New York and Connecticut theater reviews and news

New York City Theater

"Ariel View"
(New York Int. Fringe Festival) 45 Bleeker St.

Directors Andrea Graugnard and Daniel J. LeBlanc have researched and sifted through considerable material to create a moving piece about the poet Sylvia Plath. They have woven a dream-like tale, non-linear and surreal in form, to explore her life and work. Recognized as a brilliant poet, she was also diagnosed as bi-polar, a mental illness which drove her to suicide.

Using a minimum of props, the capable cast of seven—Alex Beck, Rebecca Buller, Elizabeth Godley, Laura Harrison, Zach Harvey, Mark Jaynes, and Blake Williams—use movement, dialogue, recitation, and frequent character change to tell her tale. It is the artist’s life told most poignantly through Plath’s own journals, stories, letters and poems. Her poetry, with its startling imagery, depicts her life—from childhood, college, scholarship to Cambridge, marriage to poet Ted Hughes, and, ultimately, an early death.

In all, a strong, affecting piece, thanks to Plath’s own words.

--Irene Backalenick
Aug. 9, 2008

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