Roundabout Theatre Company presents a Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo, starring Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei, as part of its 2019-2020 Broadway season.
The production originally premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, also starring Ms. Tomei and directed by Trip Cullman, in June 2016. In a review for The New York Times, Charles Isherwood described it as “a buoyant new production” that is “inventively directed” by Cullman and that Tomei is “an actor capable of unleashing all the pain and passion that define this lively if not always lovable character.” Of course, he’s referring to Serafina Delle Rose, the memorably feisty central character of this romantic comedy that took home the Tony Award for “Best Play” in 1951.
Tennessee Williams is undoubtedly more widely associated with the more dramatic works of his canon such as A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Glass Menagerie, so it may well be a welcome change to see one of his rarer gems performed on the Broadway stage. He wrote the role of Serafina for the late great actress Anna Magnani, who actually won an Oscar in 1956 for the play’s film adaptation, and if there’s anyone that can follow in her footsteps, it would be Marisa Tomei.
An Oscar winner in her own right thanks to a stunning, breakthrough performance in 1992’s “My Cousin Vinny,” Tomei has found a whole new audience and a new level of fame following her casting as Aunt May in the global phenomenon that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She has appeared in “Captain America: Civil War,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Avengers: Endgame,” and, most recently, “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” so far, with other appearances in the pipeline. Critics, however, will always remember her from her stellar Oscar-nominated performances in 2008’s “The Wrestler” or 2001’s “In the Bedroom,” and she is also no stranger to the New York stage with this production marking her fifth role on Broadway.
(Photos by Joan Marcus)
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