Two-time Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe Award winner Bruce Willis will makes his Broadway debut opposite three-time Emmy Award winner and two-time Tony Award nominee Laurie Metcalf in MISERY.
MISERY, written by two-time Academy Award-winner William Goldman (The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) who wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-winning film and based on the acclaimed novel by Stephen King, is directed by Will Frears (Omnium Gatherum).
Successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon (Bruce Willis) is rescued from a car crash by his "Number One Fan," Annie Wilkes (Laurie Metcalf), and wakes up captive in her secluded home. While Paul is convalescing, Annie reads the manuscript to his newest novel and becomes enraged when she discovers the author has killed off her favorite character, Misery Chastain. Annie forces Paul to write a new "Misery" novel, and he quickly realizes Annie has no intention of letting him go anywhere. The irate Annie has Paul writing as if his life depends on it, and if he does not make her deadline, it will.
You can't help but feel for Bruce Willis, now making his Broadway debut in Misery (**1/2 out of four stars), a new adaptation of the Stephen King novel. ... But Misery isn't really Paul's play, any more than the 1990 screen version -- penned by William Goldman, who also wrote this play -- was his movie. You may remember that James Caan played Paul in that film, but he was vastly overshadowed by Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, the obsessive fan who retrieves the injured writer from the site of the crash. Annie brings Paul to her farmhouse -- conveniently close to the hotel in Silver Creek, Colorado where he has just finished his latest work -- and holds him captive, through a combination of psychological torture and physical violence.
From those first moments, it is clear that the people behind Broadway's adaptation of Stephen King's popular thriller and the hit 1990 movie know exactly what they are doing. They know that the bulk of their audience - anyone who didn't just come to see the very good Bruce Willis - is wise to the plot turns and blunt-force terrors in their modern-gothic junk-food entertainment... The box-office catnip is Willis, totally convincing in his first play since his early off-Broadway days in the '80s.
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Scenic Design (Play or Musical) | David Korins |
2016 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Laurie Metcalf |
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