Dan Stevens: Theater Review: ‘The Heiress’ The rich and poor: bleak and empty By Judd Hollander (EPOCH TIMES)

NEW YORK—Watching the very gripping Broadway revival of Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s 1947 work “The Heiress,” one cannot help seeing the fatalistic resignation most of the characters carry in this story.

Based on a novel by Henry James, the play mixes family dysfunction with a debilitating cynicism.


Catherine Sloper (Jessica Chastain) lives in a Washington Square town house in 1850 New York City with her father, Dr. Austin Sloper (David Strathairn). She is a terribly shy, plain-looking girl who would rather stay home embroidering instead of going out to dances or other social functions.

Also currently living with the Slopers is the Doctor’s widowed sister Lavinia (Judith Ivey).

Catherine’s relationship with her father is somewhat strained. He often treats her in a condescending manner, having little faith in his daughter’s ability to make her own way in the world.

Catherine’s only advantage, as he sees it, is her somewhat considerable inheritance, which also makes her a potential target for fortune hunters.

This danger becomes more than a possibility when Catherine meets Morris Townsend (Dan Stevens), a handsome but poor man, who quickly falls in love with the future heiress.

Chastain paints a compelling and complex portrayal of Catherine, taking the character from an awkward young woman to one who has her illusions shattered more than once. In the end she becomes just as empty as many of those around her.


Stevens does an excellent job as Morris, a charmer and probable cad. Yet over the course of the play, he begins to develop an obvious attraction toward Catherine, much of it coming from lonely desperation. He needs the security she offers and perhaps also realizes her beauty within.

It’s a testament to Stevens’s acting skill and Moisés Kaufman’s direction that the character of Morris is so believable during his final scenes.

DAN STEVENS: The Heiress: Theater Review 6:00 PM PDT 11/1/2012 by David Rooney (THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)

NEW YORK – The gasps of pleasure that accompanied the stage entrance of Dan Stevens in The Heiress on press night indicated a large contingent of Downton Abbey fans in the audience. And the actor is a savvy casting choice in a part that requires beguiling charm and sufficient sincerity to keep us wondering about his character’s motives. But the good news doesn’t extend to the actress in the title role of this plush Broadway revival. An underpowered Jessica Chastain, hampered by questionable directorial choices, dilutes the emotional impact of this nonetheless compelling melodrama.


Adapted by Ruth & Augustus Goetz from Henry James’ novel Washington Square, the 1947 play won a Tony Award for Cherry Jones in the celebrated 1995 revival, and an Oscar for Olivia de Havilland in William Wyler’s 1949 screen version.

Making her Broadway debut, Chastain is not a natural fit for Catherine, the socially awkward, plain-Jane daughter of wealthy widowed medic Dr. Austin Sloper (David Strathairn) in mid-19th century New York. In her prolific burst of film work over the past two years, the lovely Juilliard-trained actress has impressed with her poise and delicacy, balancing fragility with quiet inner fortitude. But playing against type is less a problem in Chastain’s frustrating performance here than inconsistency of characterization.

As Morris Townsend, the cash-strapped gentleman whose ardent interest in Catherine causes her to blossom in a dizzying two-week courtship, Stevens is ideal. While Dr. Sloper pegs him as a gold-digging wastrel and is determined to open his daughter’s eyes to that view, Stevens brings such unsullied earnestness to the role that we want to believe in his honest intentions, just as he appears to want the same. Morris is so bewitched by the material comforts of the Slopers’ swanky home on fashionable Washington Square that he seems as much a victim of his desires as the architect of any calculated scheme.

Strathairn is also superb as Dr. Sloper, who takes his behavioral cues from his clinical profession. The insensitivity with which he treats his daughter makes it a challenge to find a glimmer of sympathy in this joyless man – as starchy and severe as his tall hat and topcoat. But Strathairn deftly reveals the pathos of the doctor, who has never been able to forgive Catherine for the death of his beloved wife in childbirth. It’s his tragedy as much as Catherine’s that his chilliness has caused her to grow up into the exact opposite of her vivacious mother.

Ivey, as always, is a consummate pro. Without any undue scene-stealing, she is a constant delight to watch. Her good-hearted Lavinia is a giggling, frivolous woman, slightly dim and a shameless flirt; even her widow’s weeds are covered in silly flounces and ruffles. But her girlish swooning over the romance in the air between Catherine and Morris masks a touching vein of melancholy. “Life can be very long for a woman alone,” she warns her niece.

READ MORE: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/theater-review-jessica-chastain-heiress-385300

The Heiress, Starring Jessica Chastain and Dan Stevens, Opens on Broadway NEWS By Broadway.com Staff November 1, 2012 - 10:17AM (BROADWAY BUZZ)

The Broadway revival of Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s classic play The Heiress opens on November 1 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Starring Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain and Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens, the Moises Kaufman-helmed production will play a limited engagement through February 10, 2013.



