Customer Reviews

Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Broadway Theatre Archive) [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thank Heaven for Broadway Theatre Archive. For the past few years, the company has been releasing older television productions of great stage works, as well as a select number of theatrically staged videos (such as the Shakespeare-in-the-Park productions of "King Lear" with James Earl Jones and "The Pirates of Penzance" with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt). Some of these television productions are truly legendary: Jason Robards in "The Iceman Cometh," and Robards and Colleen Dewhurst in the landmark production of "A Moon for the Misbegotten." The present DVD edition of Tennessee Williams' "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" deserves to join their ranks.

"Nightingale" is Williams' revision of 1948's "Summer and Smoke" (my favorite Williams play, incidentally). It tells essentially the same story of the spinsterish minister's daughter whose consuming love for her next-door neighbor remains unreciprocated. "Nightingale" is less allegorical than its predecessor and more tightly focused on the fascinating central character of Alma Winemiller, who Williams once claimed was his favorite character of all those that he had written.

All the roles in this production are in eminently capable hands, with particular pride of place among the supporting players going to Louise Latham as the mentally unbalanced Mrs. Winemiller, Tim O'Connor as Alma's well-intentioned but misguided father, and Neva Patterson as the two-faced Mrs. Buchanan, oozing both Southern charm and venom. As the object of Alma's affections, Frank Langella plays the most warm and romantic John Buchanan I have ever seen. Other Johns have seemed cocky or cold, but Langella seems to genuinely care about Alma rather than merely tolerating her. Played like this, it is quite easy to see how Alma could fall in love with him.

However, this is Alma's show, and in that role Blythe Danner is a raw, exposed nerve-ending, alternating between lyric melancholy and barely concealed hysteria. It is an exquisitely shaded performance, full of rich colors and nuance, and it is on a par with the sublime Geraldine Page's performance of the same role in the film version of "Summer and Smoke." Both actresses capture the character's need to burst forth from her own skin, of being strait-jacketed by the social mores of the period, and of being on the precipice of a dangerous emotional drop-off point. If Page owned the role of Alma in "Summer and Smoke," Danner clearly owns the Alma of "Eccentricities." She is simply stunning.

Don't expect stunning picture quality -- the production was filmed in 1976 on video, so it is roughly akin to watching a mid-1970's soap opera. However, the performances are what matter here, and they truly deliver. If you love Tennessee Williams, Blythe Danner, or if you simply enjoy great drama, don't let this one pass you by.

This is a well written captivating play. I like it for several
reasons. The acting is superb. I have always been a huge
fan of Bythe Danner even though I come from her daughter's
generation. I also adore the incredibly handsome Frank
Langella--I am a huge fan of his:) Both these actors give
their characters many special emotions and by the play's
finale I felt like I knew them both or knew someone like
them:) Anyway it is so good that such theatre works are
preserved in DVD format so future generarions can appreciate the simpler and finer things of life.

I saw this work many years ago and it has stayed with me all this time. It stands out as masterful acting by Miss Danner; her work is touching and delicate. The play is a work of genus. It is too bad that is it not known as well as some of Tennessee Williams other works.

Outstanding performance by a luminous Blythe Danner and a wonderfully underplayed Frank Langella. We enjoyed this much more than "Summer and Smoke".

This is one of Blythe Danner's best performances. If you like one women show's, what are you waiting for. Get this film you won't be disappointed. pure gold for the price.

Tennessee Williams wrote two versions of this play: "Summer and Smoke" and "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale". A film adaptation was made under this name, but with siginificant changes to the screenplay. This filmed Broadway production is the play as Tennessee Williams conceived it. And it is the only filmed stage production of this play.

Written in 1964, Eccentricities of a Nightingale, like several other Tennessee Williams plays, focuses on a neurasthenic young woman for whom time has stood still. Unmarried, Alma Winemiller fails to belong to the local society of Glorious Hill. Though she is a singer and teaches music, her exaggerated gestures and her personal tics make her an object of pity and even mockery within the town, and her minister father often reprimands her for her peculiarities, which he believes reflect badly upon his position. Her mother, mentally ill, is hidden upstairs, and Alma and her father fear Alma may have inherited her mother's illness.

Alma has always been in love with young John Buchanan, physician son of the Winemillers' family doctor, who lives across the street. On one of his rare visits to Glorious Hill, Alma, in desperation (and suffering from a panic attack), pounds on his door late at night for help. Buchanan, feeling sorry for her, calms her down and eventually invites her to a movie. Alma is so anxious to experience love that she arranges for them to go to a hotel, where rooms can be rented by the hour, afterward.

The play is stunning in its focus on character, and Blythe Danner as Alma is as flighty, nervous, and apologetic as Williams obviously intended. Frank Langella, as Dr. Buchanan, is surprisingly tender here, much more so than one would expect from reading the play. He appears genuinely to care for her and to want to make her happy, and is honest in telling her that he does not love her. Louise Latham as Mrs. Winemiller has a field day playing a crazed woman, and does so with panache, and Neva Patterson, as the overbearing Mrs. Buchanan, is the consummately controlling Southern mother, trying to manage her son's life. The effectiveness of the play depends on the dynamics among the various characters and how much they are unique individuals as opposed to southern stereotypes.

Exquisitely acted, the play is fascinating, but dated. Alma is so whiny and self-conscious that it is difficult to identify with her for the entire play, though her attempt to seduce Dr. Buchanan is both brave and pathetic. The passage of forty years since the play was written, however, has turned it into a relic of the past, rather than a vital and modern experience illustrating universal truths. The lives of these women, most of whom never dreamed of independence, are more pathetic than appealing to a modern audience. n Mary Whipple

A prim and proper delicate flower maid, obsessed with affection for the young handsome Doctor, tries to land him in the matrimony net, but alas the harder she tries the more she fails.Well how about a one night stand ? Well he thinks," not a good idea ". Well many moon-years later in the same park, on the same nght (the 4th of July) the young maid (not too young any more) makes contact with a younger hombre and away they go. "If at first you don't succeed, try try, again ? For a Broadway Archive production, not an orchestra seat performance, but O.K for the balcony ?

I never received this, and believe it was shipped to my old address. Nor have I been informed that a refund was issued. Lloyd Hereman