STAGE WEST
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page

Theater reviews

Stage West

Tales of love, money and brains

1/1/2015

0 Comments

 
​ Take Henry James’ short novel “Washington Square,” adapt it for the Lifetime (“Television For Women) network, and you’d have something like Victoria Stewart’s play Rich Girl, now at the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre under the direction of James Vasquez. Well, at least the first act of the play, which has its teleplay way with the vagaries of the power-woman mother/wallflower daughter relationship and the timeworn question of love vs. money. The second act of Rich Girl, a retelling of James’ story about a homely heiress with a tyrannical parent (in the novel, it’s a father), ramps up the drama and becomes much more absorbing.
            The four-person cast is appropriately dominated by Meg Gibson in the role of a Suze Orman type convinced her daughter Claudine (Lauren Blumenfeld) is being courted for her money by a free-spirited but broke theater artist (JD Taylor). Credit the charismatic Gibson for the comic energy of Act 1 and the poignancy of Act 2. If you’ve read James’ novella or seen the stage/screen adaptation, The Heiress, you’ll know where Rich Girl is headed. How you feel when it gets there may depend on your affinity for Claudine, who like her mom can really get on your nerves.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    David L. Coddon is a Southern California theater critic.

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    August 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    December 2014
    January 2014
    January 2013
    January 2012
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Theatre Review

David Coddon

About 
David Coddon Fiction
Theatre Reviews

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page