READ MORE: http://www.broadway.com/buzz/165147/the-heiress-starring-jessica-chastain-and-dan-stevens-opens-on-broadway/

Dan Stevens: Star-Studded 'Heiress' Considers A Woman's Worth by JEFF LUNDEN (NPR)

A revival of The Heiress, a 1947 play based on the Henry James novella Washington Square, opens at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York on Nov. 1. It stars (from left) Judith Ivey, Dan Stevens, David Strathairn and Jessica Chastain.

October 28, 2012

A much-anticipated revival of The Heiress, a 1947 play based on the Henry James novella Washington Square, opens in New York on Thursday. It marks the Broadway debut of two accomplished young stars — Jessica Chastain, the Academy Award nominee from The Help, and Dan Stevens, from the hit television series Downton Abbey.

On the surface, the story of The Heiress seems simple enough — a wealthy young woman in Victorian New York is torn between her controlling father and a young, penniless suitor. Is the father being overprotective? Is the young man just a cad? But there's much more going on, says director Moisés Kaufman.


"Henry James — because his brother, William James, was a psychologist — he really understood a lot about human psychology and he got so much so right so early on," Kaufman says. He describes the revival as "very Jamesian" in its darkness and ambiguity.

"Henry James doesn't write about villains and saints," Kaufman says. "He writes about people with flesh and blood. And one of the things that we kept talking about in this play was that those kind of ambiguities make the production richer."

Hollywood star Jessica Chastain plays the heiress, Catherine, and David Straithairn plays her father, Dr. Austin Sloper. The petite red-haired Chastain is all but unrecognizable in a tangled wig of frizzy brown hair and a jangle of awkward mannerisms, playing an only child trying desperately to get her father's approval. Chastain says she was attracted to the role because of the character's arc.

READ MORE: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/28/163723461/star-studded-heiress-considers-a-womans-worth

Downton mania as 'Dreamy Dan' hits Broadway and is mobbed by fans By SHARON CHURCHER PUBLISHED: 17:47 EST, 27 October 2012 Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Dan Stevens - better known as Downton Abbey's Captain Matthew Crawley - was all smiles as he was himself mobbed by American women outside the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York

Oh Matthew, what would Lady Mary say?

Dan Stevens – better known  as Downton Abbey's Captain Matthew Crawley – was all smiles as he found himself mobbed by American women outside a Broadway theatre.

The 30-year-old British actor, in New York to star in the play The Heiress, was surrounded by excited fans who snuggled up to him for photos.


'You're so cute!' one shrieked. 'You're so sexy!  I love your hair!' Another squealed: 'I could die now!'
'He's the best kind of Englishman. It's his naturalness, his genuineness, his kindness,' said Barb Kilpatrick, a 68-year-old nurse from Pennsylvania who has been to the play twice, paying £80 a ticket.


Read more:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2224190/Downton-mania-Dreamy-Dan-hits-Broadway-mobbed-fans.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Dan Stevens: Heir Meets Heiress By Laura JacobsPhotograph by Jason Bell (VANITY FAIR)

Delightfully goony,” wrote The New York Times of Dan Stevens’s performance in his first professional play. It was 2005, and the young British actor, straight out of Cambridge University, was at Brooklyn Academy of Music, cast as Orlando in Peter Hall’s touring production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “A breezily confident professional debut,” agreed Variety, calling Stevens’s Orlando a “sweet, swooning lad.” 

It’s been seven years since that play, and now the world is swooning for Stevens. Playing the upstanding Edwardian heartthrob Matthew Crawley in the Masterpiece mega-hit Downton Abbey, he has acquired a global fan base and a high profile. This October he returns to the New York stage in the role of a more complicated heartthrob: Morris Townsend, the handsome bounder in The Heiress, the 1947 adaptation of the Henry James novel of 1880, Washington Square.

READ MORE: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2012/11/matthew-crawley-downton-abbey

"Downton Abbey" Star Dan Stevens Will Pursue The Heiress on Broadway By Kenneth Jones 14 May 2012 (PLAYBILL)

Dan Stevens, known to millions of international TV viewers as romantic lead Matthew Crawley on the period drama series "Downton Abbey," will play suitor Morris Townsend in the new Broadway production of The Heiress, starring the previously announced Jessica Chastain and David Strathairn.

In the play based on the Henry James novel "Washington Square," Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain ("The Help") plays spinster Catherine Sloper, with Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner David Strathairn ("Good Night and Good Luck," "Temple Grandin") as her stern father, Dr. Austin Sloper.

http://playbill.com/news/article/165905-Downton-Abbey-Star-Dan-Stevens-Will-Pursue-The-Heiress-on-Broadway