TUESDAY @ 7 PM
WEDNESDAY thru SATURDAY @ 8 PM
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY @ 2 PM
SUNDAY @ 3 PM
Never
$59.00 - $299.00
Marisa Tomei is at the center of virtually every scene, and she does seem to get Serafina’s tough-gal-with-heart vibe. (Which makes sense, perhaps, given that she is an Italian-American from Midwood with Sicilian roots of her own—remember how good she was as Mona Lisa?) But she, too, gets tugged in two directions, whether by director or playwright, and compensates by going big and broad with whatever she’s got. When her character is flirting with Alvaro, Tomei plays the lines just shy of sitcom-level, pausing a beat to get the laugh, delivering some almost as winking asides to the audience. When Serafina is in agony over her dead husband, she’s keening and thrashing, her emotional throttle all the way open.
But Tomei’s great talent for romantic comedy clicks into place in her flirtation with Emun Elliott. Although the tone of the play and production waver too much to leave a permament impression, The Rose Tattoo has an interesting position in the Williams canon. There is no shortage, in his plays, of lustful, delusional women who fall for attractive younger men. But rarely do they have, as here, even the hope of a happy ending
The play, directed by Trip Cullman, swoops in and out of these clashing registers rather as Tomei herself glides around the stage, her own, unpredictable emotional weather system. The stage is boskily beautiful, with a background projection of the sea (at daybreak, sunset, and nightfall) by Lucy Mackinnon, although the mysterious presence of a multitude of pink plastic flamingoes along the back of the stage persists throughout the play.
Marisa Tomei is at the center of virtually every scene, and she does seem to get Serafina’s tough-gal-with-heart vibe. (Which makes sense, perhaps, given that she is an Italian-American from Midwood with Sicilian roots of her own—remember how good she was as Mona Lisa?) But she, too, gets tugged in two directions, whether by director or playwright, and compensates by going big and broad with whatever she’s got. When her character is flirting with Alvaro, Tomei plays the lines just shy of sitcom-level, pausing a beat to get the laugh, delivering some almost as winking asides to the audience. When Serafina is in agony over her dead husband, she’s keening and thrashing, her emotional throttle all the way open.
