Two-time Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe Award winner Bruce Willis will makes his Broadway debut opposite three-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Tony Award nominee Laurie Metcalf in MISERY.
MISERY, written by two-time Academy Award-winner William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) who wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-winning film and based on the acclaimed novel by Stephen King, is directed by Will Frears (Omnium Gatherum).
Successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon (Bruce Willis) is rescued from a car crash by his "Number One Fan," Annie Wilkes (Laurie Metcalf), and wakes up captive in her secluded home. While Paul is convalescing, Annie reads the manuscript to his newest novel and becomes enraged when she discovers the author has killed off her favorite character, Misery Chastain. Annie forces Paul to write a new "Misery" novel, and he quickly realizes Annie has no intention of letting him go anywhere. The irate Annie has Paul writing as if his life depends on it, and if he does not make her deadline, it will.
Willis's weirdly narcotized and passive Broadway debut goes above and beyond the drugged, physically diminished circumstances of his character. On a meta level, Misery is about Willis playing film star Willis being terrorized by Metcalf's superior acting talent. For any poor soul who shells outs $165 a ticket rather than, say, streams the flick while enjoying a nice cup of cocoa, there's partial compensation: a majestically loony turn by Metcalf as the deranged 'number-one fan' of Sheldon's Gothic romance series. Filling the vacuum left by a deadpanning Willis, Metcalf hoots, purrs, howls and tears around her kitsch-filled Colorado home, where Sheldon is imprisoned and forced to write her favorite character back to life.
Watching Broadway's 'Misery' is like playing a 33 LP set to 45. It's Stephen King by way of the Chipmunks, and with as much gravitas. (The set, which I loved, is a turntable, by David Korins, of 'Hamilton'-it spins to reveal the bedroom where Annie imprisons Paul, and the kitchen, where Paul and Annie have a dinner that is a high point of this staging.) Don't blink, or you'll miss a lot... The thrilling cinematic climax, a protracted battle to the death, here is reduced to one good whack Paul gives Annie with his used typewriter, the one missing an 'N' key, and a few seconds of neck-throttling. Die-HARD? Die-easy is more like it.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Scenic Design (Play or Musical) | David Korins |
2016 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Laurie Metcalf |
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