Blogging Broadway: Pablo Schreiber and Carla Gugino set off sparks in "Desire Under the Elms"

Carla Gugino and Pablo Schreiber feel the Desire

Something quite rare has just happened on Broadway: a show that received overwhelmingly negative word-of-mouth during previews has opened to largely rave reviews. I'm referring to the new production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms that has transferred to NYC from the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

From all reports, director Robert Falls has cut a great deal of O'Neill's laughably turgid dialogue and ramped up the sex in this neo-Greek tragedy about a rigid old man who makes the huge mistake of bringing his new wife — a beautiful, much younger woman — to live with him on his New England farm, where she almost immediately falls in lust with one of his sons.  Sexing up the story seems a wise move, especially since Falls is lucky enough to have cast the breathtakingly gorgeous Carla Gugino (Watchmen, Sin City) and the incredibly hunky, ripped, chiseled Pablo Schreiber (The Wire, brother to Liev) as the illicit lovers.

I haven't yet seen the show, so I'll have to report back and let you know who's crazy — the major critics, or everyone else. But in the meantime, I thought AfterElton.com's readers might like to see Liz Lauren's fabulous production photos of Gugino, Schreiber, and their co-star Brian Dennehy. Enjoy!