Post by maggiethecat on Mar 15, 2006 20:02:03 GMT -5
Just got this from Reuters, and I thought you'd all enjoy this interesting -- and positive -- review. It seems there's a very good reason the run has been extended: the new cast!
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Now in its second year on Broadway, John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt" has defied the conventional wisdom that a serious drama without stars can't be commercially successful.
Its two new leads, Eileen Atkins and Ron Eldard (in the roles created by Cherry Jones and Brian F. O'Byrne) are well up to the considerable challenges set by their predecessors, and a third viewing only reinforces this powerful work's enduring impact.
The play, set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, concerns the suspicion, or rather certainty, of a school principal that a popular priest has molested one of the young students. The truth of her accusation is never revealed, and the vagueness of the situation only adds to the play's uneasy effect.
The estimable Atkins is a necessarily older and also more severe Sister Aloysius than was Jones, and she is a little more obvious in her approach. While Jones invested her portrayal with a subtle, sly humor, Atkins is much more serious. But she nonetheless garners significant laughs through her indomitable sternness, and when her facade finally cracks in the play's shattering final moments, the effect is deeply powerful.
Eldard also is a rather more subdued Father Flynn, lacking the easy charm that O'Byrne infused into his performance. It's slightly easier to believe that his priest is guilty, reducing the proceedings of some of their ambiguity. On the other hand, his intensity, particularly in the scenes in which his character angrily denies the charges against him, does ratchet up the play's dramatic quotient. (Italics mine)
Another newcomer to the cast, Jena Malone, as the young nun who finds herself caught in the middle, reveals her lack of stage experience with her frequently less than audible line readings, but nonetheless does very well by her difficult part. Adriane Lenox continues to make a vivid impression in her one scene as the presumed victim's less than cooperative mother.
With the production continuing to prosper, it should be fascinating to see what sorts of different nuances future cast replacements will bring to these wonderfully complex roles.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Now in its second year on Broadway, John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt" has defied the conventional wisdom that a serious drama without stars can't be commercially successful.
Its two new leads, Eileen Atkins and Ron Eldard (in the roles created by Cherry Jones and Brian F. O'Byrne) are well up to the considerable challenges set by their predecessors, and a third viewing only reinforces this powerful work's enduring impact.
The play, set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, concerns the suspicion, or rather certainty, of a school principal that a popular priest has molested one of the young students. The truth of her accusation is never revealed, and the vagueness of the situation only adds to the play's uneasy effect.
The estimable Atkins is a necessarily older and also more severe Sister Aloysius than was Jones, and she is a little more obvious in her approach. While Jones invested her portrayal with a subtle, sly humor, Atkins is much more serious. But she nonetheless garners significant laughs through her indomitable sternness, and when her facade finally cracks in the play's shattering final moments, the effect is deeply powerful.
Eldard also is a rather more subdued Father Flynn, lacking the easy charm that O'Byrne infused into his performance. It's slightly easier to believe that his priest is guilty, reducing the proceedings of some of their ambiguity. On the other hand, his intensity, particularly in the scenes in which his character angrily denies the charges against him, does ratchet up the play's dramatic quotient. (Italics mine)
Another newcomer to the cast, Jena Malone, as the young nun who finds herself caught in the middle, reveals her lack of stage experience with her frequently less than audible line readings, but nonetheless does very well by her difficult part. Adriane Lenox continues to make a vivid impression in her one scene as the presumed victim's less than cooperative mother.
With the production continuing to prosper, it should be fascinating to see what sorts of different nuances future cast replacements will bring to these wonderfully complex roles.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
