enjoyed Festen! I feel much better now! HA!

The Journal News is Negative:

"What proves frustrating to the audience is that the play doesn't plumb the horrors of its central idea: it just detonates it like a bomb, seemingly for shock value.

Compared to this, last season's "The Pillowman," which also dealt with the terrorizing of children, seems like a brilliantly deep study.
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Also on hand is Jeremy Sisto, unfortunately playing the exact same role — the psychotic brother — that made him a star in the recently ended HBO series "Six Feet Under." He plays it well, but it qualifies him for absolute typecasting. And Sisto, as Michael, is not the man who reveals the father's secret, becoming instead the chief enforcer who must shut Christian up.

In the end this is a portrait of Danish unflappability, as the celebrants continue the motions of their birthday party. Bryggman, normally a wonderful actor, has nowhere to go with his character of stone.

As for MacGraw, here making her stage debut, she certainly looks the part of a patrician grande dame without a thought in her pretty little head.

"Festen" is Strindberg without the nuance or the real drama seething just below its cool surface. It is simply cool, and all surface. Meant surely to be disturbing, the play never gets near your emotions.

Ian MacNeil did the chic design work, which ultimately is dominated by one long dining table.

The people sitting down at it are certainly about to have a bummer of an evening. Whether the chic crowd that attends the show will also suffer is debatable. The play's subject may be incendiary, but the payload, this time, is a dud."

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060410/LIFESTYLE01/604100307/1031


Bergen Register is Mixed-to-Negative:

"The writing, both in plotting and dialogue, is sometimes flatly earthbound. And the actors -- Americans, who did not perform the play in London -- fail to transform their somewhat sketchily drawn characters into vivid, chilling individuals.

Hayden is so expressionless, it's impossible to read him, while Sisto's Michael is simply a jerk, until he changes, unconvincingly, at the end. Margulies brings some welcome grit and high spirits, but her character remains unexplored (which is probably not entirely her fault).

MacGraw, who plays an enabling wife who turned a blind eye to her husband's vile activities, is too stiff and tentative to pull off her big scene. Bryggman gets across some of his character's blend of cruelty, love and egotism, but doesn't pull it together to give a strong sense of Helge.

After the gripping first act of "Festen," its hold begins to fade in the second, as we realize it won't become a truly powerful play. Even the director loses his way at times, putting in a Keystone Kops chase that is a tension-killer.

"Festen" is a play that keeps verging on something it never gets to, which is frustrating. But as an occasion to make the acquaintance of Rufus Norris, it's a welcome arrival.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNjcmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY5MTI2MDEmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3


Newsday is Positive:

"The result is the best solution - that is, one need not have seen a single frame of the film (called "The Celebration" in this country) to appreciate the engrossing, aching, classic-Greek inevitability of the family dynamics.

The shocker itself is not likely to surprise audiences numbed by the din of dysfunctional-family melodramas of the last decade. What gives the revelation its shiver creeps out from the visceral emotions amid the formalities of the gathered clan.
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Michael Hayden has an affecting grown-up baby-faced anguish as Christian, the successful restaurateur son, who initially appears to be the good boy in the tribe. Jeremy Sisto (Billy in "Six Feet Under") brings his attractive but dangerous undercurrent to the role of the troubled son, a roughhousing misfit who arrives with his almost vulgar wife (Carrie Preston) and their haunting little girl (Ryan Simpkins).

MacGraw, the former Hollywood ingenue in her late-career stage debut, does not have much to do as the wife, but does it without incident, appearing appropriately uncomfortable, cold, distant and well-maintained, with a stressful smile that suggests it hides what her eyes have refused to see. Julianna Margulies brings a lusty, distraught vulnerability to the family's only remaining daughter. David Patrick Kelly has a wonderfully irritating Chekhovian quality as the clueless, neurotic visiting friend.

http://www.newsday.com/features/printedition/ny-ledesing4696856apr10,0,2438827.story?coll=ny-features-print

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I think the Brantley review is buck-passing exercise in self-defense, since his initially positive take on this underdeveloped exercise is probably one of the reasons it crossed the pond. MacGraw's ineptitude aside, it's ludicrous to overlook virtually all of the cheesey lurid flourishes (the Lifetime Movie effects, like a crying child), character inadequacies and undernourished dramaturgy and lay the evening's failure at the feet of this group of actors.

