Tag Archives: Lisa O’Hare

THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM

(photo by Joan Marcus)

Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce play a happy couple dealing with death in The Height of the Storm (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 24, $79-$169
heightofthestorm.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce are more than reason enough to see Florian Zeller’s latest intricate family drama, The Height of the Storm, although the play doesn’t quite live up to its lofty ambitions. The follow-up to Zeller’s trilogy of The Father, The Mother, and The Son, this new work shares themes with its predecessors, particularly The Father; as in that story, an elderly man named André (Pryce) with two daughters, Anne (Amanda Drew) and Élise (Lisa O’Hare), is having trouble with his memory. But in this case, there has been a death, but it’s not clear whether it’s André, an extremely successful writer, or his wife, Madeleine (Atkins). References to a recent bereavement are many, yet the two elderly married characters appear in scenes together that do not seem to be flashbacks. “There’s nothing to understand. People who try to understand things are morons,” an ornery André says, which is good advice to the audience as well, who shouldn’t try to think too hard to figure out what’s happening, whether we’re watching the present, the past, or the meanderings of a man suffering from dementia.

Anne is going through her father’s papers at the request of his editor to find more material to publish. Élise and her latest boyfriend, real estate agent Paul (James Hiller), are in from Paris, about to rush back for an important meeting. Madeleine is much calmer, walking through their vegetable garden and making her husband’s favorite mushroom dish. (The play takes place in Anthony Ward’s cozy, high-ceilinged kitchen set.) But when a woman (Lucy Coho) arrives claiming to be an old friend of André’s, his memory is tested yet again. “I had a life. I don’t deny it. But in the end, what’s left?” André opines. “A few faces? A few names lost in the fog? Here and there . . . Not much more. May as well forget everything.”

(photo by Joan Marcus)

A family gathering is interrupted by an unexpected guest in Florian Zeller’s The Height of the Storm (photo by Joan Marcus)

Pryce (Comedians, Miss Saigon), who has won two Tonys and two Olivier Awards, and three-time Olivier Award winner Atkins (Honour, A Room of One’s Own) are impeccable, delivering meticulous performances anchored by the fear that after fifty years of marriage, either André or Madeleine must go first, leaving the other one alone. Drew (Three Days in the Country, Enron), who played Anne in James Macdonald’s production of The Father at the Duke of York’s Theatre in 2016, is staunchly resolute as the daughter trying to keep everything from falling apart. The ninety-minute play features profound lighting by Hugh Vanstone, particularly as it relates to Pryce, who is sometimes cast in darkness while the others remain lit and talking. But director Jonathan Kent (Plenty, Naked) and translator Christopher Hampton (who did the same for the previous three related works) don’t always maneuver fluidly through the narrative; part of the intent is to set the viewer off balance, but too much manipulative confusion is not ideal, especially when accompanied by a clichéd twist. “What is my position? What is my position here? What is my position? My position! What is my position here? My position. Here. What is it? My position . . . what is it?” André frantically demands at one point. The audience is often not sure, which can be both hypnotic and aggravating.

A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER

GENTLEMAN

One of the D’Ysquiths (Jefferson Mays) celebrates with his potential murderer (Bryce Pinkham) in vengeful musical comedy

Walter Kerr Theatre
219 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Through September 7, $35-$137
www.agentlemansguidebroadway.com

Not even a ridiculously loud family sitting behind us, crunching on candy and talking throughout the first act, could dampen our thorough enjoyment of the wonderful new Broadway musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder. The show follows the trials and travails of one Monty Navarro (Bryce Pinkham), who is in prison, writing his memoirs. The story then turns back to Monty’s mother’s funeral, where chatty Miss Shingle (Jane Carr) tells him that his mother was disowned by the noble D’Ysquith family when she married a man her relatives disapproved of. When Monty discovers that he is eighth in the line of succession to become earl, those men and women in between him suddenly start dropping like flies, each one played with a hearty wink and a nod by Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife, Blood and Gifts) in ever-more-clever set-ups, from various lords and ladies to a dentally challenged reverend. Meanwhile, Monty can’t let go of the woman he adores, the spectacularly beautiful, self-centered, and manipulative Sibella Hallward (Lisa O’Hare), who is engaged to marry the never-seen Lionel Holland. Social mores of Edwardian England come tumbling down as Monty nears his vengeful goal. (If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because Gentleman’s Guide is based on Roy Horniman’s 1907 novel, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, the inspiration for Robert Hamer’s classic 1949 British black comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which Alec Guinness plays eight members of the D’Ascoyne family.)

GENTLEMAN

Sibella (Lisa O’Hare) and Monty (Bryce Pinkham) reevaluate their relationship in A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER

Robert L. Freedman (books and lyrics) and Steven Lutvak (music and lyrics), with director Darko Tresnjak and scenic designer Alexander Dodge, have created a lovely little tale, part The Mystery of Edwin Drood, part Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, with some Monty Python flourishes added for good measure. Pinkham (Ghost, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) has devilish fun as Navarro, thinking up new ways to do away with his potential victims, while Mays — well, it’s often hard to figure out just how he changes from character to character so quickly, not only in wardrobe but in accent and style, a mind-boggling tour de force. Most of the action takes place on a stage within the stage, with red curtains and faces that occasionally come alive. Intentionally cheesy backdrops and playful video projection add to the fun of such numbers as “You’re a D’Ysquith,” “Poison in My Pocket,” and “The Last One You’d Expect,” while riotous slapstick propels a marvelous scene in which Monty is with Sibella but Phoebe D’Ysquith (Lauren Worsham) unexpectedly arrives, her sights also set on Monty, who does his best trying to keep each woman from finding out about the other. A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder is a delicious mélange of music and mayhem, with plot twists that hold surprises even for those who adore Kind Hearts and Coronets.