DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS Reviews- Page 2

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 8:49am

I don't know why anyone's surprised about the positive reviews. It got positive reviews in Chicago and it's the same here.

I was surprised it got positive reviews in Chicago. Sorry, but I couldn't recommend this show to anyone except design majors, perhaps.

[mortgageguy79]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:20am

LOVED it!!!! Gugino's performance is by far the show stopper, just incredible! :)

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:21am

The NY Post is positive with three out of four stars:

"'DESIRE Under the Elms" is the kind of play in which characters wail "Noooooooooo!" upon realizing they've killed the wrong person. At another point, someone actually shakes a fist at the heavens.

Robert Falls' production of the Eugene O'Neill drama, imported from Chicago, unfurls at a fever pitch. The set, the sentiments, the accents -- everything is dialed up to 11 and played completely straight.

Leave your sense of irony at home and embrace the insanity, and you won't find a more intense experience on Broadway.

..."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04282009/entertainment/theater/rock_solid_production_166560.htm

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:26am

With a play like this, you have to know going in what you're getting.

It's a good, old fashioned Greek tragedy melodrama, written entirely in dialect. It sounds like Falls has embraced this.

It also sounds like he destroyed what O'Neill was going for. Updated On: 4/28/09 at 10:26 AM

[Morgaine885]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:29am

So happy it got some great reviews, and especially happy for Carla. She's excellent!

And where can I nominate Pablo to star in the Michael Phelps Story? Come on! It would be great! :)

[Smaxie]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:58am

Here are some of the other major notices:

Newsday is Mixed for the play, Positive for the production, but I find it a really poorly written review by Linda Winer. It's like she's writing with no one else in mind but herself.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/ny-etdesire2812700382apr25,0,3479220.story

Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" is a strange, ungainly fist of a drama. It was a hit and a scandal on Broadway in 1924. But until Chicago's Goodman Theatre revived it in Robert Falls' radical version, the big-footed erotic monster of a family tragedy has been considered virtually unstageable.

It still is - though you wouldn't know it from the almost-poignant intensity of that production, which opened last night with Brian Dennehy as the meanie old New England farmer with the hotblooded third wife (Carla Gugino) and the furious hunk of a son (Pablo Schreiber).

It is possible that "Desire" cannot exist in a conventional setting. I don't believe it works now. But Dennehy and Falls have given us monumental evenings of "Death of a Salesman" and "Long Day's Journey into Night." Grappling here with far less confident material, they have turned a strange imperfect play into strange but confident theater. There is courage and foolish grandeur here. That counts, too.


Daily News is Negative
Two out of five stars

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2009/04/28/2009-04-28_desire_under_the_elms_leaves_much_to_be_desired.html

No trees. No subtlety. Lots of concepts. And rocks. In a nutshell, that's Broadway's new "Desire Under the Elms," Robert Falls' second baffling revival of the season.

First came "American Buffalo," David Mamet's tale of petty thievery, which was underdone. Now it's an audacious interpretation of Eugene O'Neill's Oedipal 19th-century farm melodrama, which is overcooked.

The production at the St. James can't decide between opera-scale symbolism (a house actually hovers above the stage) or folksy music video (Bob Dylan's moody "Not Dark Yet" underscores a long silent scene).

Either way, most performances are from the if-it's-loud-it's-important school and distance us instead of drawing the audience in.


Bloomberg News is Negative
1 1/2 out of four stars

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aixZo01a5xUU

Falls has cut a good bit of the play, but has also added much of his own, like this farm that seems to grow nothing but boulders.

The one thing the play egregiously lacks is the eponymous elms -- not a one in sight. But what?s missing in elms is made up for in oodles of desire, unrequited and requited. Who then will miss what O?Neill provided -- a dance attended by the gossiping townfolk, for example, or the closing scene with the sheriff and his men, reduced here to one silent, shotgun-toting figure atop the boulders?

Dennehy, a fine actor, cuts an imposing figure as the looming Ephraim, but one misses some of the drivenness that a George C. Scott, for example, could have conveyed.

As Eben, gangly Schreiber, who must be both a mama?s boy constantly bemoaning his dead mother, and a demon lover and hater for Abbie, is not up to the complex, contradictory emotions. Gugino is more delicate than the Abbie whom O?Neill envisioned, but she does not stint on the requisite steaminess.

Daniel Stewart Sherman is a spectacularly gross Simeon and Boris McGiver, as Peter, hops about semidementedly.

The play runs to 100 tortured, and torturing, intermissionless minutes, perhaps to deny us a respite during which we might speculate about just how lucrative the trade in boulders could have been in 1850s New England.

Updated On: 4/28/09 at 10:58 AM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 6:12pm

NY1 is mixed:

"Director Robert Falls has taken some bold liberties with "Desire Under The Elms," starting, most conspicuously with the elimination of the trees. Instead of elms, we get rocks, tons of them piled high and suspended overhead.

Eugene O'Neill's lengthy text has been condensed, characters cut and the volume ratcheted up to operatic heights. Eye-catching as it all is, this stylized production seemed to be more about the style than substance.

Perhaps because "Desire Under The Elms" doesn't quite rank in the same league as O'Neill's better known masterpieces, Falls and his designers felt the need to jazz it up ? and so it starts with a literal bang, followed by a lengthy bit of stage business complete with the gutting of a pig carcass. There's plenty of moody music and even a montage sequence set to a Bob Dylan right out of MTV.

...

But it's Carla Gugino as Abbie who deserves much of the credit for selling this production. More than her seasoned co-stars she exudes a natural power on stage that even manages to counteract the stagy manipulations.

"Desire Under The Elms" is not an easy show to do. And you have to applaud the effort to re-invigorate the 85-year-old work. But in cutting it down to 100 minutes, we ended up with a lot of skin and not enough heart."

http://ny1.com/content/ny1_living/theater_reviews/98150/ny1-theater-review---desire-under-the-elms-/Default.aspx

[Craww]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 10:03pm

I just hope the show is better than this art. Every time I see it flashed on the BroadwayWorld TV previews I get baffled all over again. Truly the ugliest most poorly done show art I've ever seen.

[Brick]

Posted: 4/28/09 at 11:53pm

I think it's one of the best.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 4/29/09 at 1:44am

It is pretty hideous. It doesn't really capture the show very well.

I think the best design this season is probably 9 to 5.

I'm not really surprised by the reviews. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I think I'm willing to give it a second chance now that I know what I'm getting into. I'm not familiar with O'Neil, and I'm more of an Ionesco/Wilder fan, so maybe O'Neil just isn't for me. But if he's so great he has a theater named after him, then obviously he's doing something right, right?

I just didn't feel anything from this production. I wasn't really impressed by anyone's performances. They were just yelling the entire time, or else they were talking so "poetically" I couldn't help but tune out and stare at the big floating house. I was up close and personal with the actors and I thought the best performance was the crazy brother with the dark hair. Now that was a great performance. He was truly crazy.

[Craww]

Posted: 4/29/09 at 1:51pm

I think it's one of the best.

To each their own, of course. I mean, it's pretty much objectively bad work. But if you like the way it looks...yay for them? I guess.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 4/29/09 at 3:01pm

Word of Mouth is mixed to positive...

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid2651929001?bclid=2648300001&bctid=21428930001