Posted by Adam

Friday October 23, 2009

HAS Sienna Miller found her niche on Broadway?

The British actress — who starred in box office bomb G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra earlier this year — made her New York stage debut for the opening night of her new play After Miss Julie Thursday night. Find out what the critics think AFTER THE JUMP!

New York Times critic Ben Brantley writes:

Besides, in a theater season that has felt like a boys’ club of male movie idols from abroad (Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in “A Steady Rain,” Jude Law in “Hamlet”), wouldn’t it be gratifying if one fearless woman — with fewer stage credentials than the guys but almost as much tabloid exposure — walked away with the laurels? I looked forward to announcing that the American-born, British-bred Ms. Miller had entered stage right as a mere movie mini-star but exited a goddess of the the-a-tuh.

You have probably inferred that I will be saying no such thing. Playing the title role in Mr. Marber’s adaptation of “Miss Julie,” August Strindberg’s love-and-death shocker from 1888, Ms. Miller registers as a healthy, sane young woman with good diction, good posture and great legs. Commendable as these attributes are, they are of limited use in portraying a tautly wound, death-courting neurotic who is eaten alive by her own demons.

Let’s continue to give Ms. Miller points for courage, though, for appearing in this Roundabout Theater Company production, which also stars the first-rate Jonny Lee Miller, as her forbidden love object, and is directed by Mark Brokaw. The highborn, low-stooping Miss Julie (transposed by Mr. Marber from 19th-century Sweden to post-World War II Britain) is a challenge for even the most seasoned actress, a role that makes the celebrated basket cases Hedda Gabler and Lady Macbeth look like child’s play. Strindberg’s original work, which he dauntingly described as “a naturalistic tragedy,” has been performed all of three times on Broadway, and never for more than a handful of “special engagement” performances.

Bloomberg critic John Simon writes:

Sienna Miller is convincing enough in the title role, managing superciliousness and condescension, lust and humiliation, with unassailable proficiency. Yet there is some sort of ultimate aristocratic hauteur in which she is a bit lacking, making her downfall less dramatic. And she isn’t helped by Michael Krass giving her a flower-print dress barely distinguishable from Christine’s.

Lastly, I found a tabletop quasi-rape well after Julie and John have become lovers, like earlier bits of Julie’s explicit sadomasochism, nothing but crass commercialism. It is obviously bad when a play loses too much in translation or adaptation; evidently, certain additions can be just as diminishing.

At least there’s one thing she’s good at: stealing other’s people’s husbands!

Tags: sienna miller