BWW Reviews: ROY COHN Given a Fresh Look at Odyssey
Playwright Joan Beber's concept of Roy Cohn in her intriguingly nightmarish Hunger: In Bed with Roy Cohn, now onstage at the Odyssey Theatre, comes off a self-indulgent, spoiled, gluttonous, untrusting child monster, which certainly does not add up to a positive view of his humanity. In Angels in America, as I was too young to know the real Cohn in the McCarthy era, I saw Al Pacino's hard-edged, evil-to-the-core interpretation of the man. Barry Pearl's in Hunger, yes is more childlike, whimpering, whining, but if Beber truly wants us to witness a good side to bad, she has not succeeded. I despise the lying, bigoted, hateful man just as much as I did before, reality or fantasy. On the positive side, director Jules Aaron has ingeniously staged the over-the-top entertainment with a marvelous cast. Hunger will run through March 11.