Okay, regarding what all you've heard about The Graduate: it's only half-true. Yes, Kathleen Turner bares all. Yes, the show often bastardizes Mike Nichols' benchmark counterculture motion picture. And yes, the cast is wildly uneven and, in one case, downright awful. But it seems to me the shuddering cold response by critics operates on a decidedly pro-American bias, almost as if to say, "How on earth could this be a hit in (gasp!) London!" (Let's also not forget that many American productions are now heading there, not vice versa lately). I won't fudge words; the play is not very good. But in all fairness, its biggest crime is its mediocrity. In my mind, it is far more successful at transparently reproducing a film work to the stage than the rotten Sweet Smell of Success, a musical that threw everything that made its film original stick through the years and replaced it with poor performances, hackneyed songs, and an all-around feeling of attending a wake for the musical form. The Graduate is never so fatal a theatrical experience. It goes by, you don't care all that much, but you don't feel as if your time was robbed. And some of us will take that any day over some of the more victimizing shows out there right now.
The Graduate unfolds pretty much the way the 1967 film does (though it must be said that adapter-director Terry Johnson seems to be lifting more from the Charles Webb novel than the movie). Benjamin Braddock (Jason Biggs) is the graduate of the title, an affectless young guy who cannot decide what his next step is. Enter Mrs. Robinson (Kathleen Turner), a piranha of a mother who seduces the impressionable lad into an affair. Benjamin, though, has eyes for her pert, pretty daughter Elaine (Alicia Silverstone), who is attracted to him but finds his philosophy on life rather ghastly. Soon, Benjamin has fallen completely for Elaine, leaving poor Mrs. R in the lurch. Elaine goes off to school, and Benjamin chases after her. Third parties become involved, and soon Benjamin must decide if Elaine is worth the family strife his affair has caused.
When you break it down, it is a pretty streamlined story anyway, which is why Johnson's play version isn't quite as offensive as it would seem. Some liberties have taken sexually (Mrs. Robinson, at one point, pushes Benjamin's head into her crotch to get him to perform on her), and scenes have been added that are new to the viewer, but much of the dialogue remains intact. Generally, the exchanges are fairly easygoing, and while it never suggests the depths of Nichols' film version (which used the central affair to comment on the larger, ever-changing social atmosphere it depicted), the banter still works to some degree.
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft's work will never be forgotten, but in all honesty, the film rarely makes an appearance in your head while watching the play. Turner is an ideal choice for the lead with her smoky voice and imposing figure, but she is never sexy, which makes her Mrs. Robinson more sultry drag queen than sizzling seductress. She tosses her lines out like a pro, but her characterization has little depth overall.
Silverstone is genuinely dreadful as the naive Elaine, on the other hand. She has close to no stage presence, and delivers every line with a screechy, petulant whine that quickly grows grating. Furthermore, she has little use for projecting, rendering her inaudible at key moments, not that you'll really want to hear her mewl anymore than necessary. It's very hard to see what Benjamin sees in her to put his life in such a state.
But the man chasing after her is well worth watching. Biggs, who has appeared in some of the worst films of recent years ("Loser" and "Saving Silverman" are just a few), is completely disarming in his first major stage role. He has a real sense of comic timing for someone so young and wisely makes the character of Benjamin his own. His overly- built body aside (which goes totally against his characterization), he hardly ever makes a grand misstep the way his co-stars do. I truly wish this endearing young actor would get a role that might let him expound his talents more, but this one will do for now. He's easily the best thing about the show.
Victor Slezak and Murphy Guyer are also effective as Mr. Robinson and Mr. Braddock respectively, nicely filling some holes left in the wake of Johnson's uninventive handling. Hugh Vanstone's much buzzed-about lighting design is occasionally evocative but often dull, especially in Act Two, when it settles on a hue not unsuitable to a filing clerk's office. Johnson's direction could use tightening, but at least he allows for pauses and thankfully doesn't linger too hard on the movie's more famous exchanges. The one-word time capsule phrase "Plastics," for example, is thrown out rather quickly so you don't get the standard roars from the audiences who like to let you know how clever they are for noticing them.
Stating that I don't downright despise this production doesn't mean at all that I am willing to sit through more film-to-stage transfers. I'm positive scores of unsung playwrights out there are just begging to get their works produced, and I say give them their chance. In the future, let's leave the film classics on the screen where they belong and the stage work on the stage. But until then, The Graduate has at least one critic who was were never bored by it and never found it a waste of time. Faint praise, to be sure, but some praise all the same.
