A Delicate Balance
cast list
Kathleen Butler, John Carter, Kathleen Chalfant, Edward Herrmann, Ellen McLaughlin, Keira Naughton
directed by
James Bundy
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It's impossible to overstate the contribution Edward Albee has made to modern theatre. With plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, and his Pulitzer-winning A Delicate Balance, he's pushed the boundaries of form and content in new and exciting ways that make his plays worthy of revisiting.
Yale Repertory Theatre, with its production of A Delicate Balance, now closed, is the most recent to take up the Albee gauntlet. And it's refreshing to be reminded just how potent classic Albee can be following the New York debut of his most recent piece, Me, Myself & I. This production, however, was less than exciting, mostly due to miscasting and meandering direction by Yale Rep artistic director James Bundy.
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The play concerns an aging couple, Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant) and Tobias (Edward Herrmann), which finds itself faced with the presence of unexpected guests in the form of Edna (Kathleen Butler) and Harry (John Carter).
Despite the fact that Edna and Harry are old friends of Agnes and Tobias's, their sudden desire to take up residence in their daughter Julia's room comes as a surprise and spurs Albee's play forward as Agnes's sister Claire (Ellen McLaughlin) and Julia (Keira Naughton) challenge the arrival of these uninvited guests.
Albee's incisive play pulses with surrealistic flourishes and sears in its cutting portrayal of married life. Nevertheless, Kathleen Chalfant, typically a fine stage actress, couldn't seem to quite wrap her fingers around the role of Agnes, a steely matriarch that seems somehow wispy in her grasp. And Edward Herrmann, despite a fine, clear speaking voice didn't quite understand the seriousness of his role; neither did Ellen McLaughlin as Claire, who seemed closer in age to Julia than to sister Agnes.
Scenic design by Chien-Yu Peng missed the mark; grandeur was substituted in place of specificity. And costume designer Aaron P. Mastin dressed these upper crust characters in ill-fitting pajamas and, in the case of Claire, strange, 1980s-style leggings a la Liza Minnelli.
Somewhere amidst this mix of talents, there's a good production of A Delicate Balance waiting to be found. Individual cast members brought occasional glimmers of brilliance to bits and pieces of dialogue. But Albee's play operates on a level one or two wavelengths away from what was on stage at Yale Repertory Theatre.
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New York reviews
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Three Sisters, Classic Stage Company
The Piano Lesson, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Momentum, Laurie Beechman Theatre
The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, La MaMa E.T.C.
John Gabriel Borkman, BAM Harvey Theater
Blood From a Stone, Acorn Theatre
Malfi, Inc., Theatre 54
Pieces, 59E59 Theaters
A Delicate Balance, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Memorandum, Beckett Theatre
The Scottsboro Boys, Lyceum Theatre
Driving Miss Daisy, Golden Theatre
Futura, TBG Theatre
La Bete, The Music Box Theatre
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
A Life in the Theatre, Schoenfeld Theatre
In Transit, 59E59 Theaters
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