The Broadway adaptation of Delia Ephron’s memoir Left on Tenth, starring Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher, opened this October 2024. This combined Ephron’s quick wit with a warming tale about second love. Critics have given the show a mixed set of reviews, hence questioning its trajectory and emotion.
Plot Overview
The story takes its roots from Ephron’s real-life romance amidst sorrow and ill health, thus mixing romance with personal tragedy. Ephron, being a widow, meets her friend after a long time and experiences a late-life romance. Desiring a little comedy and tragedy, this memoir starts revealing the happiness and challenges of finding romance at an old age, and it has been dramatized for the stage as a romantic comedy tinged with drama.
Margulies played Ephron with her signature gravitas, playing the character as one torn asunder by love, loss, and body diseases. Gallagher’s performance as Peter, Ephron’s object of love, has been lauded for its charm, lending a sense of hope to what would otherwise be downbeat material.
Tone: Mismatched Expectations
It has also been criticized as a jarring disconnect between the comedic ambition of this play and heavier topics, such as Ephron’s leukemia diagnosis and the angst of losing her husband. Susan Stroman tackles directing a play that juggles at least two disparate tones; it never quite settles into a rhythm. Though moments of levity break the tension, some say comedy juxtaposed with tragedy does so in fits and starts, hence delivering an uneven emotional ride.
The pacing also equated to this in fault, for some viewers, by meandering but without a strong arc. This was especially a problem for a romantic comedy, where timing and tone are everything in terms of holding the audience’s attention. And while Ephron’s story did come with high real-life stakes, the adaptation hasn’t quite captured the necessary engaging momentum it should be directed to take.
Acting: Margulies and Gallagher Shine Amid Directional Flaws
Margulies has been praised for subtle work that shows Ephron’s fragility and strength in equal measure. She lends a very earthy feel to the character as she portrays the fragility of falling in love, the culmination of which means health crises. Gallagher is equally good, nuanced with vibrant sincerity mixed with wit, which can go well with the audience. However, considering the lack of tonal focus, the actors also seem somewhat restrained.
While Margulies and Gallagher are even impressive in their respective scenes, critics say there is just something missing between them that seems to act as a hindrance in bringing the romance between them to life. The emotional arc of these characters, which should have been the core of the play, seems torn, and this therefore pulls down the performance of the actors.
Direction and Staging: Lacking Cohesion
Susan Stroman is a force of frenetic energy in directing musicals such as The Producers, and she puts a slick polish on Left on Tenth. Where the direction is concerned, she has received mixed reviews. Critics find the structure somewhat disjointed between its comic romantic veneer and the weightier emotional baggage. Stroman’s effort to interlace humor with Ephron’s story of love and illness doesn’t always work, making those scenes contrived or awkwardly paced.
The staging, while lovely, has equally been criticized as not dynamic. Set design, with a heavy focus on the domestic sphere, little cuts up the monotony of some scenes and makes the production often feel static. This, along with the tonal changes, produces a disconnect that has a degrading effect on the play’s potential impact.
The Script: Faithful but Without Deepness
Ephron’s richly personal, charming memoir was adapted for the stage by the author herself, but the stage version has been noted for leaning a bit too hard into the source material, coming across as a reading of her life rather than a fully fleshed-out play. The dialogue, while witty in places, is frequently very expository, leaving little room for the actors to bring life to their characters beyond what is on the page.
For some reviewers, this was a diffuse adaptation-the sense that Ephron’s musings were better integrated into a clearer story arc. The humor, which cut so fine on the page in her memoir, does not have quite the same sure-footedness on stage, where the balance between comedy and tragedy seems off-kilter.
Audience and Critical Reception
Flaws and all, Left on Tenth has found a specific audience: those who know Ephron’s body of work and her life story. Listeners with a background of enjoying her prior projects will find comfort in similar themes: unlikely love and maturation later in life, as evidenced by You’ve Got Mail. But others have remarked that it may prove more emotionally satisfying to those who are already conversant with Ephron’s life, because as a work of theatre, it does not entirely stand on its own.
Seriously, the play has been deemed “directionless” by some, never quite sure whether it is a romantic comedy or a drama. The powerful themes of love and illness, while intrinsically sad, are diminished by an overall lack of cohesion in both the writing and direction.
Conclusion: Mixed Bag of Emotions
Left on Tenth has all the ingredients for a poignant, unlikely romance in older age, yet has come across as quite disappointing on stage on Broadway. Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher give great performances, but are let down by some dodgy directing and a script that hasn’t managed to translate the original memoir’s charm into a well-rounded theatrical experience. The emotional candor of the story might strike a chord with the most avid followers of Ephron’s work, but as it makes its way into production, the more general audience finds in it a work that struggles in the heart and in the humor of an exceptional romantic comedy.
All in all, Left on Tenth is a promising production that lacks the varnish to make it sparkle and shine on Broadway. The direction, pacing, and inconsistent tone undermine what could have been a deeply affecting exploration of love, loss, and the courage to start anew. Margulies and Gallagher give it their all, but at the end of it all, the play is little more than a missed opportunity for a more honed and emotionally resonant story.
