Through a Glass Darkly

New York Theatre Workshop

(212) 279-4200

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Carey Mulligan’s latest performance “more than confirms her promise as one of the finest actresses of her generation,” said Ben Brantley in The New York Times. In this adaptation of a brooding 1961 Ingmar Bergman film, the 26-year-old performer plays Karin, a mentally ill woman who is trying to patch rifts within her family during a vacation at the clan’s summer home. At the moments when Karin’s schizophrenia takes hold, watching Mulligan feels “like a major invasion of privacy”: She behaves “with an ugliness” that people don’t usually allow others to see. Through a Glass Darkly isn’t “Bergman at his most subtle,” and here it’s been further stripped of nuance. “But if you want to experience the shock of illumination that acting, at its best, can achieve, you need to see her performance.”

As compelling as all the performances are here, they fail to redeem the play, said Mark Kennedy in the Associated Press. It’s somewhat of a mystery why Bergman’s Oscar-winning movie was deemed suitable for the stage. Without the director’s signature close-ups, we no longer feel the story as a deep psychological drama; the action just feels “muddy.” You get the sense that the actors have more fun “flexing their craft” than the audience has while watching them. When Mulligan’s Karin makes her final exit, she leaves behind a family “more guilty and ashamed and horrified” than they were when she started trying to make things better. In a way, it’s impressive theater. But “family get-togethers just can’t get any worse.”