Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

For Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night I give you a short review. The long journey is a day in the life of O'Neill's stand-in family, the Tyrones: patriarch James ( Gabriel Byrne ); matriarch Mary (Jessica Lange); older son James Jr, or Jamie ( Michael Shannon ), and younger son, Edmund ( John Gallagher, Jr .), who is, most agree, O'Neill himself. (The Tyrone family maid, Cathleen ( Colby Minifie ), is also around here and there.) In this personal work, O'Neill revisits his family to work through, understand, or maybe exorcise something from his past. Maybe's it's his tumultuous relationship with his father or brother, or maybe (probably) it's his elusive mother, who, in Long Day's Journey Into Night , is a dope fiend who slips in and out of reality. Plenty of people will tell you that plays are meant to be heard and seen, not read. Arguably, that rings true for Shakespeare, Albee, Pinter, Beckett, and others. Reading anoth...

I had never seen Arthur Miller 's A View from the Bridge  before, even though there was a celebrated revival in 2010. In fact, even as a theatre major, I had never even read it before. (We always focused on Miller's Pulitzer Prize winner, Death of a Salesman .) I can't compare Ivo van Hove 's vision of this drama with another, but I know good theatre when I see it. Van Hove strips the play down to the essentials: The words and the performances. Jan Versweyveld 's scenic design is bare, just a square, white resin floor closed in by a low ledge. (Versweyveld is also responsible for the effective lighting design.) The black cube covering the playing area during the pre-show lifts as the play begins, and lingers over the action throughout, threatening to come crashing down at any moment. The actors are trapped, essentially, as are the characters. They are confined to this small boxing ring and must fight to get out. It's an epic battle, in truth, because our ...

It was famous opening line day for me when I tucked in for a double-header of Shakespeare. Mark Rylance and the Shakespeare’s Globe Company are on Broadway with all-male repertory productions of Richard III and Twelfth Night . You know how Aaron Sorkin’s characters like to say, “If you haven’t seen ‘X’ then you haven’t seen Shakespeare the way it’s meant to be played”? Well, check out these productions and you’ll see the real thing. Striving for authenticity, the company is made up entirely of male actors, just as when the plays were originally performed. And that's not all. Designer Jenny Tiramani explains in the program notes the materials used for the scenic and costumes designs, and the process of construction and application of the latter. She notes that the “set” is modeled after the great halls in which Shakespeare’s plays were performed before he and his players called a space at the Blackfriars home. (And it is lit, to a great extent, by candles; lighting desig...

Let’s dive right in to the Rob Ashford-directed revival of Tennessee Williams’s classic play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof . The play truly is a classic play, adhering to the classic conventions of a well made play. The action takes place in real time, with no lapses of time during intermission, and all in one room – Brick and Maggie’s bedroom. Brick (Benjamin Walker) and Maggie (Scarlett Johansson) live on the plantation owned and still lived on by Brick’s parents, Big Daddy (Ciaran Hinds) and Big Mama (Debra Monk). It’s Big Daddy’s 65th birthday and the family is waiting on the results of medical tests to find out whether or not he has cancer. (Some family members know more than others.) Brick has taken to drinking – heavily – in reaction to the loss of a close friend (and possible lover), and the night before the action of the play, he broke his ankle while trying to recapture the glory of being a college (and, briefly, professional) athlete. Maggie the cat is anxious and domineer...