re: 'Suddenly Last Summer' Reviews

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:25am

Theatermania is mixed-positive:

In his feverish one-act Suddenly Last Summer, Tennessee Williams doesn't stipulate that the predatory, self-deluding Violet Venable has emphysema. Nevertheless, in the Roundabout Theatre Company's current Off-Broadway production, Blythe Danner and director Mark Brokaw seem to have decided that she suffers from the affliction as severely as she's driven by an aversion to the truth about her dead son, Sebastian. Every so often, Danner's Violet halts in the middle of a word to gasp distressingly for air; sometimes, she does this while flaunting a lighted cigarette in a holder with aging-belle haughtiness.
This is only one of the brave choices that the patrician, husky-voiced Danner makes in her blazingly brilliant performance. The character's surname contains the word "venal" and is also only two letters short of "venerable"; Danner, ambulating with deliberate uncertainty in Santo Loquasto's flowing summer frock, doesn't fail to get both attributes into her terrifyingly subtle interpretation. She's simultaneously frightening and pathetic as Violet orders her retainers about and loses her precarious balance often enough to call for a wheelchair.

Read on...
Theatermania Review - "Suddenly Last Summer"

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:34am

Variety is mixed-positive:

Like the symbolic Venus flytrap in the lush jungle garden where the drama unfolds, "Suddenly Last Summer" is a rare and exotic breed that needs special care to survive. Writing about an egocentric gay aesthete literally devoured by the same adolescent beggars on whom he preyed, and the monstrously overbearing mother so obsessed with her dead son she wants her niece-by-marriage lobotomized to protect his memory, Tennessee Williams was at his most ripe, even lurid, here. In Mark Brokaw's tentative production for Roundabout, the ghoulish one-act only intermittently achieves its full effect.
Those moments when the 1958 play does spark to life in all its macabre, sometimes horrifyingly funny Southern Gothic splendor are mostly due to the searing performance of Carla Gugino as Catharine Holly, the damaged beauty New Orleans dowager Violet Venable (Blythe Danner) is so eager to silence. From the moment she appears, observing the action through a window like an insect trapped behind glass, Gugino (the sole unscathed survivor of "After the Fall" on Broadway two seasons back) is mesmerizing.

Scared and defensive, Catharine sees the alarming fate that awaits her and has no ally but herself to escape it. Institutionalized under Mrs. Venable's instructions since she returned from the fateful trip the previous summer and began "babbling" about her cousin Sebastian's death, Catharine is broken but not irrevocably so, outnumbered but not without the fortitude to fight back. As she revisits the past under the influence of sodium pentothal, pouring out the shocking details of what happened on a beach in Spain, Catharine becomes possessed by the vision. She gains steadily in strength as lighting designer David Weiner slowly drenches Gugino in a blinding white glare.

Read on...

Variety Review - "Suddenly Last Summer"

Updated On: 11/16/06 at 12:34 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:35am

Variety is Mixed:

"Like the symbolic Venus flytrap in the lush jungle garden where the drama unfolds, "Suddenly Last Summer" is a rare and exotic breed that needs special care to survive. Writing about an egocentric gay aesthete literally devoured by the same adolescent beggars on whom he preyed, and the monstrously overbearing mother so obsessed with her dead son she wants her niece-by-marriage lobotomized to protect his memory, Tennessee Williams was at his most ripe, even lurid, here. In Mark Brokaw's tentative production for Roundabout, the ghoulish one-act only intermittently achieves its full effect.
Those moments when the 1958 play does spark to life in all its macabre, sometimes horrifyingly funny Southern Gothic splendor are mostly due to the searing performance of Carla Gugino as Catharine Holly, the damaged beauty New Orleans dowager Violet Venable (Blythe Danner) is so eager to silence. From the moment she appears, observing the action through a window like an insect trapped behind glass, Gugino (the sole unscathed survivor of "After the Fall" on Broadway two seasons back) is mesmerizing.

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It takes a feverish atmosphere to sustain this play's psychological and physical violence, and Brokaw's production misses that mark. At times it's as if the drama were strangled, perhaps by all the twisting vines that snake around Santo Loquasto's steamy tropical garden set. Most of all, there's a fundamental imbalance in the central battle between two formidable women.

Danner is an actress of impeccable elegance and intelligence, but in much of her performance, Mrs. Venable's physical uncertainty (she walks with a cane and is frequently breathless) seems to have compromised her command. In the opening scene especially, in which Violet teases Dr. Cukrowicz (Gale Harold) into her web, hinting at a generous donation for his underfunded neurosurgery department if he will agree to operate on Catharine, Danner seems too soft and frail to be capable of cold manipulation.

