Glass Menagerie Reviews- Page 2

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:07pm

well, i'll throw my two cents into the ring here having seen the show last night.

lange blew. she was at one note the entire night to the point that i began to invent reasons in my mind why she and david leveaux felt it would be a good idea for amanda to play at one level. maybe her shrill and grating amanda was intentionally so to capture the memory tom conjures of her. after all he pointedly states right offf the bat that it's not reality. in the end i spent more time trying to guess how many times she'd had her eyes done rather than listening to what she was screeching.

paulson had one pained freaking expression on her little sour puss all night long. she came to life a bit in her scenes with tom, but for the most part gave into shyness meaning blandness.

lucas was fun to watch even though i worried at one point that he was going to explode before our very eyes right there on the stage.

slater i thought was the best thing in the show. the only time the show had any life was when he was onstage. he brought such life and vitality to tom. i worried during that first speech that he was not comfortable in the role, but a few lines into it and his nerves seemed to assuage and he slipped into it and never looked back. for a guy who's been in the production for all of about two weeks he's doing a hell of a job and i think he'll only get better.

i wondered a bit about the heightened eroticism between tom and laura, but only at first. it never seemed to slip into full blown incestuousness nor did it even hint that such was the case. they just seemed more affectionate almost like they knew that their time together as limited and that they were trying to force a lifetime into each moment they spent together.

didn't care for the set. liked the music. the lighting was phenomenal (in the interest of disclosure, i have ties to the lighting designer).

all in all it wasn't the worst production i'd ever seen of glass menagerie, but with such talent one expects more...or maybe jessica lange has no talent. who knows. long story short, i think slater's getting a bum rap, he gave the show what little life it had.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:23pm

I'm gonna take a wild stab and say you didn't like it, Papa.

[Plum]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:29pm

If it actually inspired him to post on the main board...I'd say you're pretty much right, mef.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:34pm

I thought the same exact thing, Plum. This is like the third non-political, actually about theatre item that I've ever seen him post.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:39pm

i liked slater, i think he's getting a bum rap and i thought she was abyssmal.

and if it's only the third one, mef, ya might wanna keep those eyes open.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:42pm

"I liked Slater, and I think he's getting a bum rap."

I knew from the minute they announced his casting that he would have to move mountains to get favorable reviews. He replaced a critics darling (Dallas Roberts) at the very last minute under mysterious circumstances. And he is definitely not the kind of Tom we are used to seeing.

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:47pm

they're just sharpening their knives and practicing on slater before feasting on poor johnny reilly. talk about a guy who has to move mountains. but i digress, sorry margo. slater good, lange bad, leveaux's gonna hunt me down and take a swing at me. just watch yerself, davey, i got a good 30 lbs on reidel and a quick left hook.

[Plum]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:58pm

I agree completely about John C. Reilly- the guy hasn't even gotten a chance from the posters here, and that's saying something.

[insomniak]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:59pm

Having only read the show and not knowing anything of the actors in this production, I can't really comment on the revival. I will say that the script gave me the strong impression of a hazy, far away memory made intimate because of the character interactions and lack thereof. The Wingfields don't really seem to know how to live together like a 'normal' family and the reviews make it sound as though the actors don't really hit the kind of dysfunctionality. *sighs* Well, at least I don't have to feel bitter about missing this one.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:52pm

Sorry, Papa. I saw MENAGERIE last week and agree 100% with the reviews so far. I didn't buy Slater for one second as Williams' fey (gay?)lyrical, dreamy poet who would get fired for writing a poem on the lid of shoebox. Not sure what Slater was playing up there, but it wasn't Tom (though to be fair, he's miscast -- he'd make an ideal Jim, certainly better than the too smooth Lucas). I've seen tons of Toms and MENAGERIEs over the years and lots of different interpretations and this production with Slater was one of the worst -- miscast, misdesigned, misdirected ill-conceived and poorly executed. Glad you liked it, though.

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 08:52 PM

[Matt_G]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:57pm

It's a shame to hear what you thought of the show, Papa and Margo. It's still something I desperately want to see and I can only hope they take to heart some of the things that are pointed out in these reviews. I've seen this show done so many ways over the years I've never come to expect things from these characters since they can be interpreted so many different ways, but it just seems from reading what you said that they are all the wrong ways.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:24pm

Kuchwara (AP) is also negative:

"Spring may have sprung, but there's frost in the air at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where a cold, emotionally chilly revival of "The Glass Menagerie" opened Tuesday.

Maybe it's the lacy white curtains that swirl around a good portion of the stage, obscuring part of the Spartan, almost abstract living-room set that gives the production its icy feel.

Or maybe it's because the drama's four actors seem to be in four different productions -- isolated by those constantly moving curtains and the fact that they seem to be playing past each other. "
_______________________________________________________________


"The Glass Menagerie" is one of Williams' most popular plays, and it has had several Broadway revivals, the last being a 1994 production starring Julie Harris. Audiences always respond as much to its poetry as to its characters.

Those characters are not fully realized here. And as for the poetry, it seems to have evaporated from this production. Much of that language resides in Slater's character, and his rushed, almost offhand delivery removes much of that music.

