SPOILERS: The thing that Ellen Greene did with the role was spectacular in its weirdness. Her Audrey was so sexual, so masochistic, and so « other » that her desire to emulate Donna Reed was inherently doomed and hyper-tragic. The false blonde wig and Greene’s hyper-studied affect...in fact all her choices...and the choice to cast her...put a scarey, inevitable spin on her struggle and ultimate failure to find her false-1950’s utopia . She was doomed doomed doomed, as were, by extension, the aspirations of the 1950’s. That seemed part of the piece’s intent.
To put Scarlett Johansen in (or, as was tried with an earlier revival, Kerri Butler) is like putting Barbara Cook or Doris Day into Passion as Fosca.
Kristen Wiig maybe. She’s got that mad comic genius that deeply disturbs.
If Audrey’s just a slightly lost ingenue, well, the piece loses some of the darkness that makes it shimmer. |
