“ ‘Orpheus Descending,’...is not among Williams’s most famous pieces; critics tend to place it on the B list. The play...is a bit of a rambling mess, but it is also passionate and fascinatingly peculiar — the plot is loosely inspired by the story of Orpheus, after all.”
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“Christian, Indigenous, and mythological iconography are all thrown into the kitchen sink of ’Orpheus Descending ’— a muddy stew of imagery and symbolism that needs a clear-eyed vision to pull it out of the mire...It may not be the production we’ve been watching, but it’s certainly the one I prefer.”
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“Orpheus Descending is never going to make it into the top tier of Williams' plays; it is too diffuse, too overloaded with devices and allusions (see the title) to fully work. Still, it is highly stageworthy; furthermore, a scenario that might have once seemed suffused with paranoia has eerily acquired a certain ripped-from-the-headlines quality. We live in hysterical, often violent times; in Orpheus Descending, Schmidt has found a gripping way of sounding the alarm.”
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“ ‘Orpheus Descending’ is worth attending, especially for theatergoers devoted to the America’s most poetic 20th-century playwright. But it’s not an ultimately successful play.”
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“Williams completists will want to take advantage of this production of the rarely performed work, and it has enough worthwhile elements to make it worth the nearly three-hour investment. But this revival, like the play’s previous incarnations, mainly proves that ‘Orpheus Descending’ never really works.”
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It would be a pleasure to report that the Theatre for a New Audience’s revival of Tennessee Williams’ "Orpheus Descending" has restored this minor play to a higher place in the author’s canon. Unfortunately, the play remains a poetic and lyrical failure with too many symbols and tangents. While Maggie Siff works hard to bring the play into focus she is unable to do so alone and her Val whose singing and musicianship leaves something to be desired does not give her much help. The use of the nearly empty stage in Erica Schmidt’s production vitiates much of the play’s tension and Deep Southern flavor.
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“This is a deep, rich play with many layers that is not often done, probably due to the emotional complexity of the characters and the inherent disjointedness in the story...You won’t get many an opportunity to watch this play, this is a strong cast, well directed, so if you’re interested in Tennessee Williams, do take the opportunity to read up on the play to be able to fully experience the many layers within and go see.”
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Just too peculiar...some lovely lyrical passages, and some vivid, compassionate portraits…But, despite its allusion to Greek tragedy, the play is largely a dated Southern Gothic nightmare, descending into over-the-top ugliness, rife with stock characters…The passion and vulnerability of the two central characters might be enough to carry us through the weirdness,..But director Erica Schmidt has cast two good actors as Val and Lady who don’t feel right for their roles
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