Review - The Country Girl & Sharon McNight at The Metropolitan Room
By: Michael Dale May. 04, 2008
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I mean it with the most sincere amount of respect and admiration for both gentlemen when I write that Peter Gallagher seems to have morphed into Jerry Orbach. At least in his portrayal of Bernie Dodd, the hard-driving Broadway director convinced that when the star of his new play suddenly leaves for a Hollywood gig he can get a great turn out of the washed-up alcoholic actor whose performances twIce Thrilled him many years ago. He's the best part of Mike Nichols' new production of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl (which has undergone some text tweaking by Jon Robin Baitz). His tough, but passionate mannerisms and gruff speaking voice bring out a sense of urgency to the proceedings as he convinces a skeptical producer (Chip Zien), a reluctant actor and his long-suffering wife that his high-stakes risk can pay off big. By the end of the evening I was half expecting the man to send his star on stage with an exhilarated, "Think of musical comedy!"
And while Gallagher and the supporting cast all do excellent work (Along with the slick and business-like Zien, there's Remy Auberjonois as the roll-with-the-punches playwright, Lucas Caleb Rooney as the efficient and compassionate stage manager, Anna Camp as an inexperienced young actress and Joe Roland as the dresser) it's the incomplete performances of Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand as the couple whose crumbling marriage may live or die on opening night, that bring the otherwise fine production down.
Though Freeman certainly registers as a worn down man whose personal tragedy and battles with the bottle have both wasted a once-prominent career and alienated himself from his wife, we see no hidden glimmers of the immense theatrical power Dodd insists the man once had and is still capable of. Even when energized by the excitement of opening night, he never convinces us that Frank Elgin is as capable a stage actor as, say, Morgan Freeman. McDormand also lacks spark as Georgie, who self-effacingly refers to herself as "the country girl." There is little chemistry between the two (both do their best work in scenes opposite Gallagher) and we get no sense that this couple was actually in love at one time. For two very accomplished actors working with a celebrated director, their performances simply skim the surface of Odets' drama, showing little detail and communicating little subtext.
The production has a terrific, shadowy period look under Natasha Katz's lights. Set designer Tim Hatley contributes wonderfully gritty backstage locations and Albert Wolsky's dark-hued costumes add to the atmosphere.
While I don't normally consider the pre-opening buzz a production receives when I watch a play and write my review, it's no secret that there have been reports of this one having a rocky go at it in previews. I wouldn't be surprised if this is simply a case where the two leads just need more time to work things out in performance and that it won't be long before they are far more effective in their roles.
Photo of Joe Roland, Morgan Freeman, Peter Gallagher and Frances McDormand by Brigitte Lacombe.
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"I don't have my glasses on so everyone's young and thin!"
The bawdy and divalicious Sharon McNight was in town last week for an all-too-brief two performance stint at The Metropolitan Room. The wildly unpredictable cabaret star, a 1989 Tony-nominee for Starmites, was in terrific form for Gone, But Not Forgotten, a tribute to several of the singers and comediennes who have inspired and influenced her career.
While not impersonating unique talents like Judy Canova (she yodels Dave Ringle and Fred Meinken's "Wabash Blues"), Martha Rae (an untraditionally upbeat Kern/Hammerstein "Old Man River") and Madeline Kahn (John Morris and Mel Brooks' "I'm Tired") she sings their material in tribute to their styles. But whether she's sweetly chirping Ana Sosenko's "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup" in honor of Hildegarde or eschewing the microphone to aggressively belt Styne and Sondheim's "Some People," saluting Merman, she is always undeniably McNight.
She tells of her early years singing Patsy Cline songs at The Duplex long before piano bars found her fashionable to introduce a lovely combination of "Sweet Dreams" and "I Fall To Pieces" and gives her impressions of Pearl Bailey's public relationship with Richard Nixon before her kittenish vocals for Alan Roberts' "Tired." To honor Sophie Tucker, a woman she's triumphantly played Off-Broadway, McNight delivers a snazzy honky-tonk arrangement of the Gershwins' "The Man I Love," that shows off the skills of music director Ian Herman in a solo break where he mixes the tune with a bit of "Rhapsody In Blue."
When McNight does choose to impersonate, so does so uproariously as Bette Davis singing (?) Frank Loesser's "They're Either Too Young Or Too Old" and in an extended sequence where she does Judy Garland, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton and every damn one of Singer's Midgets in the Munchkinland scene from The Wizard of Oz.
As an encore, she pays tribute to herself (why not?) with the song that has become her signature tune, Mary Liz McNamara's "Bacon," about the one irresistible food that keeps her from becoming a vegetarian. Shifting from a sweet and docile tyke who advises, "only a meanie eats veal scallopine," to a woman possessed by the sizzling goodness, her performance is just as crisp and irresistible.
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