Broadway Blog - Review Roundup: Desire Under the Elms

Direct from Chicago's prestigious Goodman Theatre comes a work of monumental passion and epic sensuality. An intense erotic journey. An experience you will not soon forget...

This spring, Desire Under the Elms reunites Brian Dennehy with director Robert Falls, who previously collaborated together on the revolutionary and critically acclaimed revivals of Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey Into Night.

David Rooney, Variety: "Nobody could accuse Robert Falls of taking the safe route with "Desire Under the Elms." As in Simon McBurney's "All My Sons" revival earlier this season, the director layers on bold auteurial flourishes in a stylized bid to fire up the molten Greek tragedy in a naturalistic American drama. And as with that production, responses will range from rejection to rapture. Transferring from Chicago's Goodman Theater, where it was the centerpiece of a EuGene O'Neill festival, the staging is grimly overwrought, with an intensity that never quite translates into emotional impact, yet its unyielding harshness is undeniably compelling."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: "The production from Chicago's Goodman Theatre is big and booming, almost operatic in its intensity and expansiveness. And it's stocked with oversized yet effective performances that hold their own against a gargantuan setting of rocks and a giant farmhouse that literally hangs in the air for much of the evening. That forbidding structure is the centerpiece of designer Walt Spangler's grandiose set design."

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: "With Ms. Gugino, Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Dennehy giving performances of unflagging commitment and exposed feeling, the production manages to transcend the play's flaws to transmit the penetrating truth of O'Neill's underlying vision, of the ineradicable human need to possess and be possessed."

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: "Bottom Line: There's a lot of desire, and even Bob Dylan, but no elms and not a lot of sense in this overheated staging of O'Neill's classic."

Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly: "And speaking of rocks...they essentially take the place of elms in this production. Enormous, back-breakingly heavy boulders are stacked everywhere on Walt Spangler's stunningly expressionistic set, suggesting that all that's growing on this land is rage, sin, and duplicity. The Farmhouse, suspended in mid-air for much of the play, seems as if it could crush the Cabots at any moment. Actually, that set could crush a lot of Broadway actors. But not Dennehy. And certainly not the marvelous Gugino. B+"

David Sheward, Backstage: "But there's nothing melodramatic or phony about this intense, sizzling revival. Falls wisely eschews naturalism and sets the play on a desolate rock-strewn heath. A triangle of greed and sexual rivalry is played out in this forbidding environment under an enormous suspended farmhouse, which hangs over the action like a crushing weight ready to drop at any moment. Designer Walt Spangler deserves full marks for creating a hellish setting that works as both a metaphor for the characters' struggles and the world in which they eat, sleep, and-to put it delicately-fornicate. That last-named activity is the driving force here, defying O'Neill's reputation for writing too many long monologues. The running time is a swift 100 minutes, and many of the passions are conveyed without words."

Linda Winer, Newsday: "It is possible that "Desire" cannot exist in a conventional setting. I don't believe it works now. But Dennehy and Falls have given us monumental evenings of "Death of a Salesman" and "Long Day's Journey into Night." Grappling here with far less confident material, they have turned a strange imperfect play into strange but confident theater. There is courage and foolish grandeur here. That counts, too."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "No trees. No subtlety. Lots of concepts. And rocks. In a nutshell, that's Broadway's new "Desire Under the Elms," Robert Falls' second baffling revival of the season."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "The director and his cast are particularly good at creating the feeling that the characters are puppets whose strings are pulled by forces greater than they are."

Matt Windman, AM New York: "But regardless of the cast and director, "Desire Under the Elms" is the kind of play that will be appreciated by some and booed by others. Try and think of it as watching a soap opera set on a 19th century New England farm."