If only the black hole of a set Ben loves was the setting for a real play! Many of us heard the anemic text loud and clear here, and its obvious lack of depth -- and the absence of true surprise -- were duly noted. If Jane Alexander had played the MacGraw role, yes, we would've been delighted. But FESTEN would still be FESTEN. A screenplay that never turns into a satisfying drama.

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Updated On: 4/10/06 at 04:35 PM

Lest anyone think I forgot, here's John Simon's review. Not as harsh as I was expecting. Perhaps he's mellowing,

"``Festen,' based on a Danish film and play, has been adapted for the Anglophone stage by David Eldridge. A big hit in England, it leaves me, who rather liked Thomas Vinterberg's film, totally cold.

We are in a rustic hotel-cum-domicile owned by prosperous Helge Hansen, celebrating his 60th birthday (the title is Danish for celebration) shortly after the burial of daughter Linda, who committed suicide.

Family members include aloof mother Else (Ali MacGraw, making her Broadway debut); unruly younger son Michael, a Copenhagen cafe proprietor; his edgy wife, Mette, and their small daughter; Linda's twin brother Christian, a successful restaurateur in France; a free-spirited sister, Helene; a near- senile grandfather and a crotchety uncle.

Also, a blustery German major domo, an impassive male secretary, a maid sweet on Christian, a rough-hewn male cook and Helene's current black lover. Major scenes take place around a large dining table, at which Christian makes an incendiary toast, revealing his father as a dangerous pervert.

MacGraw's Lame Debut

What follows strains credibility through no fault of Rufus Norris's direction or the not exactly ensemble acting. Dialogue is mediocre, characterization superficial, melodrama rampant. Ian MacNeil's starkly stylized set appropriately houses grotesque rituals and flashily odd behavior that shuttles between apathy and hysteria.

Just how much was lost between the London production and this is hard to assess; between the Danish movie and this, is only too evident.

MacGraw, whose most notable performance in the past 20 years was in a how-to yoga tape, makes a less-than-brilliant return to acting. She looks great at 68, but could use another couple of decades' rehearsing."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000088&sid=aDQJzsuGUQP4&refer=culture

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Elysa Gardener (USA Today) gave it ** 1/2 out of 4.

"NEW YORK — I was at the weirdest party last Friday.
It was thrown by this older, obviously wealthy Danish couple who seemed very elegant but apparently had some ugly baggage. Kind of like Hamlet's mom and stepfather, come to think of it — except creepier.

Festen ( * * ½ out of four), which opened Sunday at Broadway's Music Box Theatre, is more directly based on a 1998 film of the same name by director Thomas Vinterberg. He and Lars von Trier led the Dogme 95 movement, a stark cinematic school stressing human sparks and eruptions over technical ones.

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An affair like this flies or dies depending on the guest list, and the cast here mostly delivers. The marvelous Larry Bryggman makes Helge equally credible as a gentleman and a monster, and Michael Hayden evokes the repression and rage of his tortured son, Christian.

TV alums Jeremy Sisto (Six Feet Under) and Julianna Margulies (E.R., The Sopranos) juggle aggression and vulnerability as the other siblings. As their mother, the still-stunning Ali MacGraw seems a little stiff, but that helps reinforce Else's brittle reserve.

Besides, if it's comfort and warmth you're after, you should probably crash another soiree."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2006-04-13-festen-review_x.htm

I am not a big fan of plays, but decided to see Julianna Margulies' Bway debut in this interesting play with a very new concept that reminded me of "Closer" for moments. The play treats the subject of sexual abuse, incest, family tragedies, death, suicide and not only goes through heavy emotions but the play succeds to make a point at the end. It goes a full circle, unlike some other plays(in my point of view, the also dramatic "Rabbit Hole" didn't really get anywhere), Jeremy Sisto and the rest of the cast were truly excellent, i really think they deserve Tony awards for this play. Go see this, before it's too late. Expect a great drama that will make you go through many emotions.

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