{"id":66546,"date":"2018-03-29T22:25:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T02:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/in-three-tall-women-and-yerma-stunning-portraits-of-women-on-the-verge-review\/"},"modified":"2018-03-29T22:25:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T02:25:36","slug":"in-three-tall-women-and-yerma-stunning-portraits-of-women-on-the-verge-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/in-three-tall-women-and-yerma-stunning-portraits-of-women-on-the-verge-review\/","title":{"rendered":"In \u2018Three Tall Women\u2019 and \u2018Yerma,\u2019 Stunning Portraits of Women on the Verge: REVIEW"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u2018Three Tall Women\u2019 and \u2018Yerma,\u2019 Stunning Portraits of Women on the Verge: REVIEW<\/b>
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Two of the best productions in New York right now are knocking the wind out of audiences with vivid and bracing insights into the female<\/a> psyche. <\/span><\/p>\n

Edward Albee\u2019s 1994 Pulitzer winner <\/span>Three Tall Women<\/span><\/i>, which opened last night in its Broadway premiere, receives a magnificent revival from director Joe Mantello, featuring master class performances from screen legend Glenda Jackson, the incomparable Laurie Metcalf, and Alison Pill, as one woman<\/a> looking back on life from her deathbed. Across town at Park Avenue Armory, London\u2019s Young Vic production of <\/span>Yerma<\/span><\/i>, a modern adaptation after Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, introduces American audiences to a virtuosic Billie Piper, as a woman<\/a> gradually consumed by her struggle to conceive.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We meet Albee\u2019s three women<\/a> in a tastefully lavish pre-war bedroom (designed by Miriam Buether) belonging to the eldest among them, as formidable as she is fragile at just north of 90, brilliantly played by Jackson. With the matter-of-fact wit and grit that is Metcalf\u2019s signature, in the play\u2019s first part she plays the woman<\/a>\u2019s nurse and de facto sole companion. Pill is a young lawyer who\u2019s come to look in on the old woman<\/a>\u2019s unpaid bills, clearly an outsider to the pat routine between caregiver and charge. <\/span><\/p>\n

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The play\u2019s pivot point, which Mantello finesses with a visual flourish, finds all three playing the elderly character (said to be modeled on Albee\u2019s adoptive mother) at different stages of her life, reflecting on her path and the choices she\u2019s made.<\/span><\/p>\n

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As a firebrand facing death, somewhat helplessly in the first part and with great circumspection in the second, Jackson delivers an intricate, razor-sharp performance that already feels like theatrical legend. Metcalf is in top form in both roles, punching every syllable with vigorous interior life. Nearly as headstrong but far more naive, Pill\u2019s younger characters are most often on the receiving end of hard-won wisdom, as the actress holds her own against two towering greats. The synergy among all three is a marvel, lifting Albee\u2019s meditation on the mortality to soaring heights.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The beginnings of life are the focus of writer-director Simon Stone\u2019s arresting and sensory-pounding <\/span>Yerma<\/span><\/i>, a deft modern update of Lorca\u2019s 1934 poetic drama. Billie Piper plays a successful London journalist (called simply \u2018Her\u2019 in the script) who\u2019s just moved into a new house with her not-quite-husband John (Brendan Cowell). (\u201cFollow the lesbians<\/a>,\u201d John says of gentrification.) She\u2019s just north of 30, and as they lie sprawled on their new floor swigging Veuve Clicquot, broaches the subject of kids for the first time. John makes a gallant show of stomping on her birth control pills as they agree to start trying.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Stone\u2019s production is set between panes of glass in what essentially looks like a terrarium meant for humans (scenic design is by Lizzie Clachan). Seated on either side, audiences observe from a sort of scientific remove \u2014 but the action behind the divide feels startlingly real. As days, months, and years pass in blackouts between scenes, her determination only grows more intense as her prospects of becoming pregnant grow increasingly remote. Meanwhile, her sister Mary\u2019s (Charlotte Randle) ambivalence toward parenthood only seems to make Mary more fertile, and their mother Helen (Maureen Beattie) is the furthest from maternal among them. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Tracing a spiral that turns on hopes and anguish faced by countless women<\/a>, Piper\u2019s performance is a tour-de-force from blithe start to bitter end. The entire cast, like Stone\u2019s visually surprising production, is fine-tuned to optimize the story\u2019s jolting emotional impact, by drawing us in so close we could press our noses against the glass. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The spring arrival of these two visceral, thought-provoking productions focused squarely on the experiences of women<\/a> feels like the season\u2019s first gusts of fresh air.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar
<\/a><\/em>(photos: stephanie berger, brigitte lacombe)<\/p>\n

The post In \u2018Three Tall Women\u2019 and \u2018Yerma,\u2019 Stunning Portraits of Women on the Verge: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In \u2018Three Tall Women\u2019 and \u2018Yerma,\u2019 Stunning Portraits of Women on the Verge: REVIEW<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n