W-OLF
04-10-2006, 01:29 PM
NEW YORK (AP) - As one of the main characters says midway through "Festen," the English import based on a Danish film that has arrived on Broadway with an American cast: "Welcome to this curious birthday party."
"Curious" is not the half of it. Think "unlikely," "unsavory" and, at times, "unwatchable" because of some flagrant miscasting. In other words, "Festen," playing at the Music Box Theatre, is no cause for celebration.
Despite its spare, elegant design, "Festen," adapted by David Eldridge from the movie by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov and Bo Hr. Hansen, finds its stilted story in domestic chaos. We are at the 60th birthday celebration of a wealthy patriarch, Helge, who is being feted by his family and friends.
As toasts and good cheer tumble out, Helge's eldest son, Christian, reveals that his father sexually molested him and his twin sister, a young woman who only recently committed suicide. Talk about putting a damper on things.
Despite the horrific revelation, the party goes on. But not without further recriminations, a couple rounds of fisticuffs and a fierce if unsatisfying confrontation between father and son.
"Festen" has opened in New York carrying a suitcase full of good reviews from London, so expectations were high. Yet its homegrown cast, which features such actors as Larry Bryggman, Michael Hayden, Julianna Margulies, Jeremy Sisto and, in her Broadway debut, Ali MacGraw, proves to be a handicap.
They bring a variety of open, all-American acting styles (and in the case of MacGraw, not much nuance at all) to a parade of Scandinavian characters who are pencil-thin in depth. Only Hayden, as the deeply troubled Christian, manages to make something out of the meager details that Eldridge's script provides.
MacGraw, her hair swept back and wearing a rich red gown, looks regal. But her role is minuscule and so is the impression she makes, particularly in an ineffective second-act speech in which she chastises her three children.
Margulies, the remaining sister, seems to be playing a brassy, tough-minded New York career woman. And Sisto, best known for portraying the demented Billy Chenoweth on HBO's acclaimed "Six Feet Under," does an even more hyper version of that role here. He portrays the volatile younger brother who browbeats his own wife and hurls racial insults at his sister's black boyfriend.
Bryggman, too, a fine actor in such plays as "Proof" and the recent revival of "Twelve Angry Men," appears stymied by the play's most enigmatic part, the father. It's almost a passive role and Bryggman is never able to bring the man to life.
Curiously, there seems to be more vitality in some of the play's smallest supporting roles, particularly the servants, portrayed by Stephen Kunken, Diane Davis and C.J. Wilson, than in the major players. It's quite telling watching them watch their employer and his family - with a faint sneer of contempt.
Director Rufus Norris, who oversaw the London production, does the same here with sporadic, often confusing results. Scenes overlap, often taking place simultaneously on the same set, as the histrionics are ramped up to highest degree of agitation.
The production design, sets by Ian MacNeil, costumes by Joan Wadge and lighting by Jean Kalman, has a simplicity that the rest of the evening lacks. A long dining-room table glides effortlessly from the back of the stage to the front with surprising grace. It's about the only note of tranquility you will find in this overwrought dysfunctional-family melodrama.
credit BellSouth
"Curious" is not the half of it. Think "unlikely," "unsavory" and, at times, "unwatchable" because of some flagrant miscasting. In other words, "Festen," playing at the Music Box Theatre, is no cause for celebration.
Despite its spare, elegant design, "Festen," adapted by David Eldridge from the movie by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens Rukov and Bo Hr. Hansen, finds its stilted story in domestic chaos. We are at the 60th birthday celebration of a wealthy patriarch, Helge, who is being feted by his family and friends.
As toasts and good cheer tumble out, Helge's eldest son, Christian, reveals that his father sexually molested him and his twin sister, a young woman who only recently committed suicide. Talk about putting a damper on things.
Despite the horrific revelation, the party goes on. But not without further recriminations, a couple rounds of fisticuffs and a fierce if unsatisfying confrontation between father and son.
"Festen" has opened in New York carrying a suitcase full of good reviews from London, so expectations were high. Yet its homegrown cast, which features such actors as Larry Bryggman, Michael Hayden, Julianna Margulies, Jeremy Sisto and, in her Broadway debut, Ali MacGraw, proves to be a handicap.
They bring a variety of open, all-American acting styles (and in the case of MacGraw, not much nuance at all) to a parade of Scandinavian characters who are pencil-thin in depth. Only Hayden, as the deeply troubled Christian, manages to make something out of the meager details that Eldridge's script provides.
MacGraw, her hair swept back and wearing a rich red gown, looks regal. But her role is minuscule and so is the impression she makes, particularly in an ineffective second-act speech in which she chastises her three children.
Margulies, the remaining sister, seems to be playing a brassy, tough-minded New York career woman. And Sisto, best known for portraying the demented Billy Chenoweth on HBO's acclaimed "Six Feet Under," does an even more hyper version of that role here. He portrays the volatile younger brother who browbeats his own wife and hurls racial insults at his sister's black boyfriend.
Bryggman, too, a fine actor in such plays as "Proof" and the recent revival of "Twelve Angry Men," appears stymied by the play's most enigmatic part, the father. It's almost a passive role and Bryggman is never able to bring the man to life.
Curiously, there seems to be more vitality in some of the play's smallest supporting roles, particularly the servants, portrayed by Stephen Kunken, Diane Davis and C.J. Wilson, than in the major players. It's quite telling watching them watch their employer and his family - with a faint sneer of contempt.
Director Rufus Norris, who oversaw the London production, does the same here with sporadic, often confusing results. Scenes overlap, often taking place simultaneously on the same set, as the histrionics are ramped up to highest degree of agitation.
The production design, sets by Ian MacNeil, costumes by Joan Wadge and lighting by Jean Kalman, has a simplicity that the rest of the evening lacks. A long dining-room table glides effortlessly from the back of the stage to the front with surprising grace. It's about the only note of tranquility you will find in this overwrought dysfunctional-family melodrama.
credit BellSouth