Review Roundup: JACKIE UNVEILED at The Wallis Annenberg Center For The Performing Arts

The reviews are in for The Wallis Annenberg Center's world-premiere production of JACKIE UNVEILED, a one-woman show about the life of former First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. JACKIE UNVEILED opened on February 22nd, and has recently been extended through March 18th.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly: The production is carried on the shoulders of its only actor - Saffron Burrows, kitted out in an over-the-top wig that looks like it's eating her head in act one and a silk headscarf that signals Jackie's cancer before she even opens her mouth in act two. Burrows is superb in the role, mastering the blend of strength and vulnerability that made Jackie Kennedy Onassis a compelling and mysterious figure in American history. With the assistance of costume and makeup, she bears an uncanny resemblance to Jackie, and though the signature Transatlantic accent is jarring at first, Burrows eventually slips effortlessly into it. Through no fault of her own, Natalie Portman could simply not overcome her movie stardom in Jackie - despite an excellent performance, you never could quite forget you were watching Natalie Portman do Jackie Kennedy. Here, that level of remove is absent. Burrows seems to channel the very soul and essence of Jackie. After the first few moments, her mannerisms, her posture, her mode of speaking, all of it makes you feel like the First Lady has been reincarnated here before you.

Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times: As titles go, "Jackie Unveiled" is false advertising. Jackie may be really shooting her mouth off tonight, as she says herself, but telling secrets isn't the same thing as revealing character. Burrows is trapped not only in a ludicrous wig but also in a cumbersome accent and stultifying Brahmin cadence. This isn't a private Jackie but a contrived public version for the commercial stage. She's wearing pajamas in the show's first half, but with her strained formality she might as well be answering questions from Edward R. Murrow on national TV dressed in Oleg Cassini. The fault originates with the writing. Dugan throws out sensational tidbits about Jackie's personal life - an affair with RFK, a case of chlamydia from JFK with tragic consequences, a marriage to Aristotle Onassis born out of terror, her father's sexual inappropriateness - without deepening interest or insight.

Ellen Dostal, BroadwayWorld: Burrows delivers the herculean task of presenting a two hour solo play with finesse but is also undermined by Jackie's accent. Though carefully studied and phonetically perfected, it is centered around one pitch and never varies much from it. The limited vocal range combined with a downward emphasis at the end of every sentence becomes monotonous with its predictable rhythm. And while she is working very hard to connect with the audience, it never feels like we truly get to see behind the veil. Something in the eyes still keeps us at a distance and that is a missed opportunity. Jackie Kennedy is as intriguing a subject today as she ever was. I wanted this to be the production that gave the woman her due. Unfortunately, while it fills in some of the gaps, it didn't make me care about her any more than I did before.

Karen Salkin, It's Not About Me: Even though Ms. Burrows is a zillion times prettier than Jackie Kennedy was, (I never got why people back then considered Jackie to be a beauty,) and I'd kill to have her gorgeous nose, I'm sad to say that that's about where my admiration ends. She tries hard to affect Jackie's weird and baffling speech patterns, (which I've never understood my whole life,) to varying degrees of success, so I'm left scratching my head as to why she doesn't also try to emulate Kennedy's soft voice. She sounds more like full-throated, husky-voiced Marlene Dietrich than almost-whispering Jackie Kennedy. And the few other characters she portrays over the two hours all sound like the Jamaican taxi driver in the second act.

Steven Stanley, Stage Scene LA: Playwright Dugan has clearly done his Jackie homework, aided by once classified CIA and Secret Service reports to which earlier biographers were not privy (hence the inclusion of the aforementioned extramarital affair), but it's the humanity he gives his subject, not the shock value of his revelations, that makes Dugan's play so compelling, that and the luminous performance of his riveting star under Jenny Sullivan's masterful direction. Not only does Burrows (aided by dialect coach Elizabeth Himelstein) find the distinctive Jackie vowels so few of her interpreters have managed to replicate, the gamut of emotions she runs, from anger to fear to disgust to joy to despair and more, is quite simply dazzling, and with Burrows playing her, Jackie Kennedy Onassis proves one heck of a hostess.

Photo Courtesy of Kevin Parry.

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