There’s no second take on stage, but that may not matter when you’re Julia Roberts.
When a plastic tomato went astray during her Broadway debut, the Oscar-winning movie actress broke character and laughed. It wasn’t an issue to the fans who waited outside for autographs after seeing her Tuesday in “Three Days of Rain.”
“I thought it was fabulous, Julia Roberts incredible, Paul Rudd — above and beyond. Oh my God, she was incredible,” said David Gordon from Orange County, California. “So, yeah, it was good, overall. The writing was awesome, everything was great, it was just a well put together production.”
Roberts’ appearance in Richard Greenberg’s play is the hottest ticket in New York, with the 12-week run almost entirely sold out and tickets listed on eBay for as much as $999 for a front-row pair of seats on opening weekend.
The New York Daily News reported that her opening lines on Tuesday were drowned out by enthusiastic applause from the preview audience. But the real test of her nerve came in the middle of Act 2 when the prop tomato got out of hand.
“The plastic veggie landed on the floor, bounced and echoed like a table tennis ball — a blooper that left Roberts briefly in stitches,” the paper said. “She briefly broke character and couldn’t help flashing her trademark toothy grin.”
Official critics’ reviews will not be in until after the April 19 opening night. But her fans at the first night preview were not disappointed.
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Celebrity Sightings
“It was really cool,” said Ise Ogwude, from Florida.
“It was really funny because we were like the fourth, fifth row and just seeing her in all these movies and then seeing her on stage, you know, five seats away from me, and Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, they all did amazing, amazing jobs.”
The play is a drama about a brother and sister who meet up with a childhood friend for the reading of a will. Roberts plays Nan in the first act and then her mother in the second, which takes place a generation earlier.
Co-stars Rudd and Cooper will also be familiar to audiences from the screen — Rudd’s credits include “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Friends” and “Clueless,” while Cooper is currently in “Failure to Launch” with Matthew McConaughey.
“Three Days of Rain” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize following its off-Broadway success in 1997.
Roberts, who won an Oscar for “Erin Brockovich,” is one of a string of Hollywood stars coming to the New York stage this season, including Alec Baldwin, David Schwimmer and Amanda Peet. Unlike some of them, Roberts has little experience to fall back on — this is her first professional stage role.
Broadway critics can be harsh on big names — even established stage actor Denzel Washington got a drubbing in ”Julius Caesar” last year, though the show was box office smash.
An online Los Angeles Times article said Roberts was taking the biggest gamble of her career.
“(It) could validate her rank as America’s highest-paid actress and perhaps even earn her a Tony Award. Or it could drown her career in acid rain released by the toughest critics anywhere: those theater snobs.”