"'Misery' the play is saturated in what feels like an amused, nostalgic distance from its source material. It’s as if Mr. Willis and Ms. Metcalf had shown up at the behest of a 'Misery' fan club to share memories of our enjoyment of the book and movie and to chuckle over how they once scared the wits out of us. Even the requisite dark-and-stormy atmospherics register as gentle, teasing reminders of guilty thrills past."
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"On a meta level, 'Misery' is about Willis playing film star Willis being terrorized by Metcalf’s superior acting talent…The pleasures of this production (perfunctorily staged by Will Frears) are mostly visual and all predictable…William Goldman’s stage adaptation of his own screenplay is lazily faithful to his own work…Still, if life imitates art, by the end of 'Misery’s' run, Willis may have learned something about acting from Metcalf. The rest of us just paid to watch the class."
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"What this production mostly demonstrates is the futility of digging up the dead…The movie, with its variety of shots and its focus on details, could disguise that endless tick-tock, but onstage the drama flattens out and separates...Willis has no stage chops…Metcalf knows exactly how to engage the audience...The genre [of suspense] has become so marginalized that it’s finally fallen off the page altogether, landing in a puddle of camp."
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"'Misery' has nothing to offer save for the chance to get Mr. Willis’s autograph after the show…As scary as a lukewarm cup of Nesquik. Two big things are wrong with it: Mr. Willis never seems even slightly frightened, and Ms. Metcalf isn’t pitiful…As a result, you can’t feel sorry for her, which means that you don’t buy her…Will Frears, the director, fails to stage its gaspworthy moments with sufficient punch, though it’s not fair to blame him for the failure of a staging that is so ineptly cast."
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"If you can put aside the fact that the show offers about five seconds of actual, thriller-type suspense during its 90 intermissionless minutes, you can see glimpses of a younger and extremely likable Willis in 'Misery'...This script just smacks of laziness...What does surprise is that director Will Frears seems to have demanded so little not only of his stars but of most of the production team...What this is, is a summer stock production?"
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"An actor’s job is to make a character, even one who can’t move, come alive. Except for an instant when Willis brashly flashes his nemesis the bird, he’s so bland it’s frightening. And unfortunately, nothing else is particularly scary about this dramatization of King’s novel about a writer terrorized by a demented devotee…As directed by Will Frears, Metcalf lacks a sense of danger. Instead she tilts toward goofy…'Misery' reminds how hard it is to make a thriller click on stage."
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"Will Frears lets Willis get away with murder by maintaining his sophisticated-author cool well beyond the point of believability…Metcalf skillfully modulates her emotional transitions from adoring to obsessive to psychotic. Her eyelids flutter, her hand gestures quicken, and her vocal range reaches for the high notes. It’s a stunning performance, even if, in this oddly fear-free production, she provokes more pity than terror."
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"This 'Misery' is an enjoyable enough rerun that recaptures some of its predecessor's B-movie pleasures...The play works surprisingly well in its more Hitchcockian scenes…As far as unhinged stalkers go, Metcalf's Annie is a hoot...It's just too bad nothing else in this rote retread comes close to the unpredictable energy of Annie's almighty insanity."
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