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| Does anyone else feel this "Three Tall Women" is so reminted, it's a new play? | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 07:03 pm EDT 03/31/18 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 06:59 pm EDT 03/31/18 | |
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| I saw the original production, and have read the play several times; I have a copy. Yet my experience of this startlingly immediate staging this afternoon inspired that rare gasp when a revival feels like a new play. Mantello has found an entirely new way in with his star and designs, and his secret weapon riding shotgun: Metcalf. The material that Seldes delivered with a schoolteacher's almost smug savvy has been rethought through Metcalf's take. Her Everywoman normality makes "B," sometimes thankless in the first half, something of a revelation. Her ruminative aria in act two is so fresh, and Metcalf so thoroughly invites us into her string of small epiphanies about her indiscretion, it's re-configures the second half's weight. (Is any actor as persuasive trying to convince an audience of a moment's significance? That same thing she did on that very stage a year ago -- make us see a woman wrestling with life's ironies right in front of our eyes -- is as powerful here.) Like most other people, I still feel this is Jackson's event. She had us in her palm from the start, and I have little to add to the awe that is collective. She blew me away (and I've seen her 4 prior times, dating back to the summer of 1973 in London). But Mantello has taken this script and re-grounded it, first in a reality based milieu of a wealthy woman's sickroom, and then in a nether space that manages to put the past and the present on stage side by side, and uses the playing area itself to define time's mystery. Everything written about this production is true, and Mantello has probably done the best work of his career. I'd like to believe this "Women" is one that would've deeply moved its author. |
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| re: Does anyone else feel this "Three Tall Women" is so reminted, it's a new play? | |
| Posted by: SCH 10:49 pm EDT 03/31/18 | |
| In reply to: Does anyone else feel this "Three Tall Women" is so reminted, it's a new play? - Delvino 06:59 pm EDT 03/31/18 | |
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| I just saw this tonight, and I agree with everything you've said 100%. I've always thought that this is an incredibly written, brilliant play, but this production is a revelation. Mantello has outdone himself here. What I saw on that stage tonight will be with me for a very long time to come. | |
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| re: Does anyone else feel this "Three Tall Women" is so reminted, it's a new play? | |
| Posted by: MattPhilly 07:25 pm EDT 03/31/18 | |
| In reply to: Does anyone else feel this "Three Tall Women" is so reminted, it's a new play? - Delvino 06:59 pm EDT 03/31/18 | |
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| I saw this marvelous production today as well. I've not seen a production, and read it long ago. It does feel like a new play, fresh and timely. I may pull my copy out and read it tonight. I agree with you on all counts, Jackson is glorious and Metcalf shows again that she is a master of the stage. Alison Pill hasn't been given enough credit for her excellent performance. I almost skipped this but snagged a ticket on a whim. Boy, am I glad I did. This one will sit with me for some time. |
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