(Ben Brantley’s article appeared in The New York Times, 5/19; via Pam Green.)
Pauline knows that you’re looking at her. People always do. Her response is to look right back — hard — until you drop or soften your gaze. You better. Pauline is determined to make you feel more embarrassed by the fact of her existence than she is.
In a bold and expert performance that makes no concessions to an actor’s vanity or an audience’s sympathy, the august British actor Simon Callow portrays — no, fully inhabits — Pauline in Emmanuel Darley’s “Tuesdays at Tesco’s.” This bleak portrait of a woman defending her identity, which opened on Tuesday night at 59E59 as part of the Brits Off Broadway festival, is letting no one off easy.