Glass Menagerie Reviews- Page 3

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:32pm

Yeah, Paulson's been directed to not only be slightly physically handicapped, but also seemingly mentally defective and emotionally disturbed as well. There are lots of ways to play Laura, but Leveaux has had Paulson go FAR beyond fragile and shy into playing character as crazed, hysterical, dementedly pathetic and more than a little retarded. While Williams's sister Rose (whom Laura is based on) was later institutionalized (and labotomized), I personally found Paulson's over-the-top characterization a bit much. Her Laura would be much more effective if she toned it down about ten notches.

[Matt_G]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:34pm

"...dementedly pathetic and more than a little retarded"

Margo, that just made me want to rush down to the box office.

[Kristie-K2]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:37pm

I think this play will appeal to fans of Jessica Lange and Christian Slater.......My boyfriend and I flew across the red states from hillbilly Oregon to see Miss Lange and Miss Kathleen Turner!!!

[Razz77]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:37pm

Margo - would you forecast that this show meets an early closing on account of the negative reviews?

[Razz77]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:37pm

Margo - would you forecast that this show meets an early closing on account of the negative reviews?

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:38pm

I'm with ya Matt G -- lets go to the box office right now!

[Matt_G]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 10:41pm

I've always wanted to see a retarded girl play Laura and a hillbilly play Tom. That along with Shaq as the Gentleman Caller and conjoined twins Lori & Dori as Amanda would make for an evening of theatre I would never forget.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 11:00pm

Sounds perfect.

Let's see what happens at the box office in the next two or three weeks before making any forecasts about an early closing. I think it's still breaking even. As long as attendance doesn't start dipping into the 40s and 50s, it should be able to run through July.

[Madame X]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 11:26pm

I just got back from opening night and I will say that this is the first production of Menagerie I've seen. My only other exposure was reading it in (middle?) high school and not remembering a word of it today, X yrs later. Random thoughts:

* I loved Sarah Paulson's performance actually. She was physically crippled and emotionally handicapped (at moments I wondered if the character was supposed to be 'slow'), but she "won" me during the scene w/ the gentleman caller. I did not see her as "crazed, hysterical, dementedly pathetic and more than a little retarded," but to each his/her own.

* Josh Lucas was definitely too suave for someone who was supposed to end up like Tom. He was completely charming, which is great for Lucas, but not right for Jim.

* Not quite sure what to make of Lange yet. I feel like I was supposed to be blown away by her, but I wasn't. Not sure if this is a case of high expectations; I'll have to get back to yous on that. Was she supposed to be flirting/seducing the gentleman caller? (Just want to make sure that wasn't a case of Ms Lange going OTT)

* Slater mumbled quite a bit. He was ok but agree with those who think he was miscast.

* What was up w/ the incest? I went by myself and was really confused by that and wish I had someone to talk to. That was the only thing I was totally confused about (wow am I about the dangling prepositions tonight). I LOL'd once I got back home and saw Newsday's comment about the incest.

* I'm not sure what this play is "supposed" to be but the dysfunctional family that doesn't know how to communicate with one another totally spoke to me.

btw - which was the "jonquils speech?" Hearing y'all talk about it, I feel like it's something I should know (and please don't say, the one where she mentions the jonquils).

and how long do you think it took for the actors to master those curtains? While you're giving them a dinner table, can you get them a bigger coffee table too? That was the one piece of scenery that almost made me LOL (moreso than the invisible dinner table or lace curtains).

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 12:05am

USA Today gives it Two-and-a-half stars:

"Christian Slater, a late replacement for Dallas Roberts, captures Tom's frustration but fails to convey his sensitivity. Best known for hip films such as Heathers and True Romance, Slater projects too much of a snide, smart-alecky quality to make Tom's more tender and complex feelings toward Amanda and Laura convincing.

The leading ladies fare better. Sarah Paulson is a revelation as Laura, as heartbreaking in her shyness and lack of self-regard as she is radiant in her generosity. In her key scene with the Gentleman Caller whom Amanda hopes will spirit Laura away to a normal — i.e., married — life, Paulson manages to seem at once angelic and painfully human. As her reluctant suitor, Josh Lucas is a fitting foil, his glibness gradually melting under her guileless warmth.

