Thursday, October 06, 2005

Bits and Pieces

I've located a couple of reviews with mostly positive mentions of Ms Ehle, from Design for Living.

Firstly, from Variety (New York), by Charles Isherwood "Roundabout serves Coward with a twist"*
Ehle's Gilda is the play's brittle emotional pivot, and if the actress sometimes repeats the same effects - beaming through a haze of tears, for example - to the point of monotony, there is nevertheless a glowing core of real emotion in her performance. She is also a luminous stage presence, as poised and lovely as an orchid amid the handsome surfaces of the production

Secondly, also from Variety, by Matt Wolf "The 'J' word"*
A homegrown American production of a problematic British play might itself sound like a recipe for disaster. But that's to deny the bracing intelligence of a Noel Cowand revival from Mantello, and starring Ehle, that is brave enough to face the obvious -- the menage a trois in this supposed comedy don't generate much mirth. Instead, Mantello shifts the attention to a union of supposed sophisticates linked by dissatisfaction when the best they can hope for, or so reports Ehle's Gilda, is to "cry just a little."
"I paint their souls," says Alan Cumming's portraitist Otto, and so does a staging that peels back the banter to lay bare the anomie beneath. Playing the erotic pivot of the piece, a nervy Ehle has never been less ingratiating. Which may also be why she has never been better.

(Full text of each article unavailable online, and not transcribed because of length)

No comments: