#1
Posted: 3/22/05 at 4:54pm
Didn't think I'd be starting this thread so early, but Newsday jumped the gun and has Winer's review up already (two hours before curtain) and it's mixed-to-negative:
" The news thus far is not happy. David Leveaux has staged a tone-deaf "Glass Menagerie" with downright bizarre ideas about the relationships among the pushy and disappointed Amanda Wingfield (Lange); her disabled daughter, Laura (Sarah Paulson); and her restless son, Tom (Christian Slater), the playwright's autobiographical proxy.
No matter how many incarnations of the troubled Wingfield clan we have seen, we have never seen one so loving. Make that lovey-dovey. Make that laden with suggestions of incest, primarily between Tom and his agonizingly shy sister, who snuggles his face, rubs his thigh and even lies down on him as he passes out on the sofa.
Since the tension in the play is rooted in emotional estrangement, all this affection is more than a little unsettling.......
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The problem here is not Lange, whose subsequent stage work in London has turned her into a fascinating stage creature. While hardly a typical Amanda Wingfield in the fluttery-matron tradition, she brings a sexual, almost stylish flair to the woman's confused vitality."
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"Unfortunately, Lange has too much competition in the experimental department. Slater, a late replacement, plays Tom more like Barney Rubble than like a trapped poet whose factory buddies call him Shakespeare. Slater was compelling in London last season as the rebel Randall P. McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Inexplicably, he is playing the same lummox here.
Since the play is Tom's memory, we want to believe that he will run away from his hopeless family for sensitive reasons. When Slater talks to us from the metal fire escape alongside the Wingfields' airless apartment, he is just a sardonic lug who plays the heartache for laughs.
Except for her visceral dependence on her brother, Paulson's Laura has the gawky, sweet enchantment of a forest creature. Josh Lucas is appealing as the gentleman caller, though a bit too dashing and confident for a fallen high school star probably doomed to failure like everybody else."
Newsday Review
" The news thus far is not happy. David Leveaux has staged a tone-deaf "Glass Menagerie" with downright bizarre ideas about the relationships among the pushy and disappointed Amanda Wingfield (Lange); her disabled daughter, Laura (Sarah Paulson); and her restless son, Tom (Christian Slater), the playwright's autobiographical proxy.
No matter how many incarnations of the troubled Wingfield clan we have seen, we have never seen one so loving. Make that lovey-dovey. Make that laden with suggestions of incest, primarily between Tom and his agonizingly shy sister, who snuggles his face, rubs his thigh and even lies down on him as he passes out on the sofa.
Since the tension in the play is rooted in emotional estrangement, all this affection is more than a little unsettling.......
_______________________________________________________________
The problem here is not Lange, whose subsequent stage work in London has turned her into a fascinating stage creature. While hardly a typical Amanda Wingfield in the fluttery-matron tradition, she brings a sexual, almost stylish flair to the woman's confused vitality."
_________________________________________________________________
"Unfortunately, Lange has too much competition in the experimental department. Slater, a late replacement, plays Tom more like Barney Rubble than like a trapped poet whose factory buddies call him Shakespeare. Slater was compelling in London last season as the rebel Randall P. McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Inexplicably, he is playing the same lummox here.
Since the play is Tom's memory, we want to believe that he will run away from his hopeless family for sensitive reasons. When Slater talks to us from the metal fire escape alongside the Wingfields' airless apartment, he is just a sardonic lug who plays the heartache for laughs.
Except for her visceral dependence on her brother, Paulson's Laura has the gawky, sweet enchantment of a forest creature. Josh Lucas is appealing as the gentleman caller, though a bit too dashing and confident for a fallen high school star probably doomed to failure like everybody else."
Newsday Review
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
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"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 3/22/05 at 04:54 PM
