Here's Brantley (Very posititive and a love letter to James Earl Jones):
"NO one can just say no like James Earl Jones. No, of course, is universally recognized as a small word of immense potential power. But you will not fully appreciate how affirmative a simple no can be until you hear Mr. Jones speak it - which he does again and again - in Leonard Foglia's surprisingly fresh revival of Ernest Thompson's "On Golden Pond," which opened last night at the Cort Theater, also starring Leslie Uggams.
The question may be as innocuous as "You want a glass of milk, Norman?" or "You're a baseball fan, huh?" The answer is always the same intimidating "N-O-O-O-O!!!" Well, typography can hardly be expected to capture a drawn-out, deep-purple note that would fit right into the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth.
As intoned by Mr. Jones's character, Norman Thayer Jr., a retired professor of English on the cusp of his 80th year, it's a sound to make grown men tremble even as they laugh at being scared. And trust me, you will laugh pretty much every time Mr. Jones says no. But you'll also experience the sympathetic ache that comes from sensing another human's awareness of his own mortality. Of slippery memory and faltering step, Norman Thayer is in the twilight of his life. Mr. Jones makes sure that this man goes any way but gentle.
That Mr. Jones's raging Norman - which is charmingly balanced by the even-keeled performance of Ms. Uggams as his wife, Ethel - seems destined to be remembered as one of the finer performances of recent Broadway seasons could hardly have been anticipated. Granted, Mr. Jones is a large man of comparably imposing theatrical stature, who won Tony Awards for blistering performances in "The Great White Hope" and "Fences" and whose booming bass voice is internationally famous as that of Darth Vader, the ultimate bad father figure, in the "Star Wars" movies.
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"Placing a powerhouse like Mr. Jones in the quaint Maine summer retreat where the Thayer family spends a season of healing seemed the equivalent of putting a German shepherd into a Chihuahua-size doghouse.
Yet rather than make his surroundings feel small and artificial, Mr. Jones's natural grandeur forces the play to find room for his sweeping emotional breadth. And it is telling that while I initially regarded Ray Klausen's set as a blown-up 50-cent scenic postcard, by the show's end it felt like a real home, with all the ambivalence that implies.
Not only does Norman start to seem a cousin of Falstaff, hearing chimes at midnight. Those big lungs of Mr. Jones infuse every aspect of this show with oxygen. The sitcom-ish aspects of "On Golden Pond" play as smoothly as ever, but they have been largely purged of their stickiness. Most important, as he fences with the shadow of death, joking robustly about his imminent demise, Mr. Jones's Norman makes you acknowledge how often comedy is rooted in fear."
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" There is a moment toward the end when Norman lies prone on the floor, unmoving and to all appearances unbreathing. Yet somehow Mr. Jones positively vibrates with all the levels of the character he has drawn before. That's something only a bona fide star of the stage can do. Such creatures are few these days. "On Golden Pond" provides a rare and welcome opportunity to catch one in peak form."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/theater/reviews/08gold.html?8dpc
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 4/7/05 at 11:04 PM
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