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Baker and Wilcox have amusing moments as the hovering vultures. But Harold is bland and lacking intensity as the conflicted doctor. He looks uncomfortable for the wrong reasons when Mrs. Venable flirts with him, transferring her incestuous feelings for Sebastian. It takes a more resourceful actor to make this key character more than a handsome cipher.

But regardless of its shortcomings, the production has its rewards thanks to Gugino. She has the grit and vulnerability to be a fine Williams interpreter, not to mention the knack of making his most purple dialogue flow naturally. Gugino's fierceness when cornered suggests she might make a magnificent Maggie the Cat, and her bruised sensuality hints that somewhere along the line, there could even be a compelling Blanche waiting to be unleashed.



http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932126.html?categoryid=1265&cs=1

[Calvin]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:36am

Blazingly brilliant. Yes.

So many people were dismissing Danner's performance as poor, in part becaues I don't think they were understanding her acting choices to portray this shell of a dragon lady. I'm glad this reviewer, at least, got it. And liked it. Updated On: 11/16/06 at 12:36 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:37am

Reuters is Mixed-to-Negative:

"Even die-hard Tennessee Williams fans usually concede that "Suddenly Last Summer" isn't one of his strongest works. So for a new version of the 1958 off-Broadway production to succeed, perfect casting is crucial.

Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz clearly understood that sentiment when he secured the star power of Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift for the 1959 film. The result was a flawed but undeniably fascinating interpretation.

Mark Brokaw, the director of the latest incarnation, clearly tried to follow Mankiewicz's lead, but the outcome is less than inspired. Although the lineup is now headlined by Blythe Danner, Carla Gugino and Gale Harold, only Gugino triumphs over the plot's creaky machinations.

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Over the play's 90-minute duration, the truth about Sebastian's death will gradually be revealed, and, even by 2006 standards, it remains strong stuff. But no amount of lurid tale-telling can cover up the script's jumps in logic, symbol-laden verbiage and lack of credibility. That's why it's so crucial to have those tale-tellers in top form.

Plain and simple, Danner is miscast as the dragon lady. Although looking spot-on in a chic lavender outfit with matching accessories, complete with hankie that's waved like a flag, Danner never breathes enough fire, nor summons the monstrous personality, to make the character properly daunting and power-mad. Worse, her Southern accent too often sounds like she's talking with a mouthful of marbles.

Harold's sentient doctor also comes up lacking. As the part doesn't require much more than asking questions of the other principals, it demands an actor that radiates charisma. As is, Harold just seems bland. That's an accomplishment only when judging the good doctor against the richly textured rogue Harold essayed on Showtime's "Queer as Folk."

Thankfully, Gugino comes through via a first-rate performance as the mentally tortured Catharine. Without ever going over the top, she segues from confused heroine to hysterical victim in an unmannered, ultimately wrenching tour-de-force. Those who know her mostly as the mom from "Spy Kids" are in for a big surprise.

The script's four supporting players -- Becky Ann Baker, Sandra Shipley, Karen Walsh and Wayne Wilcox -- do the best they can with walking-cliche roles. One can't blame them for practically disappearing into the set, particularly when it's as impressive as the one designed by Santo Loquasto. He has fashioned a stunning amalgam of arcing tree limbs, otherworldly ferns and lacy fauna to fill the expanse, all set off by a massive spiral staircase that appears to lead to heaven.

Audiences, however, will find themselves closer to purgatory, always balancing Gugino's talents against a revival that didn't merit reviving.



http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reviewsNews&storyID=2006-11-16T015051Z_01_N15185210_RTRIDST_0_REVIEW-STAGE-SUMMER-DC.XML

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:40am

The AP is Mixed-to-Negative:

"Danner is a fine actress, but she's miscast - too young, too genteel - as this severe matriarchal figure, a cantankerous woman used to getting her own way as well as her daily 5 p.m. frozen daiquiri.

As she speaks, you get some idea of what Williams thought of writers. "The work of a poet is the life of a poet and vice versa," Mrs. Venable says as she talks lovingly, overprotectively about her son.

Far more successful is Gugino as the tremulous Catharine, who eventually reveals the horrific circumstances of Sebastian's death. It's no accident that he was named after a famous martyr-saint.

The actress, last seen at the Roundabout in a revival of Arthur Miller's "After the Fall," deftly captures the emotional fragility common to many of Williams' female characters, such as Blanche du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Laura Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie."

Gugino exudes a sexuality, too. She was in love in Sebastian, and there is a sensuous, almost erotic quality to way she describes their ill-fated European travels.

Her tale is told to a sympathetic doctor, played by a wooden Gale Harold. Hovering in the background are the young woman's greedy mother and brother. What would a Tennessee Williams play be without some cackling avaricious relatives? They are portrayed by the always reliable Becky Ann Baker and a wonderfully milquetoast Wayne Wilcox.