But all this leads back to Leveaux. He is a thoughtful, intelligent director -- witness his expert Broadway revivals of "Anna Christie' and "Nine." However, things sometimes just don't work out. This "Glass Menagerie" is one of those times."
AP Review

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:29pm

Brantley is up -- and pretty brutal:

"Memory, which is notorious for playing tricks on people, pulls off some doozies in the narcoticized production of Tennessee Williams's "Glass Menagerie," which opened last night at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. As staged by David Leveaux, this revival suggests that to recollect the past is to see life as if it had occurred underwater, in some viscous sea through which people swim slowly and blindly.

Folks drown in this treacherous element. Unfortunately, that includes the show's luminous but misdirected and miscast stars: the two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange, who brings a sleepy, neurotic sensuality to the role of the vital and domineering Amanda Wingfield, and Christian Slater, who plays her poetical son, Tom, as a red-hot roughneck. Within its first 15 minutes, you feel the entire production sinking into a watery grave."

NY Times

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 09:29 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:29pm

heh, ok, margo, you soften leveaux up and i'll finish him off.

guess i just disagree that tom must be fey to be lyrical and gay to be dreamy. i saw distracted and at war with himself and unsure of who he was but certain that he didn't belong where he was.

sorry he didn't do it for ya.

i doubt that the reviews will make much difference to the production though.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:38pm

I don't know. Lange and company haven't been setting the box office on fire so far -- attendance has been in the low 60s since previews began despite tons of discounts available (barely break even business so far). These reviews certainly won't help -- neither will word of mouth. We'll see whether it makes it through its entire limited engagement which is currently scheduled through July.

[RadioTV2]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:42pm

OUCH

[Matt_G]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:43pm

So.........I'm guessing I need to hurry up and see this.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:44pm

Couldn't disagree more.

Lange isn't the problem here, but the context in which Leveaux has placed her bold, original take on Amanda. She needed someone who sees the play anew, but still connected to its poetic center. Leveaux has not found a style that blends the nostalgic texture of 'memory' with the necessary immediacy of real-time presentation of Tom's flashbacks. It must unfold in the 'present' for us, though it's in Tom's head and heart and guilty conscience at times. Anyway, to my thinking, there's a lot of skill and artistry up there, and much of it serves Williams, ultimately, if not Leveaux's revisionist vision. I treasure the Lange reading of the jonquil speech, and other lucid and graceful moments of great depth, and don't see it as a washout. I also must say, of all the plays in the Williams cannon to revive, MENAGERIE feels the most cut off from the rushed, cynical, harsh times we live in. That's my most Williamsianian spin, but I feel it. Perhaps we live in a Mamet decade, rather than a Williams one. GLENGARRY may be the hit revival of the season, as it bristles with black hearts and ill will toward all.

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 09:44 PM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:02pm

Fair points, Auggie -- I also liked her reading of the jonquils speech. But, the problem I had with Leveaux and his casting choices is that they undercut the inherent lyricism in the play. This is Williams' most unabashedly poetic work and to cast an actor like Slater who's all gruff realism and lacks any vulnerabiltuy removes the heart and soul of the play. I think audiences and critics would respond to this production more had Roberts or another actor of similar sensibility been playing Tom.

I also didn't buy Lucas as Jim -- the faded, past his prime fellow factory worker. In the best productions of this play I've seen, you definitely get the sense that all of Jim's boasting is for naught and that he'll end up being as much of a "failure" as Tom in a few years. Lucas's Jim could run for Congress tomorrow -- and win -- which makes him and the whole Gentleman Caller scene less poignant.

I just don't think Leveaux understood this play as well as he has other modern classics (Jumpers, Real Thing, Anna Christie) and the result is a muddled production that just doesn't work.

I don't agree that MENAGERIE is cut off from and unrevivable in our time. I think audiences still crave Williams' poetic magic -- this production just didn't capture it, though.

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 10:02 PM

[Plum]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:05pm

That's an awfully pessimistic view of things, Auggie. The big hit revival so far has been Twelve Angry Men, after all.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:10pm

Has any show ever suspended performances and brought a new director in?

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:14pm

nah, margo, i meant that regardless of the reviews i doubt they'll make any changes. it's a limited run as it is.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:15pm

LOL, Matt.

I don't think so. At least not after opening.

I just wish someone would sneak in the theatre overnight and steal all of those damn distracting curtains -- and leave a dinner table for them to sit at for the meals. Lange apparently had that table fired too, because (like Roberts) it was distracting and upstaging her.

Edit: Papa, you're certainly right. There won't be any changes. Anyway, Leveaux already has probably moved on to some other production of an American classic to misinterpret and misdirect at this point.

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 10:15 PM

[Kristie-K2]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:20pm

I am not a critic.....I just know that I loved Jessica Lange last week......The play will only run for 10 weeks.....The only character that my boyfriend and I didn't care for was Laura!!!

[Razz77]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:30pm

Eeks...could reviews this brutal close this production early (that is already only set to run through early July)...?