[NEohioPAL]NYT Review- "Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' w/ Betsy Hogg

Sat Oct 14 09:56:58 PDT 2006

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A Teacher Still Warping Young Minds, but Gently           
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  By BEN BRANTLEY
  Published: October 10, 2006
    Who wouldn’t trust their children with Cynthia Nixon? Even playing bad girls and basket cases, this wonderful actress projects a brisk aura of competence, good will and empathy, leavened by an eminently sane sense of proportion. I have never seen her give an emotionally dishonest performance. 
    Skip to next paragraph     Enlarge This Image
   Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
  Cynthia Nixon, far right, as Jean Brodie, with some of her students. 

    Readers’ Opinions    Forum: Theater   

    Enlarge This Image
   Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
  Cynthia Nixon as the schoolteacher of the title in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” at the Acorn Theater. 

  These are sterling virtues all — and all at odds with the role of one of the theater’s most charismatic warpers of young minds. That’s Jean Brodie, the dramatically self-deluding Scottish schoolteacher and passionate advocate of causes — like sexual freedom and Italian Fascism — generally deemed unsuitable for little girls of the 1930’s. 
  In the New Group’s slow, airless revival of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” the 1966 play adapted by Jay Presson Allen from Muriel Spark’s short novel of 1961, Ms. Nixon cuts the dangerous Miss Brodie down to size, creating a portrait of a vulnerable, accessible woman who may, after all, be more sinned against than sinning.
  While this unlikely interpretation of the role is probably not entirely intentional, it could be argued (by a generous and elastic mind) that the drama supports the notion of a life-sized Miss Brodie, who is described in retrospect by the canniest of her pupils as “both guilty and innocent.”
  But without a large-scale Jean Brodie casting giant, violet-hued shadows over her classroom, the play itself seems to shrink, stiffen and show its age. As staged by Scott Elliott, a director known for eliciting (or forcing) the perversity in chestnuts as conventional as “Present Laughter” and “The Women,” the straightforward production that opened last night at the Acorn Theater curiously only underscores the schematic stodginess of Ms. Allen’s script.
  In the 1960’s, to have murmured that Miss Brodie and her pet pupils might be a bit of a bore would have been heresy. Ms. Spark’s wry, elliptical novel, first published in The New Yorker, found sinister shades of darkness that had seldom showed up in earlier portraits of unforgettable teachers. (“Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” indeed.) What’s more, it matter-of-factly presented 10- and 11-year-old girls contemplating with fascination and revulsion the mechanics of sexual intercourse.
  But what most made Ms. Spark’s book a perfect candidate for the theater was its title character, a figure both magnificent and ridiculous in her lofty carriage and extravagant affectations. Eccentricity, sensuality, overweening narcissism: Miss Brodie was a part for lionesses of the stage who combined old-style grandeur with new-style neurosis, and it got them in Vanessa Redgrave (who created the part in London), Zoe Caldwell (who won a Tony as Miss Brodie on Broadway) and Maggie Smith (who was awarded an Oscar for playing her on screen).
  An ambitious but ultimately dreary 1998 revival at the National Theater in London, with a revised script by Ms. Allen, which starred the great Fiona Shaw in a performance that toned down the surface glamour, showed just how much this play needed such histrionic flash and sparkle. Ms. Allen’s adaptation, perhaps of necessity, scraps the sense of the ineffable that makes Ms. Spark’s work shimmer so teasingly.
  Instead, workmanlike exposition, confrontation and flat psychological revelations rule the stage version — including the flashback framing device of the memories of Miss Brodie’s smartest pupil, who has grown up to become a nun and best-selling author (played by Caroline Lagerfelt), who recalls her childhood when she is interviewed by an American reporter (Matthew Rauch).
  That device creaks loudly in the opening scene. (“Perhaps you came under the influence of some particular person,” the reporter asks, “a teacher, perhaps?”) Still, it does build anticipation for a satisfyingly delayed star entrance for the actress playing Miss Brodie.
