I'm 100% with TotallyEffed. I've resisted the proshot of the production that moved to Wyndham's last summer - the show has always shaken me due to a family member weighed down by the protagonist's plight - but finally caught up with the PBS Great Performances capture. Caissie Levy is superb, to my surprise superior to Alice Ripley in subtle, mysterious ways. The wiry, graceful Levy plays Diana with a different presentation of hyperactivity, almost an athletic sensibility. I'm not the first to note: this Diana has far more warmth and a recognizable vulnerability. I am not deriding Ripley's career-high characterization; but this one, my preference, makes the show more accessible from the top. By the middle of the second act, as the show's heartbreaking secrets spill forth, Levy's mastery of the role is complete. This singing actor, to many known for Elsa and the asbestos-throated heroine of Ghost, is clearly a gifted actor. As many noted after she played the secondary role in Caroline or Change. {And I will never forget her take on "Back to Before" in the Encores! Ragtime. Get ready, it's an eleven o'clock spot for this moment in America.} Eleanor Worthington-Cox and Jack Wolfe as Diana's children, terrific singers, are more warm-blooded than the Broadway cast who first told the story. And as the audience's way in, the beleaguered Dan at sea with a catalog of bad options, Jamie Parker is especially moving, so willing to expose the emotional cost of the caregiver.
It's only available through June 30 on the PBS app. If you've waited, as I did, don't miss it.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 6/21/25 at 09:22 AM