''Barrymore'' is a two-person play by

William Luce William Aubert Luce (October 16, 1931 – December 9, 2019) was an American writer, primarily for the stage and television.Barnes, Mik"William Luce, 'Belle of Amherst' and 'Barrymore' Playwright, Dies at 88"''The Hollywood Reporter'' December 9, ...

which depicts

John Barrymore John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...

a few months before his death in 1942 as he is rehearsing a revival of his 1920

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

triumph as '' Richard III''. Barrymore's attempted revival of his ''Richard III'' never actually took place and was a device that was invented for the play, but it served as a dramatic framework for the actor to reminisce about various episodes in his life and about his career downslide due to alcoholism.Sommer, Elys
"A CurtainUp Review:'Barrymore'"
curtainup.com, accessed October 30, 2011 Though classified as a one-person play, ''Barrymore'' actually makes frequent use of a second character, Frank the stage manager, who interacts with Barrymore over the theatre loudspeaker. The play was originally produced at the Stratford Festival in 1996. The play was produced on Broadway at the

Music Box Theatre The Music Box Theatre is a Broadway theater at 239 West 45th Street ( George Abbott Way) in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1921, the Music Box Theatre was designed by C. Howard Crane in a Palladian-inspir ...

, running from March 25, 1997 to November 2, 1997. Directed by

Gene Saks Gene Saks (born Jean Michael Saks; November 8, 1921 – March 28, 2015) was an American director and actor. An inductee of the American Theater Hall of Fame, his acting career began with a Broadway debut in 1949. As a director, he was nominated ...

Christopher Plummer Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...

played Barrymore, and won the

Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play The Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play is an honor presented at the Tony Awards, a ceremony established in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, to actors for quality leading roles in a Broadway p ...

. Plummer reprised his role in

Érik Canuel Érik Canuel (born 1961) is a film director and actor from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Canuel, the son of actor Yvan Canuel, began his career in the mid-1980s making music videos for such artists as Paul Piché, Sass Jordan, Norman Iceberg, Vil ...

's 2011 film adaptation of the same name.

Ben Brantley Benjamin D. Brantley (born October 26, 1954) is an American theater critic, journalist, editor, publisher and writer. He served as the chief theater critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1996 to 2017, and as co-chief theater critic from 2017 to ...

, in his review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', wrote "Mr. Luce's script has a lurching quality that isn't just a matter of its subject's alcoholic disjunctiveness. And even for a work about a man whose life was a long-running performance, the play is overstuffed with one-liners...impersonations (of everyone from W. C. Fields to John's regal siblings, Ethel and Lionel, marvelously rendered) and the sort of stories that show up in books with titles like ''Amusing Theatrical Anecdotes.'' Yet Mr. Plummer and Mr. Saks have turned this fragmented material into something as fluid, stinging and warming as the cocktail (a Manhattan?) Barrymore mixes for himself onstage. And the evening (starting with the frayed lushness in autumnal colors of Santo Loquasto's backstage set) takes on an affecting shimmer of twilight, even as Mr. Plummer's Barrymore delights you with his own delight in his silly, ribald jokes."

Other performances

*In 2019, the Uruguayan actor

Jorge Bolani Jorge is a Spanish and Portuguese given name. It is derived from the Greek name Γεώργιος (''Georgios'') via Latin ''Georgius''; the former is derived from (''georgos''), meaning "farmer" or "earth-worker". The Latin form ''Georgius'' ...

performed Barrymore in a Spanish version directed by

Alfredo Goldstein Alfredo (, ) is a cognate of the Anglo-Saxon name Alfred and a common Italian, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish language personal name. People with the given name include: *Alfredo (born 1946), Brazilian footballer born as Alfredo Mostarda Filh ...

.Claroscuros de una estrella
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References

External links

* *{{IMDb title, 2033952, Barrymore (film version adapted from 2011 Elgin Theatre production of the play in Toronto) Plays for one performer Monodrama 1996 plays Plays based on real people