Marlo’s Martha wasn’t so hot, apparently.

————— [bold]Review/Theater; 'Virginia Woolf,' With Marlo Thomas, By Mel Gussow (Jan. 23, 1992)[/bold]

[italic] …Thirty years later, "Virginia Woolf," in revival at the Hartford Stage Company, retains its natural ferocity and brilliance. This is in spite of a production that is crucially marred in one of its two principal roles.

Although Robert Foxworth has all the self-harmful bitterness for George, Marlo Thomas is an unsuitable Martha. She takes a straightforward approach and misses the primal terror that is so essential to the character. As described by the author, Martha is "a large, boisterous woman." Ms. Thomas is petite and neatly groomed. At the very least, she should have decosmetized her looks, as Elizabeth Taylor did in the film version of the play. The character is blowzy, the better to exude blatant sensuality.

From Ms. Thomas's entrance on John Conklin's surprisingly unimaginative set and her utterance of the line, "What a dump," it is evident that the actress is not equal to the challenge. She does not bray and she has no bite, as demanded by the role. One keeps wondering what she is doing in Martha's house (she is certainly not in Martha's shoes). By playing the role as she does, she diminishes the intensity of her relationship with George. Anyone seeing the play for the first time might think of them as a bickering couple and not as mutually destructive people, in George's words, who have suffered so much "blood under the bridge."

She only begins to rise to the emotional demands of the role at the end of the play, the aftermath of exorcism. After a disheartening delivery of the frantic monologue that opens the third act, she conveys a glimmer of the defeat that surrounds her. As a woman who has endured a marriage of lies, she moves past the point of accommodation and gropes for life support.

The final tearful scene between the married couple reminds one that Ms. Thomas has residual resources, as demonstrated in the television movie "Nobody's Child." But in this performance she does not encompass Martha, and Paul Weidner, as director, is unable to help her…