Susan Granger’s review of “Festen” (Music Box Theater)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Based on a 1998 film by Thomas Vinterberg, Mogens, Rukov and Bo Hr. Hansen, part of the cult-like Dogme 95 movement, “Festen” revolves around the bizarre homecoming that marks the celebration of a wealthy Danish patriarch’s 60th birthday.
Helge (Larry Bryggman) and Else (Ali MacGraw) have three children; there were four but one recently committed suicide. As the assembled revelers, their partners and extended families gather ’round, tended by trusty servants, the elder son Christian (Michael Hayden) delivers a stark and startling toast, revealing all the abuse and anger that has bubbled below the surface for years. Repression is subsequently discarded by everyone else as the long-kept secrets of this dysfunctional family are aired.
Since “Festen” was so successful in London, it’s remarkable how unconvincing the American cast is, particularly when forced into performing perverse rituals like singing and dancing amid the disturbing emotional chaos. While seasoned stage actors Larry Bryggman and Michael Hayden struggle to maintain some calm semblance of veracity, television performers Julianna Marguilies and Jeremy Sisto, playing other siblings, verge on hysteria, while Ali MacGraw’s obvious trepidation about making her Broadway debut results in a stiff, self-conscious recitation of her lines, few as they are. Like several of her screen characters, she’s mainly required to look attentive and attractive.
Director Rufus Norris augments the sinister austerity of David Eldridge’s adaptation, while designer Ian MacNeil, costumer Joan Wadge, lighting designer Jean Kalman and musician Orlando Gough keep the audience enveloped in real and figurative shadow, gathered around a long banquet table that’s reminiscent of The Last Supper. While the London play was described as “shocking,” the only shocks here are the tasteless racial epithets hurled at a black guest. The question of the patriarch’s guilt or innocence, which was prevalent in the film, has been lost in translation, resulting in a decidedly dull party that one would rather not attend.