Word: gambon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Great performances have been easier to find than great plays on Broadway this season. Michael Gambon, making his U.S. stage debut last fall, stormed impressively through Skylight, a lesser work by David Hare. Antony Sher's luminous portrayal of English painter Stanley Spencer makes Pam Gems' Stanley look better than it probably is. Christopher Plummer is currently having a high old time impersonating the boozing thespian John Barrymore, though the vehicle, Barrymore, is little more than a facile stand-up monologue...
...Michael Gambon is one of the best, though American audiences have seen little of him. Acclaimed for his work in everything from Uncle Vanya to several of Alan Ayckbourn's most provocative comedies (A Chorus of Disapproval, Man of the Moment), Gambon is known here mainly as the star of Dennis Potter's admired TV mini-series, The Singing Detective. Now he's making his long-overdue U.S. stage debut, in a Broadway production of David Hare's Skylight. All the ingredients are there for stage magic; unfortunately, too many of the wires and trapdoors are clearly visible...
...play's spareness leaves the audience with entirely too much time to admire the acting. There is certainly plenty to admire about Gambon: the resonant baritone, the fleshy, middle-aged face that can shed years in one high-spirited moment, his improbable lightness on his feet. Yet each bit of physical business--an almost coquettish kick back of one leg, a sudden palsy in his hand as he breaks into sobs--seems too italicized, as if to announce: Great Acting Present. Gambon's unheralded co-star, Lia Williams (who also played the role in London), gets closer to our hearts...
Director Richard Eyre adds a couple of jarring physical outbursts (she angrily flings a load of silverware; a bit later he scatters a pile of books), but Hare hasn't pulled his weight. Glad to have you, Mr. Gambon; bring an Ayckbourn play the next time you're in town...
Based on a moldering script by director Barry Levinson and Valerie Curtin, Toys is informed by a sensibility still more antique: 1960s peacenik. It posits a conflict for control of a family toy company between a near holy fool (Robin Williams) and his uncle, a retired Army general (Michael Gambon) who wants to convert the plant to military-weapons production. Both are predictable types. Their employees are so sweetly innocent one longs for Hoffa's Teamsters to come in and give them mean lessons. But everyone's main function is to trigger special effects and lend scale to production designer...