A DELICATE BALANCE, Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winning masterwork returns to Broadway with an extraordinary cast.
In A DELICATE BALANCE, Agnes (Glenn Close) and Tobias (John Lithgow), a long-married couple, must maintain their equilibrium as over the course of a weekend they welcome home their 36-year-old daughter (Martha Plimpton) after the collapse of her fourth marriage, and give shelter to their best friends (Bob Balaban and Clare Higgins), all the while tolerating Agnes' alcoholic sister Claire (Lindsay Duncan).
The Daily News calls A DELICATE BALANCE "a beautiful play- easily Albee's best and most mature, filled with humor and compassion and touched with poetry." It "proves that old-fashioned stage virtues- originality of voice, depth of feeling, richness of language- can still provide a thrill" (TIME Magazine). "If you really care about serious theatre, brilliant theatre, great acting, and great playwriting, this is the only play to see on Broadway" (New York Post).
At its best, it's thought-provoking and sometimes challenging, but it takes a long time to get moving, and I wonder whether modern-day audiences will be willing to wait for it...While the notion that well-to-do WASPs are dead inside is perhaps the least little bit overfamiliar, this is still a fairly promising setup for a theater-of-the-absurd comedy...'A Delicate Balance' comes across like a dramatically static rewrite of 'Virginia Woolf' with rather less drinking and much less cursing...Pam MacKinnon, who staged last year's outstanding Broadway revival of 'Virginia Woolf,' is Mr. Albee's preferred director, so we can assume that this direct, unmannered production is what the author had in mind...Ms. Close's performance is quiet, tasteful and underprojected, not surprising for an actor who has been absent from the stage for so long. Mr. Lithgow, by contrast, is in extraordinary form, by turns tightly inhibited and almost shockingly anguished.
When you put a bunch of great actors together...and get them to perform a Pulitzer-winning drama (by no less than Edward Albee), you expect fireworks. But the starry new Broadway revival of Albee's 1966 drama 'A Delicate Balance' is surprisingly flat and likely to disappoint both those unfamiliar with the three-act play, as well as those who still remember its much acclaimed revival from two decades ago with Elaine Stritch and Rosemary Harris...Despite the witty lines and a handful of exciting moments, the production is a three-hour, very static bore. Pam MacKinnon, who directed the 2012 Broadway revival of Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?', never manages to combine these accomplished performers into a unified ensemble. Perhaps that balance will be reached as the run continues.
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