The Testament of Mary

[deliasherman]

So we walk into the Walter Kerr Theater, where The Testament of Mary is currently in previews, and we saw the audience milling around a glass box set to one side of a very cluttered stage.  Being Us, we made our way up there, pronto-pups, and picked our way over and around 1) a ladder, laid flat; 2) several folding chairs, draped with what looked

Comments

[tylik]

After hearing a much briefer NPR review, it was one of the few expensive Broadway tickets I've put some serious thought into buying. (I still probably won't - because it comes with transportation costs, and finding some place to stay, and time costs... but... damn.)

[la_marquise_de_]

She's an interesting actress: sometimes she can be mannered (I saw her play the lead in Hedda gabler in Dubblin in c.1990 and she was more like Joycwe Grenfell than anything, which was... odd). Sometimes, she can be powerful, and she is always blackly funny -- I saw her in a revivasl of London Assurance opposite Simon Ruseel beale two years ago and she was magnificent (it takes a great actress to rise to a character named lady gay Spanker, and Shaw did it wonderfully). This sounds like a good role for her -- as Hedda, she was too kinetic, which turned tragedy into melodrama in a few places, which was a shame.

[17catherines]

Oh, that sounds fascinating. I wish I could see it! Especially as my exam repertoire seems to be morphing into a Marian oratorio with Shakespeare lyrics...

[keestone]

That sounds somehow very different in effect from the premiere production of Testament I saw in Dublin in 2011 with Marie Mullen. I wonder how much of it is the difference between Mullen and Shaw's interpretation. There was anger in places, and resentment, and some guilt, but with Mullen I felt the predominant emotion was unrelenting grief.

[deliasherman]

I think that's Shaw. Her Mary seems to process grief as fury.