LaCageFans: HEARTBREAK HOUSE Review

[LaCageAuxFollesFan]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 7:25am

Here is my review of HEARTBREAK HOUSE:

https://nycriticscorner.broadwayworld.com/heartbreakhouse.htm

[LaCageAuxFollesFan]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 8:22pm

has anyone else on the board, other than WITHOUTATRACE seen the show? thoughts? opinions?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 8:25pm

I've heard very poor things about it.

[sarbear2]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 9:11pm

It was miserable. "Headache House" is a more fitting name- it was incredibly tedious, the accents were unintelligible, and Swoosie Kurtz didn't know her lines.

[lildogs]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 2:40pm

We saw it Friday night.

It's Shaw, so boredom factor is high. I thought it was weakly directed, blocked really, with no real insight into the play or the characters. Shaw (TO ME) seems much more enjoyable on an anecdotal level, as hours of philosophy, no matter how wittily presented, is still two hours of philosophy. It is up to the director to infuse the words with physical meaning and make the play entertaining to a modern audience. That didn't seem to happen.

True, many of the actors didn't know their lines, though it seemed like Bosco was the worst. I thought Swoozie was fine, but this role doesn't suit her well. She was much better in the other plays Ive seen her in, Frozen and Mineola Twins.

Laila Robbins was easily the highlight of the show--she carried herself so well in the period costumes, spoke clearly and confidently and the laughs she got were legit for both the play and character.

Byron Jennings has also been much better...Lily Rabe was fine but has hardly the charisma to carry a tome like HH.

Maybe not exactly a Headache House....maybe Heartburn House--just enough to make you uncomfortable.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 2:41pm

"Laila Robbins was easily the highlight of the show--she carried herself so well in the period costumes, spoke clearly and confidently and the laughs she got were legit for both the play and character."

Totally agree...Laila was excellent.

[lildogs]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 3:14pm

And I didn't think she was all that great in Frozen, but here she really shines...I was thinking Helen Sinclair meets Margaret Dumont.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 3:17pm

Combined with the fact that Kurtz and Bosco were rather weak, it helped Laila shine.

[Dre2387]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 3:36pm

awww, I'm glad you liked Laila. She just finished The Cherry Orchard at Shakespeare theatre of NJ where I was a props intern. And she was great! She really can pull off that time period.

[Heybeenfood]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 5:48pm

I went to see it on Sunday and thought it was decent. As others have said Laila Robins was great, but I also like Phillip Bosco. Some people stumbled with their lines, but I was still interested. I just felt it seemed to drag on.

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 6:31pm

That's too bad. There was a really stunning revival at the Goodman here in Chicago a few years back directed by Kate Whoriskey (though not quite as stunning and revisionist as her revival of the Rose Tatoo) that ended with a poetic tableu of the cast donning gas masks to the narration of a Shaw quote... it was really surrealist... and frankly wonderful.


kmc