Vanessa Redgrave v.s. Jessica Lange

[redgravedisciple]

I was wondering if there's anyone who saw Vanessa Redgrave perform that has also seen (or will see) Jessica Lange perform the role of Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night.  I was 15 when Vanessa performed and did not get the chance to see it.  Long Day's Journey Into Night has been my all-time favorite play (before Vanessa took it on) and I'm excited to see Jessica perform on the 14th of May.  I deeply respect, Jessica as an actor and from what I've gathered from reviews of the two, they both have tackled Mary on different perspectives.  Vanessa seemed to give a more haunting and ghost-like portrayal (fits O'Neill perfectly) while Jessica seems to take her on and focus on the decent and the madness of the addiction.  I feel both ladies have chosen great points and just wonder what the people who saw both have to say.  

[Wilmingtom]

I have not yet seen the current revival but can attest to Redgrave's towering, astounding performance in the last one.  Her moment to moment life was mezmerizing and heartbreaking as she charted Mary's gradually becoming unhinged and eventual descent into madness.  Unlike what I've read and heard about Lange's performance, Redgrave did not come across as the star of the play.  That position was securely held by the fiercely forceful Dennehy.

[redgravedisciple]

Thank you.  Yeah, that is one thing I've been reading from the reviews--that Byrne is not an imposing figure (as O'Neill's father was in real life).  Several have commented on how Michael Shannon appears taller and stronger and one wonders why the son just didn't take the father down.  Obviously this production isn't as perfect, but I'm still excited to see it.  Dennehy definitely fit the physical part of the role.

[Mark-Alexis]

They both won the Tony for their performances, with Lange winning more precursors. 

I'd love to read some comparison and contrast reviews.

[JBroadway]

I remember someone a while back in one of the Tony-discussion threads saying that they had seen tons of Marys, and that Redgrave was the best (in their opinion), and that Lange was far from being the best. I haven't seen Redgrave, but I am not surprised. I didn't care for Lange's performance, and I'm very disappointed that she was the Tony (even though I knew it would happen). 

 

I started a thread about this a little while ago, but I personally LOVE Laurie Metcalf's Mary as seen in the Digital Theatre recording from London. I think it's brilliant, and very different in a good way. I also liked David Suchet's James much more than Bryne's. 

[HogansHero]

saw both. no comparison. Redgrave melted into Mary,one of the great performances I have ever witnessed. Lange gave a good regional theatre performance.

[Mark-Alexis]

Such mean spiritedness, lol.  Thankfully, all of this:

Jessica Phyllis Lange (/læ?/; born April 20, 1949) is an American actress who has received worldwide acclaim for her work in film, theater, and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, one Tony Award, three Emmy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and three Dorian Awards; in 1998, Entertainment Weekly listed Lange among the 25 Greatest Actresses of the '90s.[1] In 2016, Lange became the 22nd thespian to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting.

Lange was discovered by producer Dino De Laurentiis while modeling part-time for the Wilhelmina modelling agency. She made her professional film debut in his 1976 remake of the 1933 action-adventure classic King Kong, for which she won her first Golden Globe Award. In 1982, she became the first performer in 40 years[2] to receive two Oscar nominations within the same year;[3] she won her second Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a soap opera star in Tootsie, and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the troubled actress Frances Farmer, in Frances.

Lange received three more nominations, for Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985), and Music Box (1989), before garnering a sixth Oscar nomination and winning, along with her third Golden Globe Award, the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a manic depressive housewife in Blue Sky (1994). Lange was the second actress in Oscar history, after Meryl Streep, to win Best Actress after winning Best Supporting Actress; a record she held for nearly 20 years before being succeeded by Cate Blanchett in 2014.[4] She won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' famed aunt, Big Edie, in HBO's Grey Gardens (2009), while she won her first Screen Actors Guild Award, fifth Golden Globe Award, and second and third Emmy Awards for her performances in the first and third seasons of FX's, American Horror Story (2011–2015).

In 2016, Lange garnered her first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her critically acclaimed performance in the Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey into Night.

[HogansHero]

@Mark-Alexis, how does that contradict what I said, which was not mean spirited, just my honest assessment of what she was doing up there in comparison to what Redgrave did. 

[Mark-Alexis]

"A good regional theater performance"?  Seriously, dude, lol.  Do tell, what was so "good regional theater" about it. 

Give me a more astute review arguing your point like the one below.  Not just some flippant knee-jerk reaction:

from Vulture's Jesse Green:

"Her Mary has a broader emotional palette than any I’ve seen, including that of Vanessa Redgrave, who made her Mary a harrowing wraith dying from the play’s first words. Lange situates the character more as O’Neill depicts her: at the beginning of a relapse, not at the end. She is still a coquette, not only in the moderately sunny opening, but also in flashes throughout, as she continues to wrestle with her illness. It’s the struggle that makes the tragedy; indeed, her descent is far more painful for the shy pride she takes in her apparent good health at the start, and for the pleasure of her brogue as it occasionally flirts out like a well-turned ankle from beneath her long skirts. As a result, when she eventually heads up the long, long stairs of Tom Pye’s set to the morphine vials in the spare bedroom upstairs, you feel every step’s disaster."

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/theater-review-long-days-journey-into-night.html

[HogansHero]

@Mark-Alexis, so finding a review (there are others) that liked it more than I did disproves my assessment? There are plenty of people here who loved it, others who hated it and others (like me) in between. I don't owe you a review. I thought she left a lot on the table, and took a second helping of a lot I could've done without. Redgrave made Mary's arc palpable and I could viscerally sense her being ravaged on every level; I thought Lange was playing a role. That's what we call regional theatre acting. You don't agree, I gather; that's fine, but if you just wanted someone to tell you what you already knew, why post the query? Were you just seeking affirmation?

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Having not seen Redgrave, I can only attest to Jessica Lange's performance, which I found thrilling. This almost phenomenal revival of an almost perfect play (I stand by my opinion that the deathly fourth act is far too long) really highlighted her. Only once did I see Jessica instead of Mary. Immediately after seeing the production, I wrote this of her performance:

 

"But most of these quibbles can be excused for the ferocity of Jessica Lange's performance. Every time she was on stage, the room was filled with life. Her slow descent was gripping and her conflicting delusions and bitter self acceptance were a thrill to experience. Act III gave her the most room to fully showcase her prowess, her voice high and lilting one moment, and low and rumbling the next. Her many monologues were phenomenal and her scenes with Byrne were thrilling. That was a taste at what the production could have been: two incredible actors fully embodying their characters. The final scene of the play was a bit of a let down, as her monologue was stretched a bit thin by how slow she spoke, and the voice she used when in memory was very hard to hear up in the mezzanine. But the last line gave me chills, and I can't forget her face as the lights faded out.

"I fell in love with James Tyrone and was very happy... for a while.""

[AC126748]

Vanessa Redgrave's Mary is the best performance I've ever seen on a stage. Lange's manic, mannered Mary left me cold.