Perhaps reflecting the anxiety of the age, the play revivals that will populate Broadway this fall are rife with sturm-und-drang. Sometimes that sturm comes bottled up, as it does in “Old Times” and “The Gin Game,” or is rendered explosively, as in “Fool for Love” and “A View from the Bridge.” Only the comedy “Sylvia,” by comparison, delivers its story of obsessive love between dog and man with a more subtle wit and charm.“Fool for Love,” on the other hand, wears its propulsive heart on a sweaty sleeve in Sam Shepard’s 1983 drama set in a motel on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Sam Rockwell and Nina Arianda play a possibly incestuous couple caught up in a madness of two, the sort of “can’t-live-with-you-can’t-live-without-you” scenario that is frustrating but sexually over the top. Daniel Aukin directs the revival, which received strong notices when it premiered at the Wiliamstown Theatre Festival last year. The acclaimed performances by Rockwell and Arianda last summer were all the more impressive since they were last-minute cast replacements. They’ll now have more time to flesh out May and Eddie, characters caught up in the impossibility of a passion that keeps them coming back for more. “Fool for Love” begins previews at MTC’s Samuel Friedman Theatre on September 15 prior to an October 8 opening.“Old Times” likewise seethes with turbulent emotion, but under the veneer of polite chatter in what is almost a mockery of the traditional drawing room play. If this were a movie melodrama, the tagline might read, “Into the lives of Deeley and Kate comes Anna,” with an ominous chord to signal the brewing trouble. But “Old Times” is one of the best and most opaque of the plays of Harold Pinter, sure to lead to much head-scratching and provocative post-performance discussion. This revival is being directed by Douglas Hodge who has had a long history with the Nobel Laureate, both as a director and an actor. That undoubtedly was a major reason why Clive Owen signed on to make his Broadway debut in the role of Deeley, who must contend with the possibly erotic history between his wife and her former roommate. Eve Best (“Nurse Jackie”), who previously thrilled Broadway audiences in “A Moon for the Misbegotten” and “The Homecoming,” plays Anna, while acclaimed British actress Kelly Reilly comes stateside for the first time to take on the role of the taciturn Kate. “Old Times” begins previews at the Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre on September 17, opens on October 6, and closes its limited engagement on November 29.“The Gin Game,” the two-character play by Donald L. Coburn, has proved a potent vehicle for actors since it debuted on Broadway in 1977 with Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn as an elderly couple who at first bond and then battle over a game of cards in an old folks home. Charles Durning and Julie Harris were in a 1997 revival, and now James Earl Jones, at 84, and Cicely Tyson, at 90, are assaying Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey. Leonard Foglia is directing this extraordinarily resilient couple after their respective triumphs in other plays: Tyson won the Tony Award in last year’s revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” and Jones has knocked off three plays in the last three years: he starred in the Broadway revival of “Driving Miss Daisy” opposite Vanessa Redgrave, and then toured Australia in the same play opposite Angela Lansbury; was Tony-nominated in the revival of “The Best Man”; and starred opposite Redgrave again in “Much Ado About Nothing” in London. “The Gin Game” begins previews at Golden September 23, opens on October 14, and closes on January 10.“A View from the Bridge” has not been absent from Broadway that long. In fact, the last revival, which earned Scarlett Johanssen a Tony Award, finished its run only five years ago. But the Old Vic production of Arthur Miller’s fiery drama, directed by Ivo van Hove, is apparently so astonishingly inventive that producer Scott Rudin and Lincoln Center Theater couldn’t resist bringing it back. It will be the fourth revival for the 1956 drama about Eddie Carbone, a hot-blooded Brooklyn longshoreman whose unnaturally fond feelings for his niece Catherine leads to tragedy when a couple of cousins arrive in New York from Italy as illegal immigrants. The London production was greeted with rave reviews and picked up three Oliviers: for best revival, best direction, and best actor, Mark Strong, who will reprise his role on Broadway along with Nicola Walker and Phoebe Fox. This will mark the Broadway debut of van Hove, the Belgian director who heretofore has been a controversial presence in New York’s alternative theater scene. Previews begin on October 21 at the Lyceum Theatre prior to a November 11 opening. The limited engagement concludes on February 21.“Sylvia” is one of the most popular of the works of the prolific A.R. “Pete” Gurney, who last season was represented on Broadway with “Love Letters.” It’s not hard to fathom why. Legions of dog lovers flocked to the comedy when it premiered off-Broadway in 1995 with Sarah Jessica Parker in the title role of a mongrel who is adopted by a couple unaware of just how much trouble they’ve invited into their complacent existence. For this revival, Matthew Broderick, Parker’s husband, will take on the role of Greg, who grows increasingly attached to Sylvia, now played by Annaleigh Ashford (Tony winner for “You Can’t Take It With You”). Julie White (“The Little Dog Laughed”) plays Kate, who wouldn’t mind euthanizing her rival even if she has to do it herself. When the play premiered, Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times, “Dramatic literature is stuffed with memorable love scenes. But none is as immediately delicious and dizzy as the one that begins the redeeming affair in A.R. Gurney’s new comedy, ‘Sylvia.’” The play previews at the Cort Theatre beginning on October 2 and opens on October 27.
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