This is one Tennessee Williams woman you won't soon forget. Marisa Tomei plays Serafina, a widow who rekindles her desire for love, lust and life in the arms of a fiery suitor. Sharply directed by Cullman, Williams' lesser-known gem sizzles with humor and heart in sultry New Orleans. Serafina erupts from the depths of despair to the heights of passion in this Tony Award-winning Best Play.
Remarkably, you believe Tomei throughout. Most Sarafinas I have seen have nailed one or the other; Tomei, never contained by either, gets them both. It's a remarkable picture of restlessness and need, and reason enough to see Cullman's staging, which also leans wryly into the comedy of the piece, even to the point of including a bunch of pink flamingos in a rich setting from Mark Wendland that shrewdly suggests the immigrant's need to replicate their homeland, even as American visual banality shoots that desire in the foot.
The Rose Tattoo gets much more pleasurable as it opens into bloom. Tomei is not ideally cast as Serafina-her lightness works against her-and the first act is thick with Italian accents and gesticulation. (You half expect someone to step forward and say, 'Mama mia, that's a spicy drama!') Trip Cullman's staging seems to lean into the potential for camp; the back half of Mark Wendland's abstract set is crowded with dozens of lawn-ornament pink flamingos, and Tina Benko, as Rosario's mistress, looks and acts like a human pair of scissors. But Tomei's great talent for romantic comedy clicks into place in her flirtation with Mangiacavallo. Although the tone of the play and production waver too much to leave a permament impression, The Rose Tattoo has an interesting place in the Williams canon. There is no shortage, in his plays, of lustful, delusional women who fall for attractive younger men. But rarely do they have, as here, even the hope of a happy ending.
Videos