''Barrymore'' is a two-person play by
William Luce which depicts
John Barrymore a few months before his death in 1942 as he is rehearsing a revival of his 1920
Broadway triumph as ''
Richard III
Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Boswor ...
''.
Barrymore's attempted revival of his ''Richard III'' never actually took place and was a device that was invented for the play, but it served as a dramatic framework for the actor to reminisce about various episodes in his life and about his career downslide due to alcoholism.
[Sommer, Elys]
"A CurtainUp Review:'Barrymore'"
curtainup.com, accessed October 30, 2011
Though classified as a one-person play, ''Barrymore'' actually makes frequent use of a second character, Frank the stage manager, who interacts with Barrymore over the theatre loudspeaker.
The play was originally produced at the
Stratford Festival
The Stratford Festival is a repertory theatre organization that operates from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Founded by local journalist Tom Patterson in 1952, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shak ...
in 1996. The play was produced on Broadway at the
Music Box Theatre
The Music Box Theatre is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater at 239 West 45th Street (George Abbott Way) in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Opened in 1921, the Music Box ...
, running from March 25, 1997 to November 2, 1997. Directed by
Gene Saks,
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage and television. His accolades included an Academy Aw ...
played Barrymore, and won the
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.
[ Plummer reprised his role in ]Érik Canuel
Érik Canuel (January 21, 1961 – June 15, 2024) was a Canadian film and television director from Montreal, Quebec.
Canuel, the son of actor Yvan Canuel, began his career in the mid-1980s making music videos for such artists as Paul Piché, ...
's 2011 film adaptation of the same name.
Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher, and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 t ...
, in his review for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', wrote "Mr. Luce's script has a lurching quality that isn't just a matter of its subject's alcoholic disjunctiveness. And even for a work about a man whose life was a long-running performance, the play is overstuffed with one-liners...impersonations (of everyone from W. C. Fields to John's regal siblings, Ethel and Lionel, marvelously rendered) and the sort of stories that show up in books with titles like ''Amusing Theatrical Anecdotes.'' Yet Mr. Plummer and Mr. Saks have turned this fragmented material into something as fluid, stinging and warming as the cocktail (a Manhattan?) Barrymore mixes for himself onstage. And the evening (starting with the frayed lushness in autumnal colors of Santo Loquasto's backstage set) takes on an affecting shimmer of twilight, even as Mr. Plummer's Barrymore delights you with his own delight in his silly, ribald jokes."
Other performances
*In 2014, Tatsuya Nakadai performed 'Barrymore' in a Japanese version directed by Ikumi Tanno.
*In 2019, the Uruguayan actor Jorge Bolani performed Barrymore in a Spanish version directed by Alfredo Goldstein.Claroscuros de una estrella
/ref>
References
External links
*
*{{IMDb title, qid=Q48674155, title=Barrymore (film version adapted from 2011 Elgin Theatre production of the play in Toronto)
Plays for one performer
Monodrama
1996 plays
Plays based on real people