Lange, whose Blanche garnered mixed reviews, seems committed to and at ease with Amanda's quirks and contradictions. We see her selfishness and her sacrifices, her ideals and obsessions in all their tragic, ridiculous and admirable intensity.

Tom may be the semiautobiographical figure, but as usual, it's Williams' women who lead us to the meat of his work. Luckily, this Menagerie boasts a pair that aren't afraid to dig in and get their hands dirty."

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 12:40am

The Register is also Negative:

"Other than an out-and-out bad play, the most dreary thing in the theater is the pointless revival of a great one.

If you don't have fresh insight, or enormous passion, or a compelling cast, why bother presenting a drama that's been done again and again? Having an actor whose name you hope will sell tickets is not a good reason.

Which brings us to the futile production of "The Glass Menagerie" that opened Tuesday night at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, the fifth Broadway revival since the play opened in 1945.

Its box-office name is Jessica Lange, who last appeared on Broadway 13 years ago, as a pallid Blanche Du Bois in another Tennessee Williams play, "A Streetcar Named Desire."

This time, her portrayal of an aging Dixie chick is more animated. Her elaborate drawl is coordinated with appropriate faded-Southern-belle gestures - hands fluttering, hand placed on heart, hand to forehead - as she plumbs the surface of Amanda Wingfield, Williams' portrait of his strong-willed, self-deluding mother.

She isn't very spontaneous, nor does she convey the emotional complexity of a woman who pushes ahead like a tank, smothering her children while trying to hold her family together, insistently invoking a genteel past - or her fantasy of one - to deny the reality of living on a shoestring in Depression-era St. Louis. Amanda should be horrible and touching, and Lange isn't either.

The essential drama in Williams' early play should be the struggle between Amanda and each of her children, Tom (Williams' surrogate), the would-be writer trying to break away from his family and his job in a warehouse, and the crippled, painfully shy Laura, whose only happiness is her collection of tiny glass animals.

In this production, though, Amanda doesn't seem to have any power over Tom at all, partly because of Lange's limited portrayal, but also because Tom is played by a miscast Christian Slater.

Instead of a poetic dreamer, the stockily-built Slater, who recently joined the cast, is a no-nonsense guy with a bluffly engaging personality. He's more than a match for Amanda. Slater's matter-of-fact style also denies the play the sense of mournful recollection that Tom, as the narrator, should create."
The Register

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 12:50am

Theatremania is downright vicious towards Lange:

"The Glass Menagerie initially astonished Broadway first-nighters on March 31, 1945, almost exactly 60 years ago. Theatergoers who saw the work during the premiere run are still talking in reverent tones about Laurette Taylor's performance as Amanda Wingfield, the fading Southern belle who's trying to do right by her adult son and daughter in limited circumstances and with painfully alienating maternal strategies.

In the introduction to the published script, Tennessee Williams -- who put himself on the map as a major metropolis with this play -- referred to Taylor's "extraordinary power." During the section of Rick McKay's Broadway: The Golden Age that's devoted to Taylor, a number of still-awed professionals fumble around trying to explain what made her Amanda Wingfield such an unforgettable portrait. The best that one of them can do is to say that Taylor didn't seem so much to be acting as to have miraculously become a real Amanda who had wandered in off the street.

Playing the now-classic character, Jessica Lange also seems to have wandered in off the street, direct from an acting class presided over by a proponent of the François Delsarte method of indicating techniques. Whereas Taylor mavens exult six decades later, patrons exposed to Lange's interpretation are likely to discuss it for at most an hour and then put it behind them as a forgivable lapse in a largely distinguished career. After all, Lange has already done reputable turns on Broadway as Blanche DuBois in Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (which I didn't see) and in London's West End as Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night (which I did see and thought intelligent work despite her Katharine Hepburn intonations). As Amanda, however, Lange is stumped. Every movement she makes -- constantly fluttering her hands up to her cheeks, for instance -- looks as if it's been plotted on a chart that she keeps in her dressing room. She gives the impression of having decided during rehearsals how she should inflect each word, including "and," "but," and "the." The Southern accent she uses could be lifted from the How to Do Tennessee Williams handbook. It's as if she applies the role from the outside, along with her make-up and David Brian Brown's red wig."
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/5803

[Theatreboy33]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 1:06am

I couldnt agree more with the bulk of these reviews. Glad to see I wasnt alone in my thoughts of this dreadful production.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 6:26am

Clive Barnes gives it Three stars. I don't think any of us were expecting that at this point.


