Roundabout FINALLY has a hit on their hands (spoilers)

March 19th can't come soon enough!

Well, I'm glad you had a good time. I found it incredibly dull and boring and ended up leaving during intermission, as did three separate people behind me.

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Going tomorrow! Very excited!

It was a creditable production, no more, no less. The first act was slow, the second improved.

It was solid work, but what was lacking to me was the luminous, poetic quality of the piece. It's elusive, and hard to capture, but necessary if this play is to be presented in the best possible way.

But how does it work? Do they enter "mysteriously" through the set or how does it work when the play "comes to life?"

^ So you obviously didn't like the production as much as I did, which is totally fine. Different strokes and what not. To answer some of your question (and to ask a few of my own:

" This trick works extremely well."

Actually, I don't think it worked well at all. Just stage it the way Williams wrote it.

Do you like any revival that don't rigidly adhere to the parameters of the original production? Or do you simply want every classic play staged to the letter, so that we see the same production over and over again, just with different actors? Many of the best interpretations of classic plays are those which "think outside the box": Bart Sher's Awake and Sing and Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Liv Ullmann's Streetcar, Sam Buntrock's Sunday in the Park with George, etc. If we simply keep producing the same production of the same play over and over again, people might begin to lose interest and stop going. I'd rather see someone try something new.

"for the first time, Tom's soliloquies didn't seem to stick out like a sore thumb."

I never thought they stuck out like sore thumbs before.

I've always felt that Tom's opening monologue impeded the process of the play...especially when the actor playing Tom walks out and starts showboating it as if he were doing a speech from Hamlet. What Darragh did, to me, was perfect. Again, you're free to disagree.

"This is how revivals--especially of plays produced as often as this one--should be done: with fresh ideas."

The original ideas were fresh enough. They just need to be executed properly.

Again, if you want museum pieces, good for you. I'd rather see someone try something new. Even if it fails, the risk is sometimes enough. This is a play that's done constantly. New York seems to see it once a decade, and I can name a dozen major regional productions that have been mounted since 2000. After a while, seeing the same basic production (with minor variations) is tiring. Opera has been doing this for years: offering re-imagined scenarios while still respecting the text. It's nice to see that theatre is finally catching up.

As far as the number of productions of this play I've seen, I'd put it around fifteen. In nearly every one, Amanda has been portrayed as some tragic doyenne and Laura as a sad little girl trapped in a state of arrested development. Keeley brought layers to the role of Laura. You sensed that, for her, being alone might not have been such a bad thing, that she might actually like it. To me, that's a major achievement. But you'll probably tell me that subtext is an evil plot to undermine the author's original intentions and that they should just be doing it by rote.

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" After a while, seeing the same basic production (with minor variations) is tiring."

You know, no one is forcing you to see every production of "The Glass Menagerie." You might find productions of the play as it was written to be tiring, but someone seeing it for the first time might be thrilled to see the play as it was intended to be presented.


"Opera has been doing this for years: offering re-imagined scenarios while still respecting the text."

You've just proven my point. Opera has been RUINING, and I mean RUINING, masterworks by allowing egomaniacal directors to destroy classic works. Audiences at the Met have been booing these desecrations, and deservedly so. And that's what you want for the theatre?


"It's nice to see that theatre is finally catching up."

What you see as catching up I see as dumbing down.

"As far as the number of productions of this play I've seen, I'd put it around fifteen. In nearly every one, Amanda has been portrayed as some tragic doyenne and Laura as a sad little girl trapped in a state of arrested development."

I guess we haven't seen the same productions.

" Keeley brought layers to the role of Laura. You sensed that, for her, being alone might not have been such a bad thing, that she might actually like it. To me, that's a major achievement."

Is that what Williams intended? And what if she DIDN'T actually like it? And again, I never felt that previous portrayals caricatured Laura.

"But you'll probably tell me that subtext is an evil plot to undermine the author's original intentions and that they should just be doing it by rote. "


You know what I'll tell you? I'll tell you subtext is an evil plot to undermine the author's original intentions and that they should be doing it not by rote, but with brilliance, just like the original possessed.

My facebook buddy says it was extremely boring, but I wanna see it anyways.

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I enjoyed it to a certain extent. I've never really loved the play (I find it to be really boring) but this is a nice production. I didn't really think it was anything incredible. But it's a fine production with a fantastic lead performance from Ivey.

She's the reason to see the show. Many people around me were bored, fidgety, and complaining. I liked the approach to the play but thought the execution in the direction could be a little swifter, which may just be an issue of the fact that they've only performed the show twice on this stage. It should get tighter.

I liked the cast but the guy who played Tom (don't have my Playbill handy) was the one real weak link, IMO. It was like he was in a different play. He was overacting and teetering on ridiculous at times. Everyone else is very real and grounded though.

If you like the play itself, see it. If you don't, you can skip it, unless you really want to see Ivey give a truly wonderful lead performance.

Updated On: 3/6/10 at 07:12 PM

So I have heard responses all over the map with this one. Its so incredible you are roping strangers off the street and making them see it, or so awful you are fleeing at intermission? Honestly I found it to be neither.

That said, I did really enjoy tonight. Judith is incredible as everyone is saying, and every second she is onstage, I was engaged. Not all of the supporting cast lives up to this, and it is unfortunate that the weakest of the cast is left delivering what should be some of the plays most powerful lines. Patch Darragh is giving an extremely modern performance which seems to be stuck in another play. I do think this could work, had the rest of the production been as modern but it was not. He felt out of place and his character just rang false with me. Sadly opening and closing the play on with him just didn't leave me with as much excitement that I did have during the middle sections of both acts.

I loved the candle light scenes with Michael Mosley in the second act. I was completely engaged and taken aback by the sweetness that both he and Keira Keeley brought to their parts. They really made what followed all the more devastating.

Overall I think the pacing needs a bit of work, especially in act 1, but it is absolutely a production that is worth seeing. Certainly the best thing that roundabout has put on in quite sometime.

The biggest credit I can say is that it made me appreciate what an incredible playwright Williams was, and I think a solid first production for me to see. If this were on Broadway I would demand a tony nomination for Judith Ivey.

"After a shaky start, the Roundabout season finally has a winner."


I couldn't agree more, but it's a pity that the Roundabout can't manage a hit without importing a regional production. That said, it was a wise idea to import this production and it fits the Laura Pels Theatre quite well, though I do miss the intimacy of seeing it in the round. Otherwise the transfer was quite seamless and the company exceptional.

Just one comment to After Eight: your analysis of re-imaging theater, regie theater, and the "running" of opera is quite inaccurate. Met audiences shower boos for bad productions (La Sonnambula, Hoffmann, the recent Tosca), not necessarily regie productions - many of which are very well received (the new Zauberflote and Butterfly, the current productions of Lohengrin and Die Frau ohne Schatten). Thoughtful re-imaginings can bring audiences to plays (or operas) that might have otherwise forgone another viewing of La Boheme or Menagerie...as I believe is the case with this production.

Updated On: 3/7/10 at 11:08 AM

It isn't about it being conversational. It's about making it vital. Many of the productions I've seen didn't have a Tom like seemed to NEED those speeches to the audience. Of course Tennessee wrote them and they are wonderful, it's a memory play, but the conceptual approach to the material didn't make them vital.

Good example is Cromer's much heralded OUR TOWN. He made Wilder's theatrical devices vital, not just "how you do OUR TOWN'.

I haven't seen this yet, but I applaud the bravery. Why else do this damn play again and again so often?