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/gossip/16020674.htm

[Calvin]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:46am

Ah, David Finkle. We'll go to an island somewhere together, then.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:55am

New York Times - a rave for Gugino, otherwise mixed:

If you’re in the market for bait to catch boys with, you could do a lot worse than Carla Gugino. It’s not just that this actress looks embarrassingly luscious as Catharine Holly, the imperiled heroine of the Roundabout Theater Company’s wobbly revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Suddenly Last Summer” — though that she does, rivaling memories of a young Elizabeth Taylor in the film version.

But what really makes this Catharine such a magnet for wide-awake attention is the human vitality that seems to ooze from every pore, like invisible sweat. Little wonder that her cousin — a shy, aging aesthete from New Orleans named Sebastian Venable — decided that Catharine would be the perfect companion to help him, uh, meet people on one of his regular trips abroad.

A portrait of an unchecked life force blazing desperately in response to the threat of its extinction, Ms. Gugino’s performance cannot be called subtle. But like the famously lurid play from 1958 that it serves, her portrayal registers with the fierce impact of a ghost story shouted in the middle of a storm. Beautiful it may be, but life as embodied by Catharine Holly, and as rendered by Tennessee Williams, is hardly a thing of pure delicacy.

Read on...
Another Magnolia Blossom at Risk

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 1:16am

I agree with the general tone of the reviews - and I am so glad that Carla Gugino is getting unanimous praise for her brilliant performance. Go see this play. I found Danner to be slightly better than some are suggesting, but Gugino is truly a gem.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 1:41am

John Simon is predictably dismissive:

"Tennessee Williams's ``Suddenly, Last Summer' had its premiere in 1958 on a double bill called ``Garden District,' whose worse half has disappeared while this better half makes sporadic returns, as in the current Roundabout revival.

Even better halves can be a problem, as many a spouse will testify. This long one-acter is a bit lean for an evening's entertainment and a bit too mean for credibility. It is in that creepy Southern Gothic genre practiced also by Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers.

You may recall the overripe film adaptation by Williams and Gore Vidal, partially redeemed by Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. In the current revival we do not get such a glamorous cast.

It is a work in which Williams lets his penchant for symbolism run amok. We are in the New Orleans garden of the Venables, whose late son, Sebastian, had cultivated as a tropical jungle overgrown with symbols.

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Unfortunately, the doctor is played by Gale Harold, who looks beefy and benighted, moves clumsily and appears to be reading his lines from cue cards.

As the fearsome matriarch, the gifted Blythe Danner underplays to the point of colorlessness. This is perhaps in reaction to the minor characters, whom Mark Brokaw (an often able director, here out of control) has over-directed into caricatures. Even the nun in charge of Catherine, kindly in the text, is played with undue severity.

In the tricky key role of Catherine, Carla Gugino works hard and worthily but cannot quite make this character, precariously clinging to her besieged sanity, wholly credible.

``Suddenly, Last Summer' is a self-consciously lurid play, teetering between hypertrophic, poeticizing fantasy and melodrama at times verging on farce. Insecurely directed and imperfectly acted, it staggers between contradictory excesses.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aWPmxc_jjwgI&refer=muse

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 1:51am

Blythe gives a very nice performance, and I very much enjoyed her gasps and mannerisms, but her overall performance just never fit the tone of the character itself. Good performance, wrong show for it. Carla is indeed brilliant. After waking up from Blythe's almost cooing performance, to see Carla build a never ending momentum was just an amazing thing to see.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 2:24am

NY Sun is Mixed-to-Negative:

"The riotous foliage that practically engulfs "Suddenly Last Summer," with its enormous ferns and squawking beasts, looks as if it has been airlifted into a New Orleans backyard directly from Jurassic Park. "There are massive tree flowers that suggest organs of a body, torn out, still glistening with undried blood,"Tennessee Williams wrote in the stage directions to his 1958 hothouse of feral sexuality and Oedipal longing, which has now received a pulse-slowing revival at the hands of director Mark Brokaw.

The central skirmish in this Southern Gothic potboiler may be waged with words, but it does its untamed setting justice. Williams managed to distill the dichotomies that so often engaged him — truth vs. power, acceptance of life's seamier attempts at transcendence vs. blue-nosed rigidity — into a slim, faintly ludicrous 90 minutes. He did this by having an enterprising young neurosurgeon who goes by the nickname of Dr. Sugar (Gale Harold) referee a battle royale between two strong-willed women who embody these traits, each holding her share of family secrets.

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The formidable matriarch clearly holds the upper hand in her battle with Cathy, and so Mr. Brokaw attempts to muffle the still-vibrant Ms. Danner in various ways, with mixed success.

