Post by mallardo on Mar 22, 2018 18:58:23 GMT
Accent issues aside, I very much liked Irons. He is a (for once) credible former matinee idol and the most sympathetic James Tyrone imaginable. His emotional reflections on his poverty stricken childhood were beautifully played and most moving. If the last hour of the play was not all it should be it was not his fault but that of the sons.
The less said about Matthew Beard's Edmund the better - he's miscast and woeful. Rory Keenan's Jamie is much better but, I thought, unbalanced. Whisky is for Jamie what morphine is for his mother, transformative. He must be a different person in the final act than he has been earlier - not just drunk but released. His raging self-lacerating confession to his brother is one of the greatest scenes in American theatre but it needs to be properly set up. I will never forget the late Philip Seymour Hoffman erupting on stage in this scene in the 2003 Broadway production. It was shocking because we had seen no hint of it earlier. His Jamie stole the show - it's possible to do. But not this time.
The less said about Matthew Beard's Edmund the better - he's miscast and woeful. Rory Keenan's Jamie is much better but, I thought, unbalanced. Whisky is for Jamie what morphine is for his mother, transformative. He must be a different person in the final act than he has been earlier - not just drunk but released. His raging self-lacerating confession to his brother is one of the greatest scenes in American theatre but it needs to be properly set up. I will never forget the late Philip Seymour Hoffman erupting on stage in this scene in the 2003 Broadway production. It was shocking because we had seen no hint of it earlier. His Jamie stole the show - it's possible to do. But not this time.