Festen 4/1 Evening

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 10:05am

Saw it last night & for the most part enjoyed it

The stage is totally bare & what sets there are later on are sparse at best. No nominations here. It started out as making no sense with Jeremy Sisto running around like Brenda's brother without his meds. It than got better. The glue holding it together is Michael Hayden. He does a great job & his part is the one written the best

Do not worry about Ali Mc Graw's acting.Her only job is using her name to bring in people. Her part is nothing & it must have taken her about 1 hour to learn her lines. In Act 1, she comes out in this frumpy dress & says almost nothing. In Act 2, all she does is make a small speach which does not need any emoting . She makes a speech at a dinner table & that is it

The rest of the cast is competent but the characters are, for the ,most part not fleshed out. At the end, there were no individual curtain calls . The audience gave it polite applause

Cannot see this getting the killer reviews it will need to make it as no one seems to be buying tickets. I think a lot of the audience were usuing discounted tickets. Once word gets out re Ali's almost non existant role, thay will not help either

I give it an 8 & if it lasts the summer that might be it

Updated On: 4/2/06 at 10:05 AM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 10:49am

I'm afraid that if Ali Mac Graw's part is "nothing," that's quite a backdoor indictment of the play. The matriarch in this play is ultimately pivotal, not because of her line count, but because of her conscious or unconscious complicity with the behavior revealed. So our eyes go to her at moments of revelation, for reaction, silent or verbalized. I cannot dismiss her inability to bring gravitas (and genuine emotion) to this role as irrelevant to the evening's success or failure. Look no further than her costume. In a sea of black, she alone wears a blood red velvet. We watch, we wait, and alas, there's too little there there. I think this hole in the canvas is symptomatic of the erratic nature of the evening as a whole. I gave it the benefit of a doubt through all of act one; in act two, when we expect depth, catharsis, we get water treading and then brief hystrionics masquerading as dramatic resolution. To me, it's one of the season's biggest disappointments, shallow script and casting errors not sufficiently compensated by some admitted brilliant staging by Norris.

Updated On: 4/2/06 at 10:49 AM

[QMAN03]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 12:01pm

I loved the show and I didn't think MacGraw's character was the central part of the show.

[Ryanindc]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 9:11pm

This is a perfect example of what is lost in this sub-par production of what was in the West End a knockout show.

The mother is a CENTRAL, CENTRAL role even if she doesn't have a lot to say. She was complicit all those years by turning a blind eye to what was happening to her children. Her silence makes her the real villain of the show.

The small speech she has in the second act in which she is still in denial should be a powerful one--and then her reaction when Christian unveils the truth should be explosive.

Unfortunately, all of that is lost in the clueless MacGraw.

I've said it before, this is the juiciest role in the show, and in the hands of a better actress, a potential Tony nod.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 9:53pm

Thank you guys, for saying what I was just about to say.

Those who feel that the mother is a nothing role in this show really don't have a clue. In fact, they're as clueless as MacGraw herself.

No nominations here?

No harm meant, but coming from someone who thinks JEKYLL AND HYDE is brilliant (and robbed of Tony nominations), I don't think I agree with you.

[QMAN03]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 10:18pm

Thanks for calling me clueless Munk.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/2/06 at 10:20pm

I didn't.