The Winslow Boy
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Cititour.com Review
That dustiest of play settings, the English drawing room, becomes the center of a compelling work that’s part mystery, family saga, love story and legal drama in Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy. Director Lindsay Posner has imported his praised revival of this 1946 play from London’s Old Vic to Broadway, via the Roundabout Theatre Company, with a new cast. And it’s the principal performers — Roger Rees, Charlotte Parry and Alessandro Nivola — who turn what in lesser hands could be dry, ponderous proceedings into gripping drama.
Rattigan based Winslow Boy on the real-life case of a student cadet accused of theft. In his drama, set in pre-World War I London, teenager Ronnie Winslow (Spencer Davis Milford) is expelled from school after being accused of stealing from another student. He proclaims his innocence, and soon his father, Arthur (Rees), is sacrificing health and financial security to clear his name.
As the case becomes a national sensation, it impairs the engagement of Ronnie’s sister, Catherine (Parry), and curtails the Oxford education of brother Dickie (Zachary Booth). With the entrance late in the first act of Sir Robert Morton (Nivola), a renowned barrister considering taking the case, the play gets added verve, as the stiff, stoic lawyer and the feisty suffragette butt heads (in a most civilized way, of course), but eventually come to respect and appreciate each other.
Throughout, Rattigan raises questions about Ronnie’s guilt, the rights of an individual against the state, and whether the battle is worth the sacrifices the Winslows must make. Rees is wonderfully moving as the devoted father, whether he’s keeping up the fight for his son or sinking into his a wheelchair in despair. And Parry (so good in the Roundabout’s Look Back in Anger revival last year) and Nivola convey understated emotion with palpable power. Posner’s finely tuned production clears all the dust off this rarely performed but still potent play.
By Diane Snyder
Visit the Site
http://www.roundabouttheatre.org
Cast
Roger Rees, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Cumpsty, Alessandro Nivola, Zachary Booth, Spencer Davis Milford, Chandler Williams, Meredith Forlenza, Stephen Pilkington, Henny Russell
Open/Close Dates
Opening 10/17/2013
Closing 12/1/2013
Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 9/20/2013
Closing Open-ended
Box Office
212-719-1300
Theatre Info
American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
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