Word: cronins
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Jane Cronin as the Bridegroom's mother, one of the largest and most important parts in the show, tries too hard to be Sarah Bernhardt. In the process she forgets she is a woman and portraying a woman. Thus she misses the tenderness that must go with the hate that she must feel almost against her will. She captures little of the depth of soul or wisdom from suffering--"We want to hear the things that will hurt us"--that the script would seem to grant her. Richard Galvin as the Bridegroom seems slightly foppish in the part...
...Jane Cronin plays the meek sister quietly, almost mutely, almost ideally. Her searching, nearly childlike smile needs no words to help it unfold the character's frail tenderness. Olympia Dukakis, as the maid who is at one point compared to a walrus and who never travels without her goldfish, often squawks excellently, although her accent seems queasy. Her face is powerful. Richard Gavin plays the nephew with grace, youth, and a good balance of strength and weakness; he makes an effective contrast to the old judge, played by the director. Ree Christiansen, the fierce sister, screws her icy nerves...
...patrons of Cronin's: "Alcoholic stimulants have a record of woe second to nothing. The sot is prone in life's very gutter; bloated, reeking and polluted with the doggery's slops and filfth...
...best acting is done by John Heffernan who indeed seems ideal for his role with features and a manner that spell out the intelligent, and yet vulnerable decadence that Sartre had in mind. Rigmore Christiansen does equally well as the Lesbian, matching Heffernan's force at every point. Jane Cronin seems less remarkable than the other two, largely because her role as the "love-object" is more passive. And as a bellboy in Hell, Richard Galvin provides the suitable mixture of insolence and irony...
...merely a minor re-working of the inevitable Williams theme of a woman who lives in a world of illusion. The boy who meets the tawdry heroine on a railroad embankment merely establishes the situation. Limited though it is, the part is well-handled by Walter McGinn. Jane Cronin is entrancing as she delivers this bubble-frail poetic monologue without benefit of scenery. She provides an object-lesson in good acting...