"The Heiress" with Jessica Chastain recoups investment

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "The Heiress" will recoup its $3 million investment, the Broadway show's producers said Monday.

The revival of the play will move into the back during the final week of its performances. Starring Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain and David Strathairn and "Downton Abbey"s' Dan Stevens, the play injected a bit of Hollywood glamour into Broadway this fall. It will have played 27 previews and 117 regular performances when it completes its limited run on February 9.

The announcement is impressive given that it has been a difficult fall for many plays on Broadway, with star-studded productions like "Dead Accounts" with Katie Holmes folding early and critically adored revivals, such as the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," playing to half-empty houses.

Reviews of "The Heiress" were mixed, with many critics complaining that Chastain was miscast as the dowdy heiress of the title.

"Wearing a mousy brown wig and hunching her shoulders, Ms. Chastain improbably manages to simulate homeliness," Ben Brantley wrote in the New York Times. "And her face registers feelings sharply and legibly. But, curiously for an expert film actress, she is guilty here of oversignaling the thoughts within."

However, the production likely benefited from its star's association with one of this winter's most buzzed about films - "Zero Dark Thirty" - which scored a second Academy Award nomination for Chastain and raised her profile even higher.

Written by Ruth & Augustus Goetz and based on the novella by Henry James, the revival of "The Heiress" was directed by Tony Award nominated playwright and director Mois?s Kaufman.

It was produced by Paula Wagner, Roy Furman, Stephanie P. McClelland, Luigi Caiola/Rose Caiola, Jim Herbert, Ted Liebowitz, Stacey Mindich, Jill Furman, Ricardo Hornos, Jon B. Platt, Eric Schmidt, Margo Lion/Rachel Weinstein and Jujamcyn Theaters.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heiress-jessica-chastain-recoups-investment-195808599.html

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