Grovers Corners on Broadway

Ben Brantley writes an absolutely beautiful review of the latest revival of Our Town, the long-awaited production starring Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. Why I think this review is so gorgeous is not just that it is glowing and positive. Not at all. Brantley has some criticisms, which were also fascinating to read, because they were so well-thought-out. He doesn’t just tell you that things don’t work, he analyzes WHY. To my taste, this is what all theatrical reviews should be like: a sensitive and knowledgeable deconstruction of what worked, what did not work, and why it might not have worked.

Additionally, I find that way too many reviews short-shift the contributions of the actors. The performances get a paragraph at the end, with brief adjectives attached to each name. “So-and-so makes a sprightly Miss Daisy.” “So-and-so adds some nice humor with his portrayal of Falstaff”. Whatever. BORING.

To talk about acting in any intelligent way is extremely challenging, but when someone hits the nail on the head, and expresses exactly what it is an actor may be doing that makes the performance memorable or abysmal, it’s exhilarating to read.

Brantley’s discussion of what Paul Newman appears to be doing as The Stage Manager is just what I am talking about. Of course, I want to see the production, but Brantley makes me feel like I had been there (almost). First of all, he describes the performance as: “the most modest performance ever by a major American star on a Broadway stage.” If you know anything at all about acting, then you know that this is a massive compliment. Almost the greatest compliment an actor could receive, especially one with such mega-stardom as Paul Newman.

Brantley goes on:

Wearing his period costume of vest, shirt and trousers as if he had just thrown them on in a hurry, Mr. Newman emanates little of the just-folks, pipe-smoking heartiness associated with the part and even less of the grim Jovean irony that Spalding Gray brought to the role in the 1988 revival. Mr. Newman has instead the aura of someone figuring out things as he goes along, almost seeming to invent his lines on the spot and then to marvel when they sound deep.

In other words, he plays the Stage Manager less as a stand-in for God than as yet another bewildered member of the ensemble called the human race. In his early film performances Mr. Newman seemed consciously to avoid the sheen of movie-star glamour; his extraordinary natural good looks needed no extra polish. In like manner he now knows that his living-legend stature requires no special enhancement, and he’s all the more resonant for not working at it.

And then this, discussing Jayne Atkinson’s work as George’s mother as well as Newman:

There is nothing flashy about her Mrs. Gibbs. But whether she’s feeding an imaginary flock of chickens or savoring the smell of heliotrope, she inhabits every scene with a sharpness, simplicity and immediacy that, like the play itself, fully values the small and fleeting moments in life.

So, in his more subdued way, does Mr. Newman, who waits until the second act to turn on the oratorical charisma that is the Stage Manager’s right. Even then, he dispenses it sparingly and to maximum effect. “You make a few decisions and then, wham, you’re 70,” he says at one point, with a vigor and incredulity that startle.

Reading a review like this makes me fully aware of how much intelligent learned criticism has declined in this country. I am a relatively young woman, so I don’t remember the golden age of criticism in America, but I have read all of Harold Clurman’s theatrical reviews and there is NOBODY writing about theatre like that today. Actually, if any readers out there can think of exceptions to this, please, by all means, let me know.

Brantley’s criticism of where the tone is off in this production stunned me. It’s so damn SPECIFIC.

Wilder specified “no scenery” in his stage directions, yet this production features a set by Tony Walton that suggests a Disneyland version of an empty stage. There are exposed trompe l’oeil radiators painted on the back wall and a whole galaxy of sandbag weights on ropes overhead. The effect is to put the play’s deliberate plainness into quotation marks. And once you start to gild the austere lily that is “Our Town,” you’ve upset an essential balance. Although the play was revolutionary in its fluid movement through time and its direct addresses to the audience, Wilder surely never meant it to be cute in its self-consciousness.

“Putting the play’s plainness into quotation marks”. Beautiful work, Mr. Brantley. I get what you mean COMPLETELY.

Writing this way about critics (especially the part about critics short-shifting the acting, because nobody really knows how to talk about it … they only know whether it moves them or not, they cannot explain WHY) reminds me of another randomly amazing review which made such an impression on me that I printed it out to keep. This was written by Stephanie Zacharek, a reviewer for Salon.com. (In general, they have incredible movie reviews on Salon.) She reviewed the Dennis Quaid film The Rookie. I had no desire to see the film. It was rated G. Why would I go to a rated G movie?? Her review made me go out and rent it immediately, and I now own the damn thing. THAT is an effective review.

But anyway, what really struck me about Zacharek’s review was her analysis of Dennis Quaid’s acting. And not just his acting, but his cumulative career as an actor. What she perceived as his arc, how she interpreted his life affecting his art. It’s beautiful. A total testament to the power of acting, and also to the fact that acting is a calling. An important profession. I sent it to David, one of my best friends, who is an actor in his 30s. It has something to say to all of us, as artists, but also to those of us who are getting a little bit older, trying to find our way in this youth-oriented career.

Here’s what she says about Quaid. Notice how she delves into his challenges in the film, what he had to work against, and how he triumphs. The quote is a tad long, but it is worth it. Tears welled up in my eyes just now, as I re-read it.

But Hancock [the director], working off a script by Mike Rich (“Finding Forrester”), knows in his heart that it’s his duty to make an uplifting, inspirational picture, which is probably why most of the movie has such an unflattering, shiny-penny tone.

But then, just as an athlete stretches a muscle by subjecting it to resistance, that tone gives Quaid something to work against — sometimes that’s how you get fine performances in so-so movies, even if it’s not an actor’s intention to subvert the material. Here, Quaid doesn’t make the best of the movie’s baloney; he presents it to us as a believable truth.

Quaid, who has dropped out of the movie scene for patches that have sometimes stretched far too long, is aging beautifully, although that may not be the same thing as well. He has none of the beaming, wholesome goodness of, say, Kevin Costner; his bad-boy impishness hasn’t disappeared, but now it comes across as a weatherbeaten glow that’s survived against all odds, not as an actor’s trick to ensure that he remains an eternal heartthrob.

But if there’s a new roughness to Quaid’s face, there’s a new openness as well, as if the irresistible gunslinging arrogance of his Gordo Cooper in “The Right Stuff” had rubbed up against more than its share of doubts and insecurities over the years. Quaid reveals layers of feeling that he might not have been able to show us 15 years ago …

Quaid’s job here is to play a man who is happy enough raising a family in a small town but who nonetheless harbors a dream. The idea is sentimental, but Quaid dries all the sappiness out of it. There’s something in his face that suggests both contentment and restlessness, but even more important, the sense that it’s perfectly natural (and understandable) for the two to coexist in all of us. That’s what makes his moments of joy — the swollen music on the soundtrack notwithstanding — seem pure and wholly believable. When his wife (played with perfunctory can-do spunkiness by Rachel Griffiths) shows up at his first Major League game and reaches down from the stands to greet him, he stretches up eagerly to reach her. He’s been away for three months, toiling in the minors, and the look on his face is a mixture of relief and joy at seeing her. But more significantly, he shows sudden amazement at how far he’s come — as if it hadn’t occurred to him until precisely that moment he saw her face. If you want to see how an actor plays a married man, it’s Quaid in that moment. Any serviceable actor can look at a woman and show devotion and loyalty. It takes a terrific one to show a sense of surprise at who he has become.

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