DRAMA; 1hr 50min
STARRING: Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Lily Rabe, Pierce Brosnan
Art and craft: Lange (left)
Lillian Hall (Lange), one-time “first lady of the American theater”, is neck-deep in denial of her crumbling mental capacity in this gusty, Michael Cristofer–directed HBO homage. In what should be a starry career high, Lillian, who is broadly based on the late Marian Seldes in a screenplay written by her niece, Elisabeth Seldes Annacone, is about to star in a Broadway production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. But with previews looming, she continues to screw up her lines.
Despatched by the play’s director (Jesse Williams) to consult a doctor (Keith Arthur Bolden), Lillian fails a cognitive test with a diva’s defiant flair and is subsequently diagnosed with dementia. Her prognosis of “multi-system degeneration” leaves her intent on flaming out in a blaze of stage lights while running herself and her steadfast assistant, Edith (Bates, underused, always awesome), ragged in the attempt. With 49 years and 206 plays on her résumé, this diva is no quitter.
To most people, even more frightening than the prospect of losing their mind would be losing it in front of a live audience every night. For Lillian, the real fear is having no audience at all. That The Cherry Orchard is a play dealing with loss is as cruelly fitting as Lange’s full-wattage performance.
“You never really wanted to be my mother,” Lillian’s emotionally neglected adult daughter Margaret (Rabe) laments in one notable explosion. “You just wanted to play the part.” Margaret isn’t entirely off base: Lange’s Lillian leans heavily into high drama (praise be for a suavely laidback Brosnan, chilling the bill as her next-door neighbour). But when the parts you’ve played are the measure of who you’ve become, how else do you set about acting out the fight of your life?
