“Ms. Channing's performance in 'Apologia'...goes some distance in disguising the labored exposition of a work that never quite achieves a natural flow or moves you as much as it should...The layers of Channing’s interpretation, with its core of lacerating anguish, are more intriguing than the plot that builds to an anticlimactic reveal...The dialogue only rarely feels organic...But it is Ms. Channing’s complex, contradictory Kristin who keeps us thinking long after the play is over”
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"Channing manages to make a compellingly conflicted figure, but the play doesn’t give her a lot to work with. It creaks with contrivances and clunky, expositional dialogue...Aukin doesn’t seem to know how to handle the play’s schlock factor...The play means to examine the costs paid by women who open their own doors...But it’s not grounded deeply enough in reality to tell us much about those women—except to remind us of the pleasure we still seem to take in making them cry.”
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“With plays like ‘Apologia’, the temptation is to get into the weeds, enumerating every little thing about them that feels inauthentic, manipulative, half-baked, or clichéd — when in fact all those things are just cracks in the plaster. The thing is foundationally unsound. Its very premise betrays a kind of smug cluelessness. It’s less a drama of ideas than it is a collection of cheap, self-satisfied notions, in which several talented actors are being asked to invest their time."
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“'Apologia' could use some bolstering...Channing is a fascination, even when she seems a bit out of step with the production’s staccato rhythms. Dancy plays identical blood relations...and gets away with it as much as anyone can in the gimmicky situation. If the doublemint ruse in ‘Apologia’ feels less than satisfying, it’s perhaps to do with a dinner party where one serving of mom-blame would have been plenty. Two feels a bit of a gorge.”
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“Aukin has put together an elegant production with a uniformly fine cast, and the writing is laced with poignant Chekhovian shadings. But thematically, we've been down this road many times before, with more penetrating insights...Miller is a juicy role for the inimitably acerbic Channing. Or she would be if the complex character hadn't been shortchanged by the playwright...The writing makes it tough to care about her...This 10-year-old play still needs work.”
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“Dominated by Channing’s tremendous energy and well-acted by a gifted supporting cast, but directed with a somewhat uneasy focus...the play is ultimately about a woman with ideas, opinions and insights who established her independence before it was fashionable—and the high personal price she paid for doing so. The toll celebrity has taken on Kristin, who chose success in a male-dominated society over the needs of her own children, has a relevance today that stings.”
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“Channing gives a powerful performance...Unfortunately, ‘Apologia’ doesn't reveal enough of its characters' lives for us to be invested...Aukin tries to ignite Campbell's sometimes stilted dialogue...but the action never really gets above a smolder...In the end, ‘Apologia’ has some tasty morsels to offer about the need to forgive ourselves rather than coming up with arguments to justify our shortcomings, but the play never gets warm enough to cook up a satisfying meal.”
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“The disastrous first-act meal scene is slickly written; the dialogue is loaded with amusing barbs...But there's something a little calculated and mechanical about it, a sense that a series of opposing temperaments have been pitted too obviously against...But the cast, under Aukin's brisk, often acute direction, offers solid support...’Apologia’ sometimes seems assembled -- admittedly cleverly -- out of a kit of devices, but Kristin, especially in Channing's hands, is the real thing.”
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