#26
Posted: 1/20/11 at 8:34pm
I saw it yesterday afternoon and I think its the best thing the Roundabout has produced in ages. No its not a great play but for those of us who would rather sit through a Tennessee Williams flop than many playwright's hits, you're not likely to see a better production of this loveable lopsided mess.
There's no such thing as too much praise for Olympia Dukakis in this role. She is turning in the performance of a lifetime here. Funny, fierce, touching with just a daub of camp. She's utterly hypnotic and yet doesn't turn it into a self-aggrandizing star turn. This is just a real actress working wonders with a hell of a difficult part.
The other triumph of the production is Michael Wilson's crisp direction, which doesn't fall into the trap of going overboard with the play's poetics or eccentricities.
I rather liked Darren Pettie as Chris Flanders. Granted, Flanders is an utterly thankless leading part where Williams seems to be globbing ideas together rather than making a genuinely compelling human being whose conflicts we sympathize with. He's a vagabond/middle-aged sexpot/poet/philosopher/artist/angel of death...but mostly he's just a literary construction. I honestly can't imagine any actor bringing anything other than sturdiness and sex appeal to the role (Although Kevin Anderson, who played the part at Hartford opposite Dukakis, was reportedly pretty stellar), which thankfully Pettie does nicely. You gotta hand it to any actor who looks solemnly out into the audience and says "Boom!" several times without getting snickers from the audience. Pettie is doing solid work now that I can only imagine will get better through previews.
Speaking of the audience, there were grumbles about the script at intermission, but refreshingly few walkouts.
Note to the Roundabout: More transfers from Hartford and Williamstown, please?
There's no such thing as too much praise for Olympia Dukakis in this role. She is turning in the performance of a lifetime here. Funny, fierce, touching with just a daub of camp. She's utterly hypnotic and yet doesn't turn it into a self-aggrandizing star turn. This is just a real actress working wonders with a hell of a difficult part.
The other triumph of the production is Michael Wilson's crisp direction, which doesn't fall into the trap of going overboard with the play's poetics or eccentricities.
I rather liked Darren Pettie as Chris Flanders. Granted, Flanders is an utterly thankless leading part where Williams seems to be globbing ideas together rather than making a genuinely compelling human being whose conflicts we sympathize with. He's a vagabond/middle-aged sexpot/poet/philosopher/artist/angel of death...but mostly he's just a literary construction. I honestly can't imagine any actor bringing anything other than sturdiness and sex appeal to the role (Although Kevin Anderson, who played the part at Hartford opposite Dukakis, was reportedly pretty stellar), which thankfully Pettie does nicely. You gotta hand it to any actor who looks solemnly out into the audience and says "Boom!" several times without getting snickers from the audience. Pettie is doing solid work now that I can only imagine will get better through previews.
Speaking of the audience, there were grumbles about the script at intermission, but refreshingly few walkouts.
Note to the Roundabout: More transfers from Hartford and Williamstown, please?
"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
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