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| I saw it too, and felt similarly. | |
| Posted by: GabbyGerard 11:04 am EDT 05/31/18 | |
| In reply to: re: The revival of 'Night Mother - Delvino 10:07 am EDT 05/31/18 | |
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| I saw it near the ends of its run. It was the kind of performance that was so sparsely attended, front-of-house staff invited everyone from rear mezzanine down to front mezz and orchestra. I very much agree that the production's biggest problem was the disparate acting styles of its leading ladies. Blethyn's theatricality and Falco's verism were a jarring combination that continually took me out of the alternate reality they were trying to create. It also exacerbated other problems in their casting, including their relative closeness in age: I don't remember if there's anything in the text indicating when Mama had Jesse, but, in this production, it seemed like she would have had to have been a teenage mother (in Kent!). They were not believable as mother and daughter in a play that revolves around the mother-daughter relationship. Blethyn's vocal work was high-pitched and shrill, to the extent that I found her so grating, I understood why Jesse would want to kill herself to escape her. Maybe it was that cozy set, or end-of-run pushing, but I also felt like Mayer's staging tried to find TOO many moments of levity in the script. As soon as tension would build, it would quickly deflate. |
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| re: I saw it too, and felt similarly. | |
| Posted by: bobby2 02:00 am EDT 06/01/18 | |
| In reply to: I saw it too, and felt similarly. - GabbyGerard 11:04 am EDT 05/31/18 | |
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| thanks for the info. I'd be curious how you two felt about the movie. | |
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| No strong memory of the film of "Night, Mother," other than about the casting. | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 10:17 am EDT 06/01/18 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 10:14 am EDT 06/01/18 | |
| In reply to: re: I saw it too, and felt similarly. - bobby2 02:00 am EDT 06/01/18 | |
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| Spacek, who should be ideal, didn't make a big impression. I do recall that Bancroft didn't strike me as an easy Thelma. My other ideas above -- Diane Ladd or Burstyn -- would've seen logical denizens in Marsha Norman's universe. Bancroft and Spacek didn't feel familial. But it's been a long time since I've seen it. Now, I can see Frances Conroy as Mama, or -- I've posted -- Kathy Bates. I'm sure someone has offered her a chance to play the other role and perhaps she felt she'd leave that defining artistic achievement as a stand-alone in the past. That said: She's not too old to do it, now. Actually, neither is Spacek, who would be heartbreaking as Thelma. |
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