AP News, June 4th, 2007
From the moment Sigourney Weaver enters the stage at Playwrights Horizons, an unpleasant smile is plastered across her face _ not the kind that exudes happiness, but the type that barely conceals the bitterness seething beneath it.
Her foil in A.R. Gurney's entertaining, if not somewhat flawed, new play "Crazy Mary" is a distant cousin played by veteran stage actress Kristine Nielsen, whose euphoria at discovering a new life in a sanitarium gushes forth from every pore, threatening to overwhelm her and everyone in her path.
Together, Weaver and Nielsen form a dynamic pair of polar opposites _ one free to live her life however she wants and brutally unhappy with the decisions she's made, the other confined to a mental hospital and suddenly enraptured by the wide open world in front of her.
The two actresses breathe so much life into their roles that it's almost possible to overlook the deficiencies in Gurney's script, particularly the vexing motivations behind some of the action and the surprising lack of character development. It's glaringly noticeable when Weaver and Nielsen are offstage, leaving the thinly written supporting cast to fill time until they return.
Weaver, whose theater credentials include a Tony Award nomination in 1985 for "Hurlyburly," plays a divorced real estate agent from Buffalo named Lydia whose biggest regret seems to be "crossing the tracks" to marry a Polish musician, forever dooming her to a life of bourgeois striving.
With her shoulder-length hair pulled primly back and white coat tied protectively around her waist, Lydia is the portrait of an uptight, miserable WASP from the suburbs _ a favorite subject in Gurney's work. Weaver settles into the character naturally, cocking her head patronizingly as she reels off her son's accomplishments at Harvard University and grimacing uncomfortably when any real emotions are shown _ especially by Mary.
Nielsen, by contrast, is a whirling dervish of nonconformity, the anti-WASP who revels in throwing a mirror up to Lydia's insecurities and forcing her to confront her inner pain and jealousies.
Mary doesn't start out this way, though. In one of the more head-scratching moments of Gurney's play, she switches overnight from a comatose vegetable to a bolt of kinetic energy, supposedly drawn out by Lydia's son, Skip, who reminds her of a lover from 30 years ago. That it doesn't throw her doctor more off guard is completely mind-boggling.
Skip and Mary also engage in an improbable romance, which is explained only by the college-age boy's boredom at school and loathing of his mother. What it does allow, though, is a wonderfully funny scene in which their relationship is slowly revealed to hard-bitten Lydia, shocking her thoroughly and causing her to melt down in a crying fit. Weaver, so tightly wound to that point, handles the moment with aplomb.
"Crazy Mary" reunites Weaver with director Jim Simpson three years after they worked together on the critically acclaimed Playwrights production of Gurney's play "Mrs. Farnsworth." While there are moments of "Crazy Mary" that sparkle with the wit and sophistication of Gurney's earlier work, one wishes for a slightly fuller script that could support the two fine performances of his leading actresses.
