#1
Posted: 1/30/11 at 4:15pm
Attended: January 26, 2011
Opened: January 30, 2011
Location: Laura Pels Theatre
Length: 145 Minutes (w/ 1 intermission)
Closes: April 3, 2011
No writer is perfect, and that is on display at the Laura Pels Theater where Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore has been dug up and put onstage in a horrific revival.
Let’s start with the play itself. It takes place in Italy, where an elderly, terminally ill woman Mrs. Flora Goforth (Olympia Dukakis) is dictating her memoirs to her secretarial assistant, Frances Black (Maggie Lacey). Blackie, as she is called, has to deal with almost all jobs on the private estate, as Goforth has fired all but two other employees. Goforth has also installed an intercom system so she can recount her memories at any time, much to Blackie’s chagrin. Into this setting comes a mysterious stranger, Christopher Flanders, who is known throughout the area as “The Angel of Death”, having been the final companion of many wealthy women.
Mrs. Goforth is basically what might become of Blanche if she became old, regained her wealth, and lost any of her interesting qualities. Frances Black is put upon, with a tragic a back-story, and seems stuck in her situation, a Laura Wingfield with a bit more gumption. And Flanders is a slightly older Chance Wayne. Basically it’s a Tennessee Williams play, with all his familiar character types, written after his great successes. There is a lot of grasping at the past, but very little actual plot to keep the story going.
I’m not sure anything could elevate the Milk Train, which failed in both its original New York production, and in its revived version a year later. It infamously starred Tallulah Bankhead, and having seen Looped last year, Dukakis somewhat channels Valerie Harper channeling Bankhead. She plays the role large, and out to the audience, constantly raging. In fact, everyone on stage spends most of their time emoting, and almost no time connecting with anyone around them. Darren Pettie, very good in The Collection at Atlantic Theater Company just a month ago, has taken any bottled up restraint from doing Pinter and channeled it into a Greek amphitheater style performance in the 424 seat Pels. Lacey, whom I find consistently average, particularly fails in the combative moments, perhaps having grown too used to the homespun, low emotion of Horton Foote.
Edward Hibbert appears as the Witch of Capri, who tells the back-story of Flanders to Mrs. Goforth, and appears in the strangest scene of the production, a brief interlude where he drunkenly speaks to the Italian workman, Giulio, who then spanks the Witch and chases him offstage. This is Hibbert’s second straight performance in a Roundabout show where he comes off better than the rest of the stage, but might as well have been performing on a green screen. Curtis Billings (Giulio) and Elisa Bocanegra (Simonetta), the two Italian employees, do little more than make the Italian spoken by other characters sound amateur.
The style of the entire production, directed by Michael Wilson, is akin to what you would find in a high school performed melodrama. Make sure the audience hears the words! Make sure they can see your face! Don’t worry about subtlety! It’s a weak play by a great writer, and the production is detrimental to anything that might be salvageable in the text.
Grade- D-
-D
More Reviews- New York Idea, etc.
Opened: January 30, 2011
Location: Laura Pels Theatre
Length: 145 Minutes (w/ 1 intermission)
Closes: April 3, 2011
No writer is perfect, and that is on display at the Laura Pels Theater where Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore has been dug up and put onstage in a horrific revival.
Let’s start with the play itself. It takes place in Italy, where an elderly, terminally ill woman Mrs. Flora Goforth (Olympia Dukakis) is dictating her memoirs to her secretarial assistant, Frances Black (Maggie Lacey). Blackie, as she is called, has to deal with almost all jobs on the private estate, as Goforth has fired all but two other employees. Goforth has also installed an intercom system so she can recount her memories at any time, much to Blackie’s chagrin. Into this setting comes a mysterious stranger, Christopher Flanders, who is known throughout the area as “The Angel of Death”, having been the final companion of many wealthy women.
Mrs. Goforth is basically what might become of Blanche if she became old, regained her wealth, and lost any of her interesting qualities. Frances Black is put upon, with a tragic a back-story, and seems stuck in her situation, a Laura Wingfield with a bit more gumption. And Flanders is a slightly older Chance Wayne. Basically it’s a Tennessee Williams play, with all his familiar character types, written after his great successes. There is a lot of grasping at the past, but very little actual plot to keep the story going.
I’m not sure anything could elevate the Milk Train, which failed in both its original New York production, and in its revived version a year later. It infamously starred Tallulah Bankhead, and having seen Looped last year, Dukakis somewhat channels Valerie Harper channeling Bankhead. She plays the role large, and out to the audience, constantly raging. In fact, everyone on stage spends most of their time emoting, and almost no time connecting with anyone around them. Darren Pettie, very good in The Collection at Atlantic Theater Company just a month ago, has taken any bottled up restraint from doing Pinter and channeled it into a Greek amphitheater style performance in the 424 seat Pels. Lacey, whom I find consistently average, particularly fails in the combative moments, perhaps having grown too used to the homespun, low emotion of Horton Foote.
Edward Hibbert appears as the Witch of Capri, who tells the back-story of Flanders to Mrs. Goforth, and appears in the strangest scene of the production, a brief interlude where he drunkenly speaks to the Italian workman, Giulio, who then spanks the Witch and chases him offstage. This is Hibbert’s second straight performance in a Roundabout show where he comes off better than the rest of the stage, but might as well have been performing on a green screen. Curtis Billings (Giulio) and Elisa Bocanegra (Simonetta), the two Italian employees, do little more than make the Italian spoken by other characters sound amateur.
The style of the entire production, directed by Michael Wilson, is akin to what you would find in a high school performed melodrama. Make sure the audience hears the words! Make sure they can see your face! Don’t worry about subtlety! It’s a weak play by a great writer, and the production is detrimental to anything that might be salvageable in the text.
Grade- D-
-D
More Reviews- New York Idea, etc.
