(Brantley) 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' As the fatally conflicted Bess, the extraordinary Audra McDonald (back in the role after illness) is a gale force of emotion in Diane Paulus's slimmed-down musical adaptation of the landmark 1935 opera.
(Brantley) 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' As the fatally conflicted Bess, the extraordinary Audra McDonald is a gale force of emotion in Diane Paulus's slimmed-down musical adaptation of the landmark 1935 opera.
(Rampell) 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' (closes on Sunday) As the fatally conflicted Bess, the extraordinary Audra McDonald is a gale force of emotion in Diane Paulus's slimmed-down, Tony-winning adaptation of the landmark 1935 opera.
(Ben Brantley) 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' As the fatally conflicted Bess, the extraordinary Audra McDonald (a Tony winner) is a gale force of emotion in Diane Paulus's slimmed-down, Tony-winning adaptation of the landmark 1935 opera.
(Brantley) 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess' As the fatally conflicted Bess, the extraordinary Audra McDonald (a Tony winner) is a gale force of emotion in Diane Paulus's slimmed-down, Tony-winning adaptation of the landmark 1935 opera.
But as with Mr. Ohlsson, what is likely to live longest in memory is the force of emotion that Mr. Lewis conveyed: the rattling tremolos of the little A minor Sonata, seemingly intended as mere bluster to set off sweet and lovely subsidiary themes, now carrying dark portent; the deeper emotions of the big A minor becoming almost frightening in their intensity.
And Okonedo's just as captivating in the show's more intimate scenes, delivering a tour-de-force of emotions – contempt, fear, heartbreak – when she realises the extent of her husband's dishonesty.
Giving shape to the "uncontainable" forces of emotion and dream among the grit of actual fact turns out to be Edward Hirsch's most vital ambition.
He believed, Moody says, "that 'the perfect rhythm joined to the perfect word' would energize the motor forces of emotion and will and illuminate the intelligence, and that the result would be more enlightened living".
Yet, helpless against the rising force of her emotions, we are ultimately complicit in her disintegration.
Taken from television, these images bring the self-contained glower that hovers behind his work out into the open and give it the immediate force of human emotions and events.
