BWW Review: THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE at Rubicon Theatre Company
John Ford's 1962 film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, is one of motion picture's all-time classic westerns. So when I heard that a play version was making its American premiere at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, I got more than just a little excited. Envisioning the tensions seen on the screen in epic portrayals by Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Lee Marvin promised to be riveting theater. Unfortunately, the play version was taken not from the screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck (it was unavailable) but an adaptation by British playwright Joshua Compton from Dorothy M. Johnson's original short story, and although the Rubicon has created a fabulous setting, marvelous performances from all of the actors, and an atmospheric, on-stage musical tableau by Trevor Wheetman, the result is simply not as compelling as the movie.