The Heiress

Walter Kerr Theatre, New York

(212) 239-6200

**

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Across its long history, The Heiress “has tended to be an awards magnet,” said Ben Brantley in The New York Times. The titular role garnered acclaim for original star Wendy Hiller, then brought Olivia de Havilland an Oscar for the 1949 film and Cherry Jones a Tony in 1995. Now it’s Jessica Chastain’s turn to play Catherine Sloper, the awkward, maligned daughter of a wealthy doctor in Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s adaptation of the Henry James novel Washington Square. Chastain does, improbably, “manage to simulate homeliness.” But her delivery is drab too; in fact, it “has a flatness that I associate with cold readings of scripts.”

Director Moisés Kaufman should probably share the blame, said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. He presents Catherine as a woman “crushed into permanent withdrawal by her father’s disregard for her,” which may explain why, although “we keep waiting and hoping for her to catch fire,” she never does. It may be that the inventive Kaufman is “constrained here by the conventionality of the drama,” or that Chastain still needs to find her footing in the part. David Strathairn is superb as the icy Dr. Sloper, who’s convinced that the only thing about Catherine that might appeal to a suitor is her inheritance. And Chastain’s Catherine does have several affecting moments. But in the end it’s hard to “feel anything for the pallid creature.”

It is Judith Ivey who instead walks away with the show, said Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal. As Catherine’s meddling Aunt Lavinia, Ivey is “a knockout,” and “though she certainly isn’t trying to steal scenes from Ms. Chastain, that’s what ends up happening.” To be fair, anyone who is seeing The Heiress for the first time won’t leave disappointed—it’s “so fine a play that it is capable of making a strong impression even in a flawed production.” But those of us lucky enough to have seen the film or any of the wonderful previous stagings “will know—and regret—what is missing from this revival.”