Broadway Blogs - 33 Variations Review Roundup and More...

Moises Kaufman's new play 33 Variations tells the story of Katherine Brandt (Jane Fonda), a woman racing against time to solve the riddle of a composer's 200-year-old obsession. As she faces her daughter, her past and Beethoven himself Katherine must struggle to embrace the legacy of her own life.

David Rooney, Variety: "It's been 46 years since Jane Fonda's last role on Broadway but there's no sign of rustiness in the cool command she brings to "33 Variations." Fonda certainly knows her way around characters like musicologist Dr. Katherine Brandt, an impassioned woman hungry for knowledge and reluctant to concede her weaknesses. Playing an emotionally distant parent who finds closeness with her daughter only at the end of her life, the iconic star's work here is also illuminated by personal history, mirroring her own famously troubled relationship with her father. If Moises Kaufman's elegant production outshines his schematic play, Fonda nonetheless distinguishes it with integrity and class."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: Moises Kaufman's earnest, plot-heavy "33 Variations" swirls with big ideas about big subjects - life, death, art to name three - and how they intersect and illuminate each other. Yet the play, which opened Monday at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre often seems dramatically tepid and slow moving. And this, despite the efforts of a hardworking cast that includes Jane Fonda, returning to the New York after an absence of more than four decades."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "It's fitting, in a way, that 33 Variations (* * ½ out of four) opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on Monday, less than a week after Horton Foote died at 92. Foote, whose own new play Dividing the Estate arrived on Broadway this season to wide acclaim, reminded us that even as the body succumbs to the ravages of age, the heart and mind can remain vital. That bittersweet irony is central to Variations, which otherwise inspires few comparisons to the gently wry and unsentimental Foote."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: JANE Fonda, is that really you? How long has it been since we've last caught up on Broadway? Forty-six years? You look great! And your character has a fatal illness? No way! There are quite a few issues with "33 Variations," written and directed by Moisés Kaufman. But the biggie is the difficulty of believing that anything, including Lou Gehrig's disease, could slow down Fonda's character, Katherine Brandt. The patrician actor remains poised until the very end. Her Katherine just doesn't like taking orders, even from death."

Ben Brantley, NY Times: "Ms. Fonda's layered crispness is, I regret to add, a contrast to Mr. Kaufman's often soggy play, which sends her character on a quest to unlock, with a mortal deadline looming before her, a musical mystery about the Beethoven composition of the title. Still, I'm willing to forgive a fair amount in a production that returns Ms. Fonda with such gallantry to the Broadway stage after an absence of 46 years."

John Simon, Bloomberg News: "Beethoven wrote 33 variations on a simple little waltz by the music publisher Anton Diabelli. Now Moises Kaufman has written "33 Variations," a play in 33 scenes in which Jane Fonda, age 71, returns to the Broadway stage after a 46-year absence. Fonda fans, of whom I am one, will not be disappointed, though they may be surprised. She looks, even from the fifth row, 45 or less and alluring as ever (if alluring in quite a different, more conventional way than the Jane nature created)."

David Sheward, Backstage: "'The art of variation is transforming something into its better self,' explains Jane Fonda as Dr. Katherine Brandt, the musicologist at the center of Moisés Kaufman's muddled play 33 Variations. Kaufman, who also directs, attempts to transform a subject of academic interest -- Beethoven's obsession with a simple waltz, upon which he based the titular project -- into a theatrical event. But he layers the story of the elderly genius with the melodrama of Dr. Brandt, and the result is like Amadeus meets Lifetime TV."

Linda Winer. Newsday: Jane Fonda is lanky and wry, with a great chin and a flat, deep voice that, more than once in her return to Broadway, may make you think about her late father, Henry. By opening last night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in an ambitious new work - rather than in a brand-name vehicle or a star-driven fluff ball - she is also very brave. This does not make "33 Variations" a good play or suggest that the actress, 71, has bounced back onto the stage with all the easygoing confidence of someone who hadn't left it 46 years ago for other worldly adventures."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: But the bigger question is what took Jane Fonda 46 years to come back to Broadway, where she's giving a robust and confident performance in the play that opened last night. Fonda plays Katherine Brandt, a music scholar with a progressive, degenerative condition who's determined to understand Beethoven's fixation before her time is up."

