Susan Granger’s review of “Impressionism” (G. Schoenfeld Theater ’08-’09 season)
On paper, Michael Jacobs’ contemporary drama must have read well – or it wouldn’t have been produced on Broadway. But, on-stage, it fails to hold the attention of the audience.
Set in an expensive Manhattan art gallery, it revolves primarily around the uneasy, enigmatic relationship between Katharine Keenan (Joan Allen), the sophisticated gallery owner, and Thomas Buckle (Jeremy Irons), her obviously devoted assistant. Katherine has a very peculiar, not to mention self-defeating, habit of not wanting to sell her beloved paintings to customers, while Thomas, who was once a National Geographic photojournalist, no longer chooses to use his camera. These quirks are revealed in snippets of stilted conversation during their morning ritual of coffee and muffins. But we know little else about either of these timid, obviously wounded souls except what is revealed in traumatic memory flashbacks inspired by the various works of art on display, which include a Mary Cassatt mother-and-child portrait, a Modigliani nude, a Renoir and a ‘study’ by a present-day painter for whom Katharine once posed.
Flitting in and out of the gallery – and their memories – are various characters played by Marsha Mason, Michael T. Weiss, Aaron Lazar, Margarita Levieva, Hadley Delany and, most memorably, Andre De Shields, who plays a shrewd, old African fisherman and a folksy Upper East Side baker.
Director Jack O’Brien (“The Coast of Utopia”) not only paces the proceedings as briskly as possible but also elicits solid, if somewhat stoic performances from both Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons. He just doesn’t have enough dramatic ‘meat’ to work with, despite the creativity of scenic designer Scott Pask, projection coordinator Elaine J. McCarthy and costumer Catherine Zuber. Like Katharine’s paintings, “Impressionism” seems to be frozen within the framework of the stage.