William Nicholson’s The Retreat From Moscow, starring Eileen Atkins, John Lithgow, and Ben Chaplin, opened Thursday at the Booth Theatre, and I reviewed it in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s the money graf:
Can a great performance save a lousy show? It depends on the show. The post-opening buzz on “The Boy From Oz,” for instance, is that Hugh Jackman is worth the price of the ticket, but I’d happily pay good cash money never to see that sugar-coated dud again, with or without the excellent Mr. Jackman. On the other hand, Eileen Atkins has definitely done the silk-purse trick at the Booth Theatre, albeit with a higher-quality sow’s ear. William Nicholson’s “The Retreat From Moscow,” which opened last night, is your standard-issue British domestic drama, all dolled up to look like a serious play, but Ms. Atkins tears into it as if it were Chekhov (which is pretty much what Mr. Nicholson wants you to think it is), and even though I wasn’t fooled for a second, it didn’t matter….you won’t find better acting on Broadway, or anywhere else. She is totally present, totally convincing, totally right.
As usual, no link, so to read the whole thing (which also includes my thoughts on Primary Stages’ production of A.R. Gurney’s Strictly Academic), buy a copy of this morning’s Journal and turn to the “Weekend Journal” section, which is full of readable goodies.