A Delicate Balance: Broadway Review 2015

An Indelicate Balance

by Preston Sinclair

"If you are not an alcoholic, you are beyond forgiveness."

Agnes 

   
    This deftly staged production of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize winning play 'A Delicate Balance' was directed by Pam Mackinnon who also directed 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf' for which she won a Tony, and Drama Desk Award.
    I would be remiss if I didn't mention the great scenic design by Santo Loquasto. The Tiffany blue (which is a really hard color to duplicate by the way) walls were a soothing balm for the scalding verbal wounds inflicted. The faded mid century modern suburban glamor of the living room provided the perfect backdrop for the ensuing drama.
    As a member of a family dealing with addiction, I approached Albee's 'A Delicate Balance' with some trepidation. While sometimes rooting for Claire and her stubborn Irish willfulness, it also became clear that Tobias enabled her bad behavior. Claire (Lyndsay Duncan) occasionally deigned to put in an appearance in order to freshen her drink. When she did she ranted or raved about something or other, and then she slowly descended into the abyss from whence she came.
    As the play progressed,  I found myself relating to Agnes' calm cool collected demeanor.  Glenn Close was sublime as Agnes. She maintained a feline control over the whole situation and wasn't afraid to let her claws show.  At the beginning, she contemplates out loud her own fear of someday going insane to Tobias that set the tone for the entire play.
    

John Golden Theatre

I briefly met Glenn Close at the stage door. She was petite and demure in a pea coat and cap as she signed autographs in frigid weather on Presidents Day weekend. I'll never forget how she dashed to fetch the cover to her Sharpie pen which she dropped  just before she got into her limo.
     John Lithgow, who played Tobias, also appeared at the stage door.  He's tall and aristocratic in bearing. He was polite and patient, yet tired. As anyone would be after performing a nervous breakdown as deliciously as he did.  I found myself laughing during his confrontation with Harry (Bob Baliban) when I shouldn't have.  "I don't want you here. I don't love you! But by God... you stay!"  As all good theater should, it made me feel something. In this case, ashamed and embarrassed for laughing at someone else's pain because it felt like the truth.
     Bob Baliban was the next to come out as he was wheeling some kind of theatrical trunk to his waiting vehicle he said, "I'll be back in a minute to sign autographs...that's if anyone cares."   Baliban gave Harry a smartness and an edge which helped him hold his own against Tobias. Whatever Harry's phobia was, he wasn't afraid of Tobias and his family.  That's why he went there.  Just what was the plague that Harry and Edna brought with them? Global warming, nuclear war, Justin Bieber? Take your pick.
   

     Martha Plimpton and Claire Higgens burst onto the street and signed autographs together like a couple of party animals.  We could hear their raucus laughter as they came down the hallway.  Claire Higgens had a wild head of hair and Martha Plimpton looked like an excited school girl.  No one blamed blamed them for needing to blow off some steam.
    Martha Plimpton gave a glamor puss portrayal of Julia. There was no sense of playing it for laughs. She was also wonderful in Sondheim's 'Company' which I had previously seen at a big screen event at The Clayton Opera House.  There was the occasional sense that Julia was putting on airs, but when she came on stage with a gun in her hand you knew she meant business. 
   

     The movie version was dark and moody and I barely remember Edna as being a mousy demure character. Claire Higgens changed all that. We really believed that Edna slapped Julia in the face. Yes, it was a stage slap, but the look on Edna's face told us that she bitch slapped Julia, and hard. 
    There's a delicate balance in any family.  When addiction is involved there's nothing delicate about it. It's a balance held in place by brute force and sheer will of character.  Therein lies the irony and beauty of Albee's 'A Delicate Balance'.

PS: 'A Delicate Balance closed on Broadway February 22nd 2015

Reference Links:

Home page  for A Delicate Balance