New York Post Review

[Auggie27]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 8:58am

The number of stars aside, it's a bizarre review. The best thing in the show is the gentlemen caller scene? Lucas? Yikes. And his view of Amanda's eccentricities is oddly patronizing -- 'cracked southern belle.' How typically Barnes to tells us Lange isn't up to a depths plumbed by a British actress in the part (Zoe W.) I was suddenly back in Goldman's THE SEASON, when Barnes biases were aired and explicated.

Ah well, clearly, this production will be remembered as the major misfire of the season. (And I'd earlier predicted it might be NIGHT, MOTHER.) Two months ago, there was more concern about VIRGINIA WOOLF, up through Boston -- and that has garnered glowing notices. Ah, the theater, the theater! We still have the offbeatly cast STREETCAR to take our measure of. Spring in New York, always something to talk about. O

[pooryorick]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 10:54am

It should be interesting with these bad reviews to see how the nominations for lead actress now shape up for the always political, producer-driven Tony Awards. Can they really nominate Lange given these reviews? I would doubt it. Looks like the field -- aside from Turner, Jones, Rashad, Richardson (likely) --has opened for another name -- my guess would be either Laura Linney or Mary Louise Parker. Perhaps Leslie Uggams since the show will be up and running, unlike the other two. If Lange is nominated, though, it proves the cynical view of the Tony Awards as just a means to boost box office.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 11:37am

No, if Lange is nominated, it means the Tony committee doesn't invest in reviewers as a litmas test to validate the quality/value of a performance or piece of work. That's certainly happened before.

But that point is likely moot, since the negative consensus about this production -- and Lange's floundering amid its vision and trappings -- seems to transcend the critics. It's sad, becase there was something extrordinary about two Williams plays with stars in the same season. On the other hand, what a year for women on broadway. Linney, Rashad, Parker, Blethyn, and the as of today front runner: Turner. Yet to appear are several.

One thing this crash/burn Menagerie does: pave the way for STREETCAR to be the Williams event. But who isn't nervous about its casting of Reilly? (Sidebar, way off topic: Just re-reading the play -- and realizing Stanley must strip off his sweaty shirt in front of Blanche in scene one -- makes one wonder about what sort of dynamic will kick in. Hard to imagine Natasha's Blanche taking a peek at the hairy, {sorry} more saggy than fit Reilly and feeling the push/pull of lust. On the other and, plain women have portrayed beautiful ladies on the stage, so maybe John C., a brilliant actor, will suggest a sexual Stanley in other ways. Or maybe he's just been working out. Whatever, who would miss it?)

Updated On: 3/23/05 at 11:37 AM

[Tom1071]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 11:39am

I am so disappointed. TGM is one of my all time favorite plays and I was so looking forward to this revival. I will still see it though. I just won't be willing to pay full price.

[robbiej]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 11:46am

Re: JC Reilly's Stanley.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, an ugly f*ck can still be a massively hot f*ck.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 3/23/05 at 12:00pm

Yeah, yeah, let's hear it for ugly f**ks; I mean, who among us hasn't had 'em? 'Course, one man's ugly f**k is another's fantasy. Thank God, or nobody'd get l**d.

Actually, another thread made me think of a non-traditional Stanley, away from the buff Brando mold, that might be easier to swallow (!) ... Michael Chiklis.

Updated On: 3/23/05 at 12:00 PM

[broadway86]

Posted: 3/24/05 at 10:52am

I was hoping to see "Menagerie" next week (for spring break). After I read the reviews, I threw caution to the wind and bought tickets for "Streetcar" instead. I'll be seeing the show next Wednesday.