BWW Reviews: ROSES Smell Sweet at Mark Taper Forum
by Don Grigware
- Feb 22, 2010
Frank D. Gilroy's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Subject Was Roses depicts a dysfunctional family circa 1946 whose son returns from WWII... a man. The strained day-to-day relationship between the mother and father changes for the better with his return, but only briefly, as buried feelings surface inducing intensely explosive confrontations. The universal themes of love and freedom remain as clear and untarnished as they were in the 60s, and this new production comes full circle for Martin Sheen, who also costarred in the original Broadway version in 1965 as son Timmy.
