Venus in Fur, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York
6 / 10
For the first half-hour, the parallels are beautifully balanced. If Venus in Fur had been a one-act, I would have rushed to assign it five stars. In saying this, I realise that I am adhering to the standard evaluation of Ives: adept at miniatures. But that judgment is no more disparaging than to say that Alice Munro excels at short stories. Once Ives introduces subplots from Vanda and Thomas's offstage lives - has Thomas's fiancée dispatched Vanda to the audition to test his fidelity? - the narrative begins to sag. The tense, touching performance of Dancy as an uptight intellectual and Arianda's lushly comic turn as the high-energy seductress do not quite compensate for the overextended central conceit.
