Well, this was very good, and it's exactly the type of thing that the MTC does very well - a lavish piece of Theatre in the classic (meaning that stream of the canon that flows through the twentieth century) mode. I didn't know a great deal about it beforehand; what I did know was that it was new, that it had been a massive critical and popular hit elsewhere, that it was a kitchen-sink American family (melo)drama, and that it was very long...and having regard to all of those, it was pretty much exactly as it had been billed.
I was struck by how naturalistic it was, and cinematic - two apparently contradictory effects which perhaps go hand in hand more often than they contradict or undermine each other on stage, at least, if nowhere else - and also by how blackly comic it was. Crucially, too, it has outstanding performances from the two critical figures, Robyn Nevin as bereaved matriarch Violet and Jane Menelaus as her daughter (one of three) Barbara, who each live and breathe in all their characters' complexity; there's more than a hint of the grotesque to both, and indeed to many of the play's other characters, but they (and the others in the ensemble) never come anywhere near falling into any of the traps that that may imply. Also, the set is magnificent and adds much to that naturalistic (though definitely not 'realistic' if I can put it in those terms) flavour.
All up, there's no doubting that it's a well-written and mounted play, and there's something memorable about it, too. (It certainly has ambitions.) For all of that, for mine, it doesn't have the air of greatness to it (a couple of jarring elements: there were perhaps just slightly too many characters, in some cases with just slightly not enough development; and the 'American Indian' girl really has very little to do except serve as a vague symbol and occasional thematic reinforcer, and I always feel slightly uncomfortable about works which use a member of an ethnic minority, particularly one weighed down by the cultural freight of the 'native American', in a 'pure, natural, spirit of good' type role such as hers...both relatively minor quibbles in the context of the whole, really); still, it really was very good.
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]
I was struck by how naturalistic it was, and cinematic - two apparently contradictory effects which perhaps go hand in hand more often than they contradict or undermine each other on stage, at least, if nowhere else - and also by how blackly comic it was. Crucially, too, it has outstanding performances from the two critical figures, Robyn Nevin as bereaved matriarch Violet and Jane Menelaus as her daughter (one of three) Barbara, who each live and breathe in all their characters' complexity; there's more than a hint of the grotesque to both, and indeed to many of the play's other characters, but they (and the others in the ensemble) never come anywhere near falling into any of the traps that that may imply. Also, the set is magnificent and adds much to that naturalistic (though definitely not 'realistic' if I can put it in those terms) flavour.
All up, there's no doubting that it's a well-written and mounted play, and there's something memorable about it, too. (It certainly has ambitions.) For all of that, for mine, it doesn't have the air of greatness to it (a couple of jarring elements: there were perhaps just slightly too many characters, in some cases with just slightly not enough development; and the 'American Indian' girl really has very little to do except serve as a vague symbol and occasional thematic reinforcer, and I always feel slightly uncomfortable about works which use a member of an ethnic minority, particularly one weighed down by the cultural freight of the 'native American', in a 'pure, natural, spirit of good' type role such as hers...both relatively minor quibbles in the context of the whole, really); still, it really was very good.
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]