  Yet shortly after Ms. Nixon strides onto Derek McLane’s classic schoolroom set, looking very comely in crimped hair and a snug orange dress (the costumes are by Eric Becker), your doubts begin. True, there’s promise in her sly, confident smile, which suggests she is listening to privileged information no one else can hear.
  But her pinched Scottish accent forces her voice into uncomfortably nasal upper registers that suggest Miss Brodie could be Minnie Mouse’s cousin from Edinburgh. It is not a voice to inspire girls to romantic reverie. The overall effect is more coquettish, even girlish, than passionate. Miss Brodie’s essential air of defiant superiority seems merely provisional, which is all too evident when she loses her cool in argument with other adults.
  The other adults, by the way, are uniformly good, including that reliable chameleon Lisa Emery, as the straitlaced head of the school, and John Pankow and Ritchie Coster as, respectively, the dull and dapper men in Miss Brodie’s life. 
  Mr. Coster, in particular, is excellent as Teddy Lloyd, the dashing but seedy art instructor, and he provides this production’s one illuminating insight. A blend of bravado and shame, Mr. Coster’s interpretation makes clear that while this second-rate painter may not match Miss Brodie in self-mythologizing, he is her superior in self-awareness. The contrast captures the tragedy of both characters.
  Ms. Brodie’s coterie of favored pupils, the anointed “crème de la crème,” are all fine. Zoe Kazan — as the plain, precocious Sandy, who will become Miss Brodie’s nemesis — turns in a fluid, deeply felt performance (and even survives that excruciating nude scene in Teddy’s studio). But her heightened clarity as an actress — you feel you can always read what this Sandy is thinking — doesn’t match the judgmental guardedness that above all defines the character.
  Ms. Nixon, of course, is a master of emotional transparency. It’s what made her performance in David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole,” for which she won a Tony Award this year, so ravishing. Her great gift is for discovering extraordinary depth and detail in ordinary lives. That Miss Brodie bolts at the slightest suggestion of the ordinary leaves Ms. Nixon, for once, in limbo in finding the path to her character. 
  THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE
  By Jay Presson Allen, adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark; directed by Scott Elliot; sets by Derek McLane; costumes by Eric Becker; lighting by Jason Lyons; sound by Daniel Baker; composer, Tom Kochan; production supervisor, PRF Productions; production stage manager, Valerie A. Peterson; assistant director, Marie Masters; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis. Presented by the New Group, Mr. Elliot, artistic director; Geoff Rich, executive director. At the New Group at Theater Row (the Acorn Theater), 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton; (212) 279-4200. Through Dec. 9. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. 
  WITH: Emily Bicks (Schoolgirl), Ritchie Coster (Teddy Lloyd), Lisa Emery (Miss Mackay), Betsy Hogg (Mary MacGregor), Zoe Kazan (Sandy), Caroline Lagerfelt (Sister Helena), Cynthia Nixon (Jean Brodie), John Pankow (Gordon Lowther), Caity Quinn (Schoolgirl), Matthew Rauch (Mr. Perry), Sarah Steele (Monica) and Halley Wegryn Gross (Jenny). 
