This is one Tennessee Williams woman you won't soon forget. Marisa Tomei plays Serafina, a widow who rekindles her desire for love, lust and life in the arms of a fiery suitor. Sharply directed by Cullman, Williams' lesser-known gem sizzles with humor and heart in sultry New Orleans. Serafina erupts from the depths of despair to the heights of passion in this Tony Award-winning Best Play.
Marisa Tomei's earthy performance as half-crazed Sicilian American widow Serafina Delle Rose is the main attraction in Trip Cullman's maddeningly uneven production, first seen in 2016 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival with a mostly different supporting cast. Tomei emotes up a storm more brooding even than the clouds billowing over the Louisiana Gulf Coast in Lucy Mackinnon's atmospheric wraparound projections. But director Cullman has no feel for the tricky brew of pathos, passion, poetry, humor and clunky symbolism required of this second-tier Williams work. Instead, it's shrill and hysterically over the top, poorly paced and blighted by some very large Italianate acting with all the authenticity of an Olive Garden chicken alfredo. Troppo is the word that comes to mind.
The casting of Marisa Tomei, an accomplished stage actor who is no stranger to finding authentic humanity in a quirkily altered reality (i.e., her last two New York turns in Sarah Ruhl's HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE and, oddly enough, Will Eno's THE REALISTIC JONESES), is the first. But this ain't no Streetcar or Glass Menagerie. The Rose Tattoo, Williams' 1951 offering which is returning to Broadway for the third time by way of a production that originated three summers ago at Williamstown Theatre Festival, is about as close as the playwright ever came to romantic comedy, and director, star and a very strong ensemble cast bring out the operatic flourishes of sorrow. joy, and even a little madness, in this tale of a grief-stricken Sicilian immigrant widow living on the Gulf Coast who finds fulfilling passion once again.
1951 | Broadway |
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1966 | Broadway |
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1995 | Broadway |
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2019 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theater Company Broadway Revival Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2020 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Marisa Tomei |
2020 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | The Rose Tattoo |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Costume Design of a Play | Clint Ramos |
2020 | Tony Awards | Best Original Score | Fitz Patton |
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