Peter Marks, The Washington Post: "Jane Fonda is 71. I'm trying to process this preposterous fact as I watch the actress, still svelte and radiant, portray a musicologist dying of a wasting disease in "33 Variations," the earnest new Broadway play about the inscrutable progress of illness and genius. Fonda's agelessness owes something to both the longevity of her fame and the intensity of her struggle against physical decline. (No one did more for the workout -- or a leotard -- than Jane Fonda.) On this occasion, she not only manages to transcend time, but also the material. For "33 Variations," which opened last night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, marks a pleasing Broadway return for Fonda, even if it's little more than a handsomely annotated music lesson."

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: "B+ Jane Fonda shares the stage with Ludwig van Beethoven in Moisés Kaufman's satisfying, musically astute Broadway brainteaser 33 Variations. Both of them acquit themselves nicely. But under the circumstances, I'd say Fonda has the harder job - and it's a kick to watch her work out her timing as a stage actor, a half century after the Actors Studio alumna first performed in live theater"

"I know Jesus loves me!  It's you he hates!"

While I have a sneaking suspicion that playwright Evan Smith meant for his new comedy, The Savannah Disputation, to bring out provocative issues of faith from underneath its many, many, many big laughs, I'm afraid director Walter Bobbie's production at Playwrights Horizon settles for being ninety of the funniest minutes currently gracing Manhattan's stages.  Oh sure, maybe some churchgoers will have reservations, but this heathen had a helluva good time.

As designed by John Lee Beatty, the Savannah home of devout Catholic sisters Mary (Dana Ivy) and Margaret (Marylouise Burke) is an explosion of clashing paisley from carpet to walls to upholstery.  And as costumed by David C. Woolard, we can see the ladies are not overly concerned with their appearance.  The fun begins when Melissa (Kellie Overbey), a young, pretty, attractively dressed Pentecostal missionary comes to their door in hopes of saving them from their false religion.  ("I'm not anti-Catholic.  Some of my church's best converts used to be Catholic.")  The hard-nosed, no-nonsense Mary slams the door on Melissa's first attempt to pull out a pamphlet, but on a return visit she's greeted by the polite and trusting Margaret, who starts questioning her faith after a brief chat with her genial and articulate visitor.

Infuriated by her arguments that Catholicism is idolatry and that even yoga is Satanic ("It turns out that all the stretches you do in yoga are really the exact same prostrations used in ancient Aztec sun worship.") Mary whips up the idea to ambush Melissa by inviting her to discuss religion at the same time her unsuspecting priest, Father Murphy (Reed Birney), is over as a dinner guest.  ("We want you to crush her.  We want you to demolish her.")  With the father dressed casually, the missionary is unaware she's being set up when she pulls out literature on "Buying Your Way Into Heaven" and "Cannibalism in the Catholic Church," but the gloves comes off when the topic turns to, "The Grammatical Error That Begat Popery," a belief that Jesus' word was mistranslated by the Greeks from the original Aramaic.  One of the author's most admirable achievements in the play is how he makes scenes of scripture quoting rather entertaining.

As might be expected, such debate does lead to doubts on matters of faith.  Friendships are tested and personal anguish is revealed, but the play only touches lightly on its serious moments.  Too lightly, in fact, when it comes to a series of phone messages that foreshadow circumstances that the author never concludes satisfactorily.

The evening is sitcomy, but in the best sense of the word.  Ivey hilariously barks out brittle wisecracks but shows just enough of the hurt woman her barbs protect.  Burke, as always, is just an adorable figure; timid, cordial and trusting.  The confusion she suffers when questioning her church is, in turns, both funny and endearing.  No matter what one may think of her methods Overbey keeps Melissa a sincere and sympathetic woman with an honest desire to do good.  As Father Murphy, Birney must anchor the proceedings and he does so dutifully and with gentle humor.

While the more religious among us may take something more from The Savannah Disputation, it's the sort of play that can certainly be enjoyed on a secular level.  After all, as Melissa says, "Take away their religion and Catholics are just people.

Photos by Joan Marcus:  Top:  Dana Ivey; Bottom:  Marylouise Burke and Kellie Overbey