John Cassavetes, 1977, USA, 144 min
Centre Stage: The Late 70s of John Cassavettes
In a role equally as fragile and mercurial as A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE’s “Mabel”, Gena Rowlands is OPENING NIGHT’s “Myrtle”: a successful actress going kind of crazy in a play about aging crazily.
John Cassavetes’ hymn to that berserk business of performing, OPENING NIGHT is enhanced by its intense “old Hollywood” pedigree as Ben Gazzara, John Blondell, Paul Stewart and Cassavetes himself are the backing band for Rowlands’ knife-edged soloing.
From the first scene, the narrative is peppered with turn-on-a-dime ambiguity. Whole swathes of action take place “onstage” in front of a real-life audience watching the in-character cast — with a permeable membrane between stage and “reality” so tangible it hurts.