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.
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