![]() ![]() been with other men, prompting Jack’s famous tirade ending “I wish I knew how to quit you” with startling rage. He’s thrilled to have found a kindred spirit explains the growing exasperation at each brief, abortive encounter until a jealous Ennis demands to know whether he’s “been to Mexico,” i.e. ![]() Meanwhile, where Gyllenhaal’s rodeo bum was slick and sly, Faist is a true wild man, leaping and wa-hooing with the freedom of one who knows who he is and has the whole Wyoming frontier to show it in. ![]() But Hedges’ expressiveness – altogether appropriate for the stage – makes us ever more aware of his emotional dilemmas, especially with his older self constantly registering resignation brought on by time. Over the years, whether exploring taboo sexual boundaries or struggling to do right financially by his ex-wife and daughters, he wears his anguish on his face much more than did the repressed, iron-jawed Ledger. Hedges, whose many sensitive-youth film roles were echoed in Broadway’s The Waverly Gallery, mans-up decisively here. As the sole agent of his downfall Ennis cannot escape his grief, and in this production, neither can we. But now the tragedy consistently gains heft from a laser focus on the one who couldn’t accept his own nature, even after wife Alma (Emily Fairn) cut him loose to, presumably, go his own way. It’s still the tragedy of two men whose love could not be controlled or quit across the decades, but which could not speak its name because of society’s structures and an individual’s shame. ![]() Hickey’s presence onstage throughout – intensely watching all that occurs without actively participating in it – signals an intriguing, reminiscence-forward approach to Proulx’s matter-of-fact narrative. The image that ends Proulx’s novella and Lee’s film, kicks this version off. That garment, of course, is Ellis’s only remaining talisman of his one true love. Robinson and Butterell set a new tone from the opening as the scratchy bedside radio wakes up neither young ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Hedges) nor rodeo rider Jack Twist (Faist), but Paul Hickey as “Older Ennis.” His wordless morning routine instantly reveals a used-up soul wasting time until death in a beat-up trailer, with little but a bottle of booze and a long-ago-worn friend’s shirt to keep him company. Just as boldly, it offers lead performances from Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges that can stand without apology against those of Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger – different, but no less emotionally true. Fearlessly tackling still-green memories of Ang Lee’s iconic, even beloved doomed romance set against the great outdoors, the production directed by Jonathan Butterell finds new intimacy in Annie Proulx’s original story. Photo: Manuel HarlanĪshley Robinson’s take on Brokeback Mountain, now playing at London’s not only dodges the bullet of misbegotten stage adaptations of non-musical movies, but actually scores a couple bullseyes all its own. Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges in Brokeback Mountain. ![]()
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