Fran's Bed

Written by: James Lapine
Directed by: James Lapine
Cast: Mia Farrow (Fran), Harris Yulin (Hank), Heather Burns (Vicky), Julia Stiles (Birdie), Brenda Pressley (Dolly), and Marcia DeBonis (Lynne).
Synopsis: Fran's fighting for her life. Incapacitated, her fate in the hands of caretakers both calculating and sympathetic, Fran guides us into the past, casting a bemused eye over the events that brought her to this place, this bed. Surrounded by family members torn between keeping her alive and letting her slip peacefully away, Fran's journey is that of a vital, deeply conflicted soul, stranded in an unearthly limbo.
 

What the critics had to say.....

CHARLES ISHERWOOD of the NEW YORK TIMES says �It seems somehow fitting that this flavorless trawl through an unsatisfactory life should pivot toward tragedy on that most prosaic of traumas, nagging back pain.�
HOWARD KISSEL of the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS says "Is very much a soap opera. Its characters are paper thin. Their dilemmas get resolved in the amount of time between commercials. Here, alas, there are no ads to break up the sluggish pace. The overall effect is sleep-inducing."
FRANK SCHECK of THE NEW YORK POST says "The net effect of the play is a relentless tedium that threatens to send audience members into comas of their own."
MICHAEL FEINGOLD of the VILLAGE VOICE says "Is as pretty, and as empty, a theatrical event as you're likely to see this year."
MICHAEL SOMMERS of STAR-LEDGER says "The vagueness that characterizes Fran's nature partly accounts for the play's rather sketchy quality."
ROMA TORRE of NY1 says "Is in its own kind of theatrical coma: Neither fully alive, nor deserving of pulling the plug."
JACQUES LE SOURD of the Journal News says "Will leave you tired � and probably depressed as well."
MICHAEL KUCHWARA of ASSOCIATED PRESS says "Lapine's 95-minute play, now on view at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons, is disjointed and undernourished as it hopscotches from character to character, never stopping long enough to fully develop any of them."
ALEXIS GREENE of the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER says "Farrow infuses charm and depth into a play sorely needing both."

External links to full reviews from newspapers

New York Times
New York Daily News
New York Post
Village Voice
Journal News
Associated Press
Hollywood Reporter