Her breathy rushes of dialogue work well enough; Ms. Danner convincingly portrays a woman who has not yet realized that her days of Southern loquacity lie somewhat in the past. For every magnolia-scented "conflagration" or "mendicant"that spills off her tongue, far simpler words stop her cold mid-sentence, and her gasping attempts to finish the thought convey the ravages of age.

But Ms. Danner's primary bit of physicality — a rigidly held rictus in her left hand, with two fingers perpetually jutting out as if holding an invisible cigarette — is an unconvincing and distracting mannerism, the sort of actorly detail that can easily slide into fussiness. Violet's fearsome reputation can't help but suffer when her "vascular convulsion" appears to have occurred in the middle of a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

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Mr. Brokaw tries to vary the scene by having his agitated confessor wander all over Violet's garden, including up and down a spiral staircase. But this kinetic staging wouldn't be necessary if Cathy's story were paced with the appropriate modulations. Ms. Gugino — who conveyed emotional instability beautifully as the Marilyn Monroe surrogate in 2004's "After the Fall," also presented by the Roundabout — starts at something close to a fever pitch here, giving her no direction to go except up, up, up. The head-to-head battle against Ms. Danner's compromised but cagy Violet suffers as a result.

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The intensity of these opposing desires becomes clear only in the play's final seconds, when the central dilemma suddenly rests on his broad shoulders. He finds himself in a sort of "Lady or the Tigress?"situation, and the only hints to its resolution stem from Dr. Sugar's actions along the way.

This is where Mr. Harold's cautious, subdued performance falls short. Despite displaying an effortless physical comfort on stage, the actor, best known for his caddish role on TV's "Queer as Folk," keeps his motivations frustratingly opaque.The film got plenty wrong, but Montgomery Clift turned Dr. Sugar into an equal partner in the Freudian fireworks display, a truth-seeker frantically searching for a resolution that will make him morally as well as financially secure.

Perhaps Mr. Harold has intentionally kept the drama at arm's length as a counterweight to the histrionics on either side of him, and matching their intensity might have proved disastrous. But with just a spoonful of Sugar, Williams's salacious melodrama doesn't go down as smoothly or as satisfyingly."
http://www.nysun.com/article/43656

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 2:35am

Newark Star-Ledger is Positive:

"Both Catherine's story and the 90-minute play conclude abruptly -- perhaps too abruptly -- leaving the audience to debate the meaningful details of a twisted mother- son relationship. A macabre mood piece, "Suddenly Last Summer" is not among the front rank of Williams dramas, but certainly packs spellbinding moments that are realized here.

Twittering with animal cries and shot through with stray rays from David Weiner's dappled lighting, Santo Loquasto's setting of overgrown vegetation centers around a wrought-iron spiral stair case. Such seductive visuals also suggest unknown danger lurking in its shadows.

Since Danner does not grace New York stages so frequently anymore, the nicely embroidered character of Mrs. Venable is a fitting showcase. Despite spasms of pain that twist her lovely, carefully painted features, this fading aristocrat is a well-practiced fascinator with a will of steel glinting beneath her fragility.

Easily and very persuasively, Danner reveals the allure that once drew people into the snares Mrs. Venable willingly set out for her son."

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1163655393107360.xml&coll=1

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 3:21am

The Philadelphia Inquirer is Negative:

"Tennessee Williams' lurid play about sex and God and art and domineering Southern mothers, Suddenly Last Summer, is having an unconvincing Off-Broadway revival, despite a fine performance by Blythe Danner. Lacking in psychosexual urgency and floundering around in very stagey acting, the production, directed by Mark Brokaw, never generates any of the steam heat the play requires.

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Danner brings all her elegant beauty to the role of Violet Venable, to create a woman both neurasthenically frail and iron-willed; her voice is gravelly and breathless, her fingers arthritic, her delusions visible.

Carla Gugino, wearing a cleavage-showcasing dress, spends this juiciest of roles in rhetorical posturings, never conjuring up a Sebastian or a scene we can imagine as she describes the terrifying day.

Gale Harold, as "Dr. Sugar," seems to have been practicing lobotomies on himself; why else would he speak in such flat accents, so slowly, with so little affect that even his line that ends the play seems merely a vague question?

Mrs. Venable tells the doctor that her life with Sebastian "wasn't folie de grandeur, it was grandeur." The real challenge of Suddenly Last Summer is to give it grandeur and not let it deteriorate into megalomania, overblown and slightly silly. This production doesn't, finally, meet that challenge."



http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/16022616.htm

[glass]

Posted: 11/16/06 at 12:13pm

Finally someone gets it right. Gugino is simply not brilliant in this role, in my opinion. There are no levels to her performance! She's completely one note: hysterical. She doesn't build the story at the end at all. She starts over the top and has no where to go.