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A Teacher Still Warping Young Minds, but Gently </NYT_HEADLINE>  <DIV id=toolsRight>  <DIV class=articleTools>  <DIV class=toolsContainer>  <UL class=toolsList>  <LI class=email>  <FORM id=emailThis name=emailThis action=http://www.nytimes.com/mem/emailthis.html method=post><INPUT type=hidden value=1 name=type> <INPUT type=hidden value=http%3a%2f%2ftheater2%2enytimes%2ecom%2f2006%2f10%2f10%2ftheater%2freviews%2f10brod%2ehtml name=url> <INPUT type=hidden value=A%20Teacher%20Still%20Warping%20Young%20Minds%2c%20but%20Gently name=title> <INPUT type=hidden value=In%20the%20New%20Group%26%2339%3bs%20slow%2c%20airless%20revival%20of%20%26%23034%3bThe%20Prime%20of%20Miss%20Jean%20Brodie%2c%26%23034%3b%20Cynthia%20Nixon%20cuts%20the%20dangerous%20Miss%20Brodie%20down%20to%20size%2e name=description> <INPUT type=hidden value=1154649427569 name=asset_id> <INPUT type=hidden value=20061010 name=pub_date> <INPUT type=hidden value=By%20BEN%20BRANTLEY name=author> <INPUT type=hidden
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 class=print><A href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/theater/reviews/10brod.html?ei=5087&en=93ee5a54b59329fd&ex=1176177600&mkt=theaterphoto&pagewanted=print"><FONT color=#333333>Print</FONT></A> <A href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/theater/reviews/10brod.html?ei=5087&en=93ee5a54b59329fd&ex=1176177600&mkt=theaterphoto&pagewanted=all"></A></LI>  <LI class=savepage><A onclick="return furlItNoPop(document.title, 'http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/theater/reviews/10brod.html', '', document.referrer,'nytf1');" href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/theater/reviews/10brod.html?ex=1176177600&en=93ee5a54b59329fd&ei=5087&mkt=theaterphoto#"><FONT color=#333333>Save</FONT></A> </LI></UL>  <DIV id=adxToolSponsor><!-- ADXINFO classification="button" campaign="foxsearch2006-emailtools13a-nyt5"-->  <TABLE style="MARGIN-TOP: 3px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 3px" height=53 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=93 border=0>  <TBODY> 
 <TR vAlign=bottom>  <TD width=93>  <DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 2px">  <DIV align=left><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/theater/reviews&pos=Frame4A&camp=foxsearch2006-emailtools13a-nyt5&ad=FFN_88x31_5k_alt.gif&goto=http://doyouwantlieswiththat.com" target=_blank><IMG height=20 alt="Article Tools Sponsored By" src="http://graphics10.nytimes.com/ads/fox/article-sponsor.gif" width=62 border=0><IMG height=31 alt="" src="http://graphics10.nytimes.com/ads/fox/sponsorship/FFN_88x31_5k_alt.gif" width=88 border=0></A><BR></DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><NYT_BYLINE type=" " version="1.0">  <DIV class=byline>By BEN BRANTLEY</DIV></NYT_BYLINE>  <DIV class=timestamp>Published: October 10, 2006</DIV>  <DIV id=articleBody><!--NYT_INLINE_IMAGE_POSITION1 --><NYT_TEXT>  <div>Who wouldn’t trust their children with <A title=""
 href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=52802&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Cynthia Nixon</FONT></A>? Even playing bad girls and basket cases, this wonderful actress projects a brisk aura of competence, good will and empathy, leavened by an eminently sane sense of proportion. I have never seen her give an emotionally dishonest performance. </div>  <DIV id=articleInline>  <DIV id=inlineBox><A class=jumpLink href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/theater/reviews/10brod.html?ex=1176177600&en=93ee5a54b59329fd&ei=5087&mkt=theaterphoto#secondParagraph"><FONT color=#666699>Skip to next paragraph</FONT></A>   <DIV class=image>  <DIV class=enlargeThis><A href="javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/10/10/arts/10brod1.190.ready.html', '10brod1_190_ready', 'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"><FONT color=#666699>Enlarge This Image</FONT></A></DIV><A
 href="javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/10/10/arts/10brod1.190.ready.html', '10brod1_190_ready', 'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"><FONT color=#666699><IMG height=124 alt="" src="http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/10/10/arts/Brodie1190.jpg" width=190 border=0> </FONT></A>  <DIV class=credit>Sara Krulwich/The New York Times</DIV>  <div class=caption>Cynthia Nixon, far right, as Jean Brodie, with some of her students. </div></DIV>  <DIV id=inlineReadersOpinion>  <H4>Readers’ Opinions</H4>  <DIV class=story>  <H2><A href="http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/arts/theater/index.html?page=recent"><FONT color=#004276 size=2>Forum: Theater</FONT></A> </H2>  <div class=summary></div></DIV></DIV>  <DIV class=image>  <DIV class=enlargeThis><A href="javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/10/10/arts/10brod2.ready.html', '10brod2_ready',
 'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"><FONT color=#666699>Enlarge This Image</FONT></A></DIV><A href="javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/10/10/arts/10brod2.ready.html', '10brod2_ready', 'width=720,height=600,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')"><FONT color=#666699><IMG height=118 alt="" src="http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/10/10/arts/Brodie2190.jpg" width=190 border=0> </FONT></A>  <DIV class=credit>Sara Krulwich/The New York Times</DIV>  <div class=caption>Cynthia Nixon as the schoolteacher of the title in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” at the Acorn Theater. </div></DIV></DIV></DIV><A name=secondParagraph></A>  <div>These are sterling virtues all — and all at odds with the role of one of the theater’s most charismatic warpers of young minds. That’s Jean Brodie, the dramatically self-deluding Scottish schoolteacher and passionate advocate of causes — like sexual freedom and Italian Fascism — generally
 deemed unsuitable for little girls of the 1930’s. </div>  <div>In the New Group’s slow, airless revival of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” the 1966 play adapted by <A title="" href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=79371&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Jay Presson Allen</FONT></A> from Muriel Spark’s short novel of 1961, Ms. Nixon cuts the dangerous Miss Brodie down to size, creating a portrait of a vulnerable, accessible woman who may, after all, be more sinned against than sinning.</div>  <div>While this unlikely interpretation of the role is probably not entirely intentional, it could be argued (by a generous and elastic mind) that the drama supports the notion of a life-sized Miss Brodie, who is described in retrospect by the canniest of her pupils as “both guilty and innocent.”</div>  <div>But without a large-scale Jean Brodie casting giant, violet-hued shadows over her classroom, the play itself seems to shrink, stiffen and show
 its age. As staged by Scott Elliott, a director known for eliciting (or forcing) the perversity in chestnuts as conventional as “Present Laughter” and “The Women,” the straightforward production that opened last night at the Acorn Theater curiously only underscores the schematic stodginess of Ms. Allen’s script.</div>  <div>In the 1960’s, to have murmured that Miss Brodie and her pet pupils might be a bit of a bore would have been heresy. Ms. Spark’s wry, elliptical novel, first published in The New Yorker, found sinister shades of darkness that had seldom showed up in earlier portraits of unforgettable teachers. (“Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” indeed.) What’s more, it matter-of-factly presented 10- and 11-year-old girls contemplating with fascination and revulsion the mechanics of sexual intercourse.</div>  <div>But what most made Ms. Spark’s book a perfect candidate for the theater was its title character, a figure both magnificent and ridiculous in her lofty carriage and
 extravagant affectations. Eccentricity, sensuality, overweening narcissism: Miss Brodie was a part for lionesses of the stage who combined old-style grandeur with new-style neurosis, and it got them in <A title="" href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=59206&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Vanessa Redgrave</FONT></A> (who created the part in London), Zoe Caldwell (who won a Tony as Miss Brodie on Broadway) and <A title="" href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=66495&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Maggie Smith</FONT></A> (who was awarded an Oscar for playing her on screen).</div>  <div>An ambitious but ultimately dreary 1998 revival at the National Theater in London, with a revised script by Ms. Allen, which starred the great <A title="" href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=64917&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Fiona Shaw</FONT></A> in a performance that toned down
 the surface glamour, showed just how much this play needed such histrionic flash and sparkle. Ms. Allen’s adaptation, perhaps of necessity, scraps the sense of the ineffable that makes Ms. Spark’s work shimmer so teasingly.</div>  <div>Instead, workmanlike exposition, confrontation and flat psychological revelations rule the stage version — including the flashback framing device of the memories of Miss Brodie’s smartest pupil, who has grown up to become a nun and best-selling author (played by Caroline Lagerfelt), who recalls her childhood when she is interviewed by an American reporter (Matthew Rauch).</div>  <div>That device creaks loudly in the opening scene. (“Perhaps you came under the influence of some particular person,” the reporter asks, “a teacher, perhaps?”) Still, it does build anticipation for a satisfyingly delayed star entrance for the actress playing Miss Brodie.</div>  <div>Yet shortly after Ms. Nixon strides onto Derek McLane’s classic schoolroom set,
 looking very comely in crimped hair and a snug orange dress (the costumes are by Eric Becker), your doubts begin. True, there’s promise in her sly, confident smile, which suggests she is listening to privileged information no one else can hear.</div>  <div>But her pinched Scottish accent forces her voice into uncomfortably nasal upper registers that suggest Miss Brodie could be Minnie Mouse’s cousin from Edinburgh. It is not a voice to inspire girls to romantic reverie. The overall effect is more coquettish, even girlish, than passionate. Miss Brodie’s essential air of defiant superiority seems merely provisional, which is all too evident when she loses her cool in argument with other adults.</div>  <div>The other adults, by the way, are uniformly good, including that reliable chameleon Lisa Emery, as the straitlaced head of the school, and John Pankow and Ritchie Coster as, respectively, the dull and dapper men in Miss Brodie’s life. </div>  <div>Mr. Coster, in
 particular, is excellent as Teddy Lloyd, the dashing but seedy art instructor, and he provides this production’s one illuminating insight. A blend of bravado and shame, Mr. Coster’s interpretation makes clear that while this second-rate painter may not match Miss Brodie in self-mythologizing, he is her superior in self-awareness. The contrast captures the tragedy of both characters.</div>  <div>Ms. Brodie’s coterie of favored pupils, the anointed “crème de la crème,” are all fine. Zoe Kazan — as the plain, precocious Sandy, who will become Miss Brodie’s nemesis — turns in a fluid, deeply felt performance (and even survives that excruciating nude scene in Teddy’s studio). But her heightened clarity as an actress — you feel you can always read what this Sandy is thinking — doesn’t match the judgmental guardedness that above all defines the character.</div>  <div>Ms. Nixon, of course, is a master of emotional transparency. It’s what made her performance in David
 Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole,” for which she won a Tony Award this year, so ravishing. Her great gift is for discovering extraordinary depth and detail in ordinary lives. That Miss Brodie bolts at the slightest suggestion of the ordinary leaves Ms. Nixon, for once, in limbo in finding the path to her character. </div>  <div><SPAN class=bold><STRONG>THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE</STRONG></SPAN></div>  <div>By <A title="" href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=79371&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Jay Presson Allen</FONT></A>, adapted from the novel by Muriel Spark; directed by Scott Elliot; sets by Derek McLane; costumes by Eric Becker; lighting by Jason Lyons; sound by Daniel Baker; composer, Tom Kochan; production supervisor, PRF Productions; production stage manager, Valerie A. Peterson; assistant director, Marie Masters; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis. Presented by the New Group, Mr. Elliot, artistic director; Geoff Rich, executive
 director. At the New Group at Theater Row (the Acorn Theater), 410 West 42nd Street, Clinton; (212) 279-4200. Through Dec. 9. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. </div>  <div>WITH: Emily Bicks (Schoolgirl), Ritchie Coster (Teddy Lloyd), Lisa Emery (Miss Mackay), Betsy Hogg (Mary MacGregor), Zoe Kazan (Sandy), Caroline Lagerfelt (Sister Helena), <A title="" href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=52802&inline=nyt-per"><FONT color=#004276>Cynthia Nixon</FONT></A> (Jean Brodie), John Pankow (Gordon Lowther), Caity Quinn (Schoolgirl), Matthew Rauch (Mr. Perry), Sarah Steele (Monica) and Halley Wegryn Gross (Jenny). </div></NYT_TEXT>  <DIV class=nextArticleLink><A title="At the Office, Dark Rumors and Curious Goings-On" onclick="s_code_linktrack('Article-NextArticleBottom');" href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/theater/reviews/10thug.html">Next Article in Theater (16 of 24) »</A></DIV></DIV><p> 
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