AccessMyLibrary : Search Information that Libraries Trust AccessMyLibrary | News, Research, and Information that Libraries Trust

AccessMyLibrary    Browse    T    The New Yorker    NOV-03    THE TIES THAT BLIND.(The Retreat from Moscow)(Theater Review)

THE TIES THAT BLIND.(The Retreat from Moscow)(Theater Review)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 03-NOV-03

Author: Lahr, John
How to access the full article: Free access to all articles is available courtesy of your local library. To access the full article click the "See the full article" button below. You will need your US library barcode or password.

Bookmark this article

Print this article

Link to this article

Email this article

Digg It!

Add to del.icio.us

RSS

COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Once upon a time, when my only son was eleven, I leaned over his bed and heard myself say, "Your mother and I are separating." He was silent for a while; then he said, "I don't want your unhappiness." As I left the room, I naively thought, How did he know we were unhappy? This memory, in all its bright grief, came rushing back to me in the middle of "The Retreat from Moscow" (at the Booth), William Nicholson's subtle and powerful evocation of the half-life of a dying marriage.

Resignation--a sort of emotional fog--has settled over the thirty-three-year marriage of an English couple, Edward (John Lithgow), a high-school history teacher, and Alice (Eileen Atkins), an editor; their reserved thirtytwo-year-old son, Jamie (Ben Chaplin), is strategically positioned between them--at once a beacon and a buffer. The curtain comes up on Edward reading aloud from a text about Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign; this historical event, it soon becomes clear, is a metaphor for Edward's own emotional exhaustion, his longing for escape, and the deep regret he feels over the tactical blunders he has made in life. As Lithgow superbly plays him--a big, passive man with a small, dithering voice--Edward refuses to engage; he hides behind his books, his silences, and his vagueness. He is a present absence, a sort of ghost of himself. "It's like somehow you've sneaked away while I...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.


More Articles from The New Yorker
DECEIVED.(Shattered Glass)(The Human Stain)(Movie Review)
November 03, 2003
THE JUNKMAN'S SON.(Philip Guston, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York...
November 03, 2003
ESCAPING THE MUSEUM.(Andrew Manze)(Pomerium vocal ensemble)(Concert Re...
November 03, 2003
DOUBLE OR NOTHING.(Merce Cunningham Dance Company)(Dance Review)
November 03, 2003

What's on AccessMyLibrary?

31,601,999 articles
in the following categories:

Arts, Business, Consumer News, Culture & Society, Education, Government, Personal Interest, Health, News, Science & Technology


© 2008 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning  | All Rights Reserved | About this Service | About The Gale Group, a part of Cengage Learning
                                            Privacy Policy | Site Map | Content Licensing | Contact Us | Link to us
      Other Gale sites: Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever.com | WiseTo Social Issues