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10-06-04
Broken Glass
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Timing with the Goodman Theatre’s world premiere of Arthur Miller’s Finishing the
Picture, the Actors Workshop Theatre has kicked off its
all-Miller season with Broken Glass.
Call it smart programming or
ambitious gall.
Whether or not Actors Workshop will ride the coattails of a
Goodman/Miller success remains to be seen. What makes Actors Workshop
commendable is that its season focuses largely on lesser-known Miller.
Sure we all know about Death of a
Salesman and The Crucible,
but what
about The Last Yankee or The American Clock?
Adventurous theatergoers will want to seek out Broken Glass, which
dates to 1994 when it won London’s Olivier Award for Best Play. On
Broadway, it lost the Tony prize to the second part of Angels in
America. Critics were mostly divided over its plot of a 1939 Brooklyn
Jewish woman who mysteriously loses her ability to walk when she learns
more and more about Nazi atrocities in Germany.
Actors Workshop has picked up the pieces of Broken Glass before in its
2001 production at Victory Gardens Theatre and now again in the
company’s cozy Edgewater storefront space. Under director Michael
Colucci’s guidance, Broken Glass
has been reassembled in a mostly
involving and lucid production...
One of the sharpest performances comes from Neal Grofman as Phillip
Gellburg, the man whose wife is inexplicably paralyzed. Uneasily
gulping and twisting his neck, Grofman’s tightly wound performance
fully embodies the troubled Mr. Gellburg from his blatant self-loathing
to gnawing unspoken longing that strains his marriage. Grofman also
deploys a nasally pinched voice and sharp furrowed brows that aim
piercing accusatory glares at all who try to cross his conflicted
character.
Largely locked in his line of fire is Equity actor Thomas Edson
McElroy’s Dr. Harry Hyman, a lothario-like doctor who becomes obsessed
with finding the root of the Gellburg’s dysfunction...his tall presence
and calm demeanor aptly suits his quizzical character...
The rest of the cast delivers good supporting character work
(especially Jan Ellen Graves with her grating laugh and Debra Rodkin’s
hesitant Brooklyn gossip)...
The reputation of Broken Glass
suffers no doubt when compared to
Miller’s earlier masterpieces. Yet that doesn’t mean the play should be
completely written off for it has many vital things to say about
self-identity and life-damaging resentments.
--SCOTT C. MORGAN
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9-30-04
BROKEN GLASS |
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When Actors Workshop Theatre staged this Arthur Miller
play three years
ago, I saw the lead character, Sylvia, as a vulnerable but vibrant
woman suffering psychosomatic paralysis, inspired either by sympathy
for the Jews in Nazi Germany--it's the 1930s--or by entrapment in a
loveless marriage. Sylvia's plight remains crucial, but watching this
revival my focus shifted to her self-hating husband and well-meaning
but vain doctor, perhaps because the actors in these roles are the most
captivating among a capable cast. Neal Grofman is aggravating but
sympathetic as the husband, and Thomas Edson McElroy's doctor invites
similarly mixed feelings. These two heighten the play's intensity in
their scenes together before turning to powerful interactions with
Jacqueline Grandt as Sylvia. ...the cast makes Miller's examination of
relationships, race, and
responsibility expansive.
--Jenn Goddu
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