Critics Praise Gillian's Performance
Posted at 6:58 AM (PST) on Thursday, April 1, 2004

BBC Radio 4:Front Row (Matt Wolf of Variety and International Herald Tribune):

"I thought she was much better than the play, to be honest. You have to applaud anyone who can convince the audience in the 2nd Act that her career is resurrected by being able to paint a baseball-playing chicken, which is not an easy thing to do. She is actually, like a lot of American actresses who go on to film and television, somebody who began on stage. I remember her off Broadway many years ago with Brenda Blethyn in an Alan Ayckbourn play called "Absent Friends" in which she was terrific. The stage is her natural home. The Michael Weller play eighteen months ago didn't convince you of that. This play does and I hope the next time she does a play in London, it's really worthy of her."

The Guardian (Michael Billington):

"What gives Ian Rickson's production its emotional drive, though, is Anderson's astonishing performance. She starts out looking strained but seems transformed by assuming another identity. You see her becoming more and more resilient, wary and determined by the minute as she realises that the only way to survive in America is to create a protective other self; and while the argument is Gilman's, it is Anderson who gives its memorable flesh."

Daily Telegraph (Dominic Cavendish):

"Gillian Anderson swung back into the frame as a serious stage actress last night. After the disappointment of her west end debut in Michael Weller's atrocious What the Night is For, and after years of being known here only for her part as Agent Dana Scully in X-Files, her winning performance as yet another Dana - this time the tortured artist at the centre of Rebecca Gilman's latest play - suggest she's capable of batting away doubts about her talent once and for all. To be blunt, she is quite the best thing about The Sweetest Swing in Baseball."

The Evening Standard (Fiona Mountford):

"It was brave of her to come back for more. Gillian Anderson, fated to have her name forever suffixed by Agent Scully from the X-Files, has return to the stage after a less than auspicious debut in 2002. Fans will be relieved to hear that whearas What the Night is For was almost universally panned, The Sweetest Swing in Baseball is a whole new ball game, even if Anderson's character is, like Scully, named Dana.

Two hours worth of playing time in Ian Rickson's chic, stripped down production, sees Anderson leave the stage only once, for about 30 seconds, and to her immense credit, she is missed even then.

When we first encounter her, Dana is a woman desperately trying to hold it all in, because of the consequences of letting it all out would be cataclysmic. Anderson, with her brittle gestures, staring eyes and suppressed tears, perfectly conveys the scarcely hidden panic of the depressive.

There can be no denying what this particular night is for: the triumph of Gillian Anderson."

The Independent (Paul Taylor):

"Dana is convincingly played by the X Files star, Gillian Anderson, with the fevered glow of a sick person who make you understand why "hurting" has, in our age, become a intransitive verb".

The Times (Benedict Nightingale):

"Rebecca Gilman's Sweetest Swing in Baseball gives Gillian Anderson the opportunity to play a livelier role than she performed in What the Night is For in the West End in 2002, and she seizes it with some style."

Whatsonstage.com (Terri Paddock):

"Undoubtedly, this is a striking performer and, in the opening scenes in particular, face gaunt, eyes shimmering on the verge of tears, she makes a strong impression as an artist in the grip of self-doubt."

Evening Standard Metro Life Magazine:

"...she triumphs in this one. ...Anderson is better than her part: for a play concerned with the rehabilitation of identity, Dana’s characterisation is slight. Yet Anderson’s racked intelligent performance finds real depth and personality in Gilman’s lightly sketched pathology of mental illness. Ian Richarson’s fluent production and Hildegard Bechtler’s poignant set design, littered with blank canvases, elevate the play further, but it is Anderson who makes you feel."