Three-time Emmy Award winner and Tony Award nominee Laurie Metcalf (Roseanne, The Big Bang Theory, November, currently in Long Day's Journey into Night in London's West End, and a founding ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company) stars in MTC's Broadway-premiere production of The Other Place, a riveting new thriller by fast-rising playwright Sharr White and directed by 2-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Other Desert Cities, Wicked, Love! Valour! Compassion!).
The Other Place had its world premiere at MCC Theater (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director), opening on March 28, 2011 where it extended due to popular demand. The Other Place was nominated for two Outer Critics Circle Awards, a Drama League Award, and three Lucille Lortel Awards. Metcalf won an Obie Award and a Lucille Lortel Award for her performance in the production.
In the role of a brittle biophysicist, terrified, angered and ultimately humbled by her own illness, Metcalf has found a vehicle that allows her tremendous gifts to blaze fiercely...Joe Mantello's super-sleek production perfectly mirrors the complexities of Juliana's psychological state. The set, by Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce, is a stark tangle of what could be picture frames or windows. At times illuminated in patches, at others bathed in a soft glow or deep shadow, the enclosure provides a fractured view of everything and nothing. The central character's volatile moods are echoed in the meticulous shifts of Justin Townsend's lighting and Fitz Patton's music and sound. There's a precision to the staging that enhances the puzzle-like intrigue of White's play and safeguards it from slipping into the disease-of-the-week telefilm territory it could easily inhabit.
The play - so buffed and polished it now seems to squeak - is matched by a searing, brilliant performance by Laurie Metcalf, who is simply astonishing as she goes from snippy, bossy scientist to a broken, confused intruder wolfing down Chinese food on the floor. Director Joe Mantello keeps up a blistering pace - snippets of scenes dissolve into another, past and present collide. Speed is important to keep the audience guessing, but it leaves no room for a moment's error. Mantello proves as sharp as the narrator is unreliable.
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