Mary Page Marlowe reviews round-up starring Susan Sarandon & Andrea Riseborough, Old Vic

"Susan Sarandon makes impactful London stage debut"

"It’s an undeniable thrill to see [Sarandon] in the flesh and close up – Matthew Warchus’s in-the-round production puts her almost in touching distance of the first three rows. But Sarandon deftly serves the play and the ensemble rather than dominating the event."

"The fireworks go to a shifty, slippery Rosy McEwen and a wracked and haunted Andrea Riseborough"

"The play is not as profound as it thinks it is and certainly doesn’t approach the brutal majesty of Letts’s Tony and Pulitzer winning domestic tragicomedy August: Osage County. But it is a subtle and elegantly constructed piece of work."

"Pretty amazing"

"Faultless execution"

" Matthew Warchus’ production, performed by an impeccable cast led by Hollywood royalty Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough, could hardly be more finely calibrated."

"there is a gentle compulsion in watching the peeling away of the layers of identity, the core of which is never quite revealed."

"With the theatre reconfigured in the round, Rob Howell’s design places the action on a dark-carpeted disc marked with scattered blue squares (echoes of that symbolic quilt). A few serviceable sticks of furniture suggest locations, while the changing fashions help us chart the shifting decades. "

"It’s an elusive piece of writing that changes shape as you stare at it, wriggles away if you try to pin it down. The impact is muted, but the overall effect is disquieting. The execution is faultless."

"It is the acting, particularly of the Marys, that carries the day"

"The drama unfolds in 11 non-chronological scenes taking the titular heroine from cradle (where she is played by a doll) to the grave. The gimmick is that this one woman is embodied by five different actors:"

"The effect is like watching fragments of a shattered vase, glued back together. The pieces don’t quite fit and the cracks start to show, but the truthfulness of the writing – and of the performances – is the way that they suggest that behaviour is not always tangential. "

"it is the acting, particularly of the Marys, that carries the day. Riseborough is an actor who always seems to be missing a skin; she brings all that raw intensity and eyes full of emotion to the scenes where Mary battles with divorce and despair; McEwen captures both the underlying instability and the bold determination to reject male expectations that drives Mary to both therapy and casual, pointless affairs. In their single scenes, both Worthington-Cox and Weir seize their moment with coruscating honesty and openness."

"In their hands, this odd conceit just about works, creating images of a life both lived and wasted, pre-ordained and chosen."

"Susan Sarandon shines in slippery study of a life in pieces"

"This play by the celebrated American playwright Tracy Letts has many searing scenes, and is highly watchable with alwaysexcellent dialogue, but it is not quite so polyphonic or as whole."

"It is beautifully directed by Matthew Warchus, who elicits magnificent performances from the ensemble. Sarandon performs with ease, assurance and total ownership of her character; Riseborough... is astonishing as a woman whose life has hurtled off-course. Rosy McEwen... is a scintillating, dangerous force on stage. The two youngest Marys... are also a pleasure to watch, as is the entire cast."

"The scenes are powerful in themselves, with a naturalism that captures the testiness of intimate relationships – from a sweet scene of a sleepover with friends who predict a future of bright hopes for Mary, to confessions of unhappiness to a therapist. One of the most moving features Sarandon as an elderly Mary, pressed up against death, on the verge of articulating something momentous, then withholding it."

"An exquisite corpse of a life story"

"Chopping and changing lead actors without aligning their performances is a choice, and it creates an exquisite corpse of a life story, that speaks to the idea that none of us are one single person throughout our lives"

"Riseborough is great in these scenes – chewing the scenery, yes, but with nuance and feeling and a devastating arsenal of facial expressions: she elevates the blank stare into art, and her delicate face acting is probably the best justification for the in-the-round set up."

"It’s a smart piece of writing that’s given us some fine performances - particularly from Riseborough - but its fussy theatricality ultimately gets in the way."

"Susan Sarandon is effortlessly sexy"

"[Andrea Riseborough] delivers a masterclass in pathetic, bravado-charged despair."

"Letts packs in a lot with ease: the sexual revolution, inherited addiction, the quasi-ecstatic allure of self-sabotage when there is nothing else left to do. But for all the excellent acting, including Rosy McEwan, testing Mary’s adulterous sexual freedom as a newly married 20-something, and Eleanor Worthington-Cox and ... Alisha Weir as the youngest Marys, I felt I was watching an idea of a woman rather than a real one."

"Susan Sarandon and Andrea Riseborough bring brilliance to a fractured story"

"Sarandon has a winning spikiness and naughtiness"

"Andrea Riseborough is heartrending to watch"

"[Matthew Warchus's] in-the-round staging really does make room for these exceptional performances to shine."

"The odd thing about this play is the way it avoids fully lifting the mask on Mary’s inner life. It’s a deliberate choice, but a frustrating one."

"It’s ultimately a little unsatisfying, so is any attempt to actually sum up a life in one hour and 40 minutes – like any eulogy, it’s both moving and incomplete."

"Beautifully acted, but ultimately unsatisfying"

"Susan Sarandon is casually excellent in Tracy Letts’s 2016 play charting the various stages in the life of the title character. But something doesn’t quite add up"

"Susan Sarandon, a hard-to-fathom 79, is playing the oldest version of the title character. She’s so casually excellent in her three shortish scenes that you want the Old Vic to impound her passport and keep her here for an entire season."

"Andrea Riseborough, playing this troubled Midwestern accountant from ages 40 to 50, was last seen on a British stage in 2008. She’s outstanding in her three longer scenes."

"Matthew Warchus’s precision production begins with a superb diner scene in which Mary Page tells her children she’s leaving the family home. Seemingly significant statements (“Sometimes we do things we shouldn’t do”) stud the small, sharp observations. Riseborough keeps it real but lets you feel the character’s soul. Great writing."

"More good scenes follow: a patchwork structure that ends appositely, or maybe just cutely, with all Mary Pages gathered around an old family patchwork quilt. "

"Does Mary Page Marlowe need a few more scenes? Or maybe a few less? It doesn’t quite add up, but you couldn’t call it dull."

"Superb Susan Sarandon and an excellent cast can't save this"

"[Susan Sarandon] is vivid, utterly present and believable as the oldest iteration of the title character. As are the superb Andrea Riseborough, Rosy McEwen, Eleanor Worthington-Cox and Alisha Weir as Mary Page Marlowe in her forties, thirties, late teens and childhood."

"Susan Sarandon, Andrea Riseborough and a ridiculously good cast are wasted on Tracy Letts' dismally disappointing new play"

"If Letts' utterly staggering multi-generational family drama August Osage County was a masterpiece oil painting of surface beauty and dark, churning depths, this is a stick-figure crayon sketch that goes nowhere and shows you nothing you haven't already seen, heard and thought before."