The Revisionist, which opened at the intimate Cherry Lane Theatre on February 28 for a limited run, has been extended through April 27, with great, good cause—a couple of times.

In this case, the great, good cause is 76 year old Vanessa Redgrave at her incandescent best. Excellence, a plateau, is a goal that she, or any great actor for the matter, might fail to reach on every outing. I am thinking, in particular, of her two most recent Broadway appearances. artes fine arts magazine

In Joan Didion’s, The Year of Magical Thinking (2007), though Redgrave demonstrated a riveting presence with a capital P. After all, this is her calling card! But, she was unable to bring the script—mere words printed in black ink on a white page—sufficiently to life. I seem to recall, that in that performance, she unfortunately spent considerable time tethered to a chair. Though her performance was nominated for a Tony, she lost out to Julie White in The Little Dog That Laughed.

No stage actress is as wildly experimental, as extravagant in their acting choices, as Redgrave. In Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (2003), for which she did win a Tony, her performance was boldly acted and exciting to watch. She could be seen clawing the walls and incessantly twirling her hair; but, in my opinion, never quite captured the drug-addled Mary Tyrone. And while I’m at it, Brian Dennehy, most always a bull in a china shop, by weight and size alone, was no great shakes as Tyrone either, this despite his winning a Tony.

Bearing in mind that A Long Day’s Journey into the Night was the very first play that I ever saw – the year was 1956 – the roles of Mary and Tyrone, were imprinted on me at a vulnerable age, like one of behaviorist Watson’s ducks. The roles of Mary and Tyrone still belong to Florence Eldridge and her husband Fredrick March. It is a memory that I will take with me to the grave.

The Revisionist takes place in Poland. The plot, at least outwardly, is quite simple. Inwardly, the lives of the characters are complicated. What makes the play seem more than it is are the strong performances of its three actors.

 David, a young, self-centered writer, played by Jesse Eisenberg (who is also the playwright) arrives in Poland for a week’s stay with his second cousin Maria (Redgrave) whom he met just once, when he was 10 years old—a meeting that he has no memory of.

He has come to Poland to revise his recently-rejected novel, though he spends more time smoking grass than working on his book.

Ignoring the generosity of his cousin, Maria (Redgrave), who is both feeding and housing him—she even gives him her bedroom and takes to the couch—he spends his time, rudely, and often vociferously, worrying about his own creature comforts.

The third character in the play, adding a bit of humor, and a whiff of danger, is Zenon (Daniel Orekes), who, in this play speaks only Polish. The son of Maria’s recently diseased friend, Zenon’s role in Maria’s life is to help her with her shopping, as well as shave her legs once a week.

David expresses shock at learning that Zenon engages in this act of intimacy, only to be told by maria that he used to shave his mother’s legs, and when she died, he switched his attention to the still shapely legs of Maria. This could be an act of nostalgia, or maybe something more than meets the eye.

The thrust of the play—a kind of duel, if you will—is in the verbal and physical exchanges, many of them heated , between the intractable Maria and the equally intractable David, as they try, mostly in vain, to open up their hearts to each other.

Yes, some secrets, like Maria losing her family in the Holocaust, are revealed. Others, left unexplored by the playwright, remain deeply buried.

Eisenberg, employing his usual jerky-quirky movements and rat-a-tat talk—the same physical qualities we experienced in his Oscar-nominated performance in The Social Network, and in Asuncion, the first play he wrote—does hold his own with Redgrave; that is, once you adjust to this annoyingly tick-like behavior. Though appropriate for the character of David, if you want to grant him that, I could not help wondering if Eisenberg’s movements and speaking style, which register as affectations, are all we’re ever going to get from this actor?

Consider, for example, Matthew Broderick’s cutesy-pooh antics in Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983). At age 17, such behaviors were both cute and new. Thirty years later, Broderick, now in his early 50s, is still playing (with far less effect), the same card. All of this brings me to Nathan Lane. Here, too, we have an actor saddled with a similar reputation—that of playing the same schtick over and over again.

Of course, underneath Lane’s funnyman façade—for starters think: The Producers, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and The Addams Family—rests a serious set of acting chops, most recently seen in his portrayal of Hickey, in O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, at the Goodman Theatre, in Chicago.

For The Revisionist, the joy of the evening was watching—studying is a more accurate word—Redgrave as she limberly negotiated John McDermott’s set, a small, highly detailed apartment, perfectly outfitted for an old lady.

As I always did when watching Uta Hagan, another great actress who demanded attention for her finely-tuned gestures, my eyes were glued to Redgrave’s every move, action, facial expression, and eye movement, looking for a spot where she might fall out of character. This never happened.

Just as each actor gets the perfect amount of attention from Redgrave, in this prop-heavy play, there was no dress, blanket, spoon, bottle of vodka, radio, TV, telephone, or family photograph that Redgrave didn’t make us believe she had been living with for decades.

Did I tell you that she also speaks pure Polish, as well as Polish-accented English in the play?

Now this is great acting.

By Edward Rubin, Contributing Editor, Theater & Visual Arts

“The Revisionist”

Playwright Jesse Eisenberg

Director Kip Fagan

Set Design John McDermott

Cherry Lane Theatre

38 Commerce Street

New York, New York 10014

Opening Night Thursday, February 28

Extended through Saturday, April 27

Tues-Fri 8pm, Sat 2, 8pm, Sun 3 PM

All remaining performances sold out.

All Tickets were $86.00