8 / 10
Susan Sarandon, in her UK stage debut, plays the elder Mary at ages 59, 63 and 69. Her performance is brilliantly still and magnetic – she conveys the physical weariness of age but also an internal steadiness. It is an excellent portrayal of a woman who has lived through so much, carrying the weight of her experiences in the set of her shoulders.
6 / 10
So what can you call Mary Page Marlowe? Because this British debut for Tracy Letts’s 2016 play is an odd 100 minutes of theatre, structurally at least. Matthew Warchus’s precision production begins with a superb diner scene in which Mary Page tells her children she’s leaving the family home. Seemingly significant statements (“Sometimes we do things we shouldn’t do”) stud the small, sharp observations. Riseborough keeps it real but lets you feel the character’s soul. Great writing.
Watching Mary Page Marlowe you feel like you're constantly trying to piece together a mosaic of one woman’s life, glimpsed in snapshots, lit by moments of clarity, yet never forming a complete picture. Under Matthew Warchus’s direction, in his final season as Artistic Director at the Old Vic, the production stages Tracy Letts’s play non-chronologically, across 11 scenes spanning seven decades, that show Mary at various ages.
Mary Page Marlowe is an accountant from Ohio. She's led an ordinary life, making the difficult decisions we all face as we try to figure out who we really are and what we really want. As Tracy Letts brings us moments-both pivotal and mundane-from Mary's life, a portrait of a surprisingly complicated woman emerges. Intimate and moving, Mary Page Marlowe shows us how circumstance, impulse and time can combine to make us mysteries...even to ourselves. Susan Surandon makes her London stage debut, alongside Andrea Riseborough, who returns to the stage after 15 years.
The Old Vic has announced the UK premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts’ Mary Page Marlowe, starring Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon and Academy Award nominee Andrea Riseborough.
| 2016 | Chicago |
Steppenwolf Original Production Chicago |
| 2018 | Off-Broadway |
Second Stage Theater New York Premiere Off-Broadway |
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