Written by Michael Weller
Directed by Austin Pendleton
Synopsis:
Something's gone very wrong behind the idyllic fa çade of Jan and Adam's Brooklyn brownstone. At 9:10 p.m., they're reveling in the freedom of having waved off their young son, Greg, to a neighborhood sleepover. By 9:15 p.m., they're both in tears. By 9:25 p.m., things are way past tears. Alternately funny and frightening, Fifty Words is an expansive look at modern marriage, as seen through the looking glass of one couple's long night's journey into day.
NEW YORK TIMES:
"I don’t know how engrossing I would have found this protracted apache dance if it hadn’t been brought to such authentic and unsparing life by Mr. Butz, Ms. Marvel and Mr. Pendleton. The tirelessly physical performances here are unerringly dictated by the fierce, contradictory impulses of people who want to repel and magnetize at the same time. "
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NEW YORK POST:
" Under Austin Pendleton's sturdy direction, both actors deliver fiercely passionate and highly physical performances that go a long way toward overcoming the writing's rough patches, even though all that roughhousing makes you fear for their safety."
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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS:
"You could call the performance a roller coaster, but that suggests an exhilarating experience. This is a roller jerker, lurching from one emotion to the next over the course of 95 minutes, doubling back, negating what's just been said or done. If it's meant to be a slice of realism, a smog of artificiality constantly hangs over the play. "
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THEATERMANIA:
"Fortunately, Marvel (who's eventually required to appear topless in an extended scene) is mesmerizing in her ability to resemble a tightly-wound spring tightening, and Butz, whose dancing skill in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has clearly prepared him for a different kind of compelling choreography, is a couple dozen springs sprung from a confining box. If the situation Weller puts them in is only passingly realistic, their performances are so real that the audience's temptation to turn away from the pain is all but constant. "
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VARIETY:
"It's obvious why this volatile drama would attract an actor-director to the helm, and Austin Pendleton's taut production for MCC referees gladiatorial performances from Norbert Leo Butz and Elizabeth Marvel that make it impossible to look away. "
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NEWSDAY:
"Two of the theater's most remarkable mismatched actors - Elizabeth Marvel ("Top Girls") and Norbert Leo Butz ("Dirty Rotten Scoundrels") - are remarkable as a comparably mismatched married couple in "Fifty Words." This is the sort of two-character acting display called a "two- fister," and in Michael Weller's 95-minute marriage tragedy, there really are fists. "
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BACKSTAGE:
" For some, merely watching two characters played with commitment and courage by two fine actors battle it out, leaving no holds barred, will be more than enough. Others will demand a little bit more theatricality in the drama."
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