Written by Eugene O'Neill
Directed by Robert Falls
Synopsis: Elder Ephraim Cabot returns to his remote New England farm with his third wife -- the young, alluring, headstrong Abbie -- setting his three disapproving grown sons on an emotional roller coaster and bitter fight for their inheritance. When Ephraim's youngest son Eben sets his sights on Abbie, the resulting tempest brings tragic consequences.
NEW YORK TIMES:
"With Ms. Gugino, Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Dennehy giving performances of unflagging commitment and exposed feeling, the production manages to transcend the play’s flaws to transmit the penetrating truth of O’Neill’s underlying vision, of the ineradicable human need to possess and be possessed."
Read the whole review HERE.
NEW YORK POST:
"Leave your sense of irony at home and embrace the insanity, and you won't find a more intense experience on Broadway."
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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:
"The production at the St. James can't decide between opera-scale symbolism (a house actually hovers above the stage) or folksy music video (Bob Dylan's moody "Not Dark Yet" underscores a long silent scene). Either way, most performances are from the if-it's-loud-it's-important school and distance us instead of drawing the audience in."
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THEATERMANIA:
"The misguided emphasis on volume takes its toll on the performances by these five clearly accomplished actors. Gugino, who gets to flash her breathtaking legs, and Schreiber, who has a body ripe for the cover of Men's Health, may circle and grope each other like animals in heat, but the unchanging decibel level precludes much sense of their interior lives. Dennehy has the same problem, although his abrupt aging at the denouement is impressive. Still, this is a rocky production in every sense of the word. "
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VARIETY:
"Nobody could accuse Robert Falls of taking the safe route with "Desire Under the Elms." As in Simon McBurney's "All My Sons" revival earlier this season, the director layers on bold auteurial flourishes in a stylized bid to fire up the molten Greek tragedy in a naturalistic American drama. And as with that production, responses will range from rejection to rapture. Transferring from Chicago's Goodman Theater, where it was the centerpiece of a Eugene O'Neill festival, the staging is grimly overwrought, with an intensity that never quite translates into emotional impact, yet its unyielding harshness is undeniably compelling."
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NEWSDAY:
"Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" is a strange, ungainly fist of a drama. It was a hit and a scandal on Broadway in 1924. But until Chicago's Goodman Theatre revived it in Robert Falls' radical version, the big-footed erotic monster of a family tragedy has been considered virtually unstageable. It still is - though you wouldn't know it from the almost-poignant intensity of that production, which opened last night with Brian Dennehy as the meanie old New England farmer with the hotblooded third wife (Carla Gugino) and the furious hunk of a son (Pablo Schreiber)."
Read the whole review HERE.
BACKSTAGE:
"As he did with his groundbreaking 1999 revival of Death of a Salesman, Robert Falls shatters expectations and forces us to rethink an American classic. His new production of Eugene O'Neill's 1924 Desire Under the Elms, now on Broadway after a run at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, defies popular conceptions of the play and O'Neill's work in general. "
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AMNY:
"But regardless of the cast and director, “Desire Under the Elms” is the kind of play that will be appreciated by some and booed by others. Try and think of it as watching a soap opera set on a 19th century New England farm."
Read